Organizing and Managing Classroom Learning Communities

A core text for classroom management courses or a supplementary text for more general courses stressing classroom management, this book presents a general introduction to classroom management and instruction using the cooperative learning model. Using a cultural view of classrooms, the book brings together the research on cooperative learning and multi-ability grouping, treats classroom management as a function of instructional goals, and views teaching as the creation positive learning cultures. The book presents teaching within the four organizing goals of democratic education - academic achievement, personal responsibility, social responsibility, and social justice (equity). It indentifies and describes in detail the characteristics and pedagogy of each developmental stage of cooperative group teaching. Two extended case studies show learning communities in operation at the elementary and secondary level.