Cooperative Learning

What?
We were learning the needs that housing fulfills: psychological, social, and physical. I split the students into groups and they each read about the need assigned to their group. After the students were finished reading, the students formed a group of three: one person who had read about the psychological needs, one who had read social about the social needs, and one who had read about the physical needs housing fulfills. The groups were given scenarios like "The house has a big kitchen," and they had to determine which need the scenario fulfilled and why.

So what?
The students were excited to work together. They were able to talk and work out the scenarios. The scores were better than the previous year.

Now what?
Next year I will have the students take notes over the needs and teach them to the other students in their group. Then I will give them a few scenarios to work out together and have them figure out which need is fulfilled and why. When finished, we will check their responses. Then when they have worked together on a few problems, I will have them race to see which team can place the scenarios with the correct need giving prizes at the end.