| Group Investigation The group investigation model of cooperative learning is probably the most complex. It is probably not a good idea to begin using cooperative learning ideas with this model. Group investigation requires the teacher to be extremely patient and tolerant. It requires the teacher to take a back seat to student democracy in the decision making process. Almost every decision that is made in a group investigation classroom is made by the students. They choose what topics they want to discuss and how they want to discuss them. They decide how they want to gather information and how they want to present that information to the remainder of their team or the entire class. Group investigation begins with students organizing into groups of five or fewer and choosing specific topics from a general topic description. Then, like jigsaw and co-op co-op, the groups break into mini-groups of one or two people. These mini-groups then decide how they wish to gather information about a subtopic. The goals and learning procedures should be decided upon by both the teacher and the students. By giving the students the freedom to choose their own topics, you give them increased motivation to learn those topics. By the time the sub-groups report their findings back to the larger group, it will be time for class presentations. The larger groups will present their topics to the entire class for a discussion or question session. The students will be evaluated on a variety of levels. They will be evaluated on their participation in the group and class discussions, and on their knowledge and insight into those discussions. They will also be evaluated as a team for their presentation, and possibly individually also, in the form of quizzes and/or tests. |