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(4) Students participated in disruptive group actions.
(5) Students refused to do one-on-one activities with staff.
(6) Students' report cards demonstrated low grades.
(7) Students evidenced high levels of referral to the office for discipline problems.
Following these observations, the investigator conducted informal interviews with each of these students asking them why they seem to have difficulty in school. The almost unanimous response was that they felt the center provided them with "nothing interesting to do," and that what activities did exist were "for babies." In other words, the observed behaviors were due to students' low interest levels in offered programs. Clearly what is needed is a program that responds to students' low interest levels and operates to remediate the problematic behaviors observed. The contention underlying the proposed study is that the introduction of cooperative learning techniques and activities will serve to attain these two objectives.
In addition to observing the problematic behavior, the investigator also noticed that there are a number of other factors which may contribute to or exacerbate the problem. Specifically, investigation of staff/faculty's background showed that they had limited training in the area of child development skills and that student classroom activity and play was often unmonitored by staff. Therefore, it seems reasonable to include in the cooperative learning program, an inservice program aimed at training staff in child development skills (as well as cooperative learning techniques) and to institute a program whereby students are routinely observed at activity stations in the classroom and on the playground.
Thus it can be said that the study's general purpose is to determine whether a cooperative learning program supplemented with inservice training for staff and regular monitoring of children at activity stations in the classroom and playground ...