Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz

Learning to cooperate, cooperating to learn

This book was written and edited as a project of the International Asso- ciation for the Study of Cooperation in Education (lASCE). It grew di- rectly out of the second conference of the lASCE, held at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in [uly 1982. The chapters in the book were originally presented in some form at the Provo conference, though most have been considerably revised since that time. This is the second book sponsored by the lASCE; the first, Cooperation in Education (Provo, Utah:Brigham Young University Press, 1980),edited by Shlomo Sharan, Paul Hare, Clark Webb, and Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz, was based on the proceedings of the first conference of the IASCE in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1979. The IASCE is a group of educators interested in studying, devel- oping, or applying cooperative methods at various levels of the process of education. It includes researchers, teacher educators, teachers, and school administrators from more than a dozen countries.

Effects of Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition on Students Making the Transition from Spanish to English Reading

In this study we evaluated the effects of a cooperative learning program, Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (BCIRC), on the Spanish and English reading, writing, and language achievement of 222 limited English proficient second and third graders in Spanish bilingual programs. We expected BCIRC to improve student achievement during the transition from Spanish to English by giving students daily opportunities to use language to find meanings and solve problems and by enabling teachers to apply well-established principles of cooperative learning to increase student motivation and achievement. A comparison of standardized test scores in matched BCIRC (N = 3) and comparison (N = 4) schools generally supported these expectations. On the Spanish Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, second graders scored significantly better than comparison students in writing and marginally better (p < .06) in reading. On the English Norm-Referenced Assessment Program for Texas, third graders scored significantly better than comparison students in reading but not in language. Third graders who were in BCIRC for 2 years scored much better than control students on both scales. Also, BCIRC third graders met criteria for exit from bilingual education at a significantly higher rate than did comparison students.

Leadership Style and Organizational Learning: The Mediate Effect of School Vision.

Purpose – Fundamentally, the success of schools depends on first-rate school leadership, on leaders reinforcing the teachers’ willingness to adhere to the school’s vision, creating a sense of purpose, binding them together and encouraging them to engage in continuous learning. Leadership, vision and organizational learning are considered to be the key to school improvement. However, systematic empirical evidence of a direct relationship between leadership, vision and organizational learning is limited. The present study aims to explore the influence of principals’ leadership style on school organizational learning, using school vision as a mediator. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected from 1,474 teachers at 104 elementary schools in northern Israel, and aggregated to the school level. Findings – Mediating regression analysis demonstrated that the school vision was a significant predictor of school organizational learning and functioned as a partial mediator only between principals’ transformational leadership style and school organizational learning. Moreover, the principals’ transformational leadership style predicted school organizational vision and school organizational learning processes. In other words, school vision, as shaped by the principal and the staff, is a powerful motivator of the process of organizational learning in school. Research implications/limitations – The research results have implications for the guidance of leadership practice, training, appraisal and professional development. Originality/value – The paper explores the centrality of school vision and its effects on the achievement of the school’s aims by means of organizational learning processes.

Into the Future: Towards Bilingual Education in Israel.

This article presents a manifesto to discuss how bilingual - Hebrew-Arabic - education can work for Israel, challenging its reality and changing it. It presents the new comprehensive programme for bilingual education initiated and operated by the Jewish-Arab Centre at the University of Haifa, discussing it in the light of both theory and practice. This article consists of three parts. The first part outlines the Israeli educational system, describes its curriculum and refers to attempts to set up bilingual schools and projects in Israel. The second part reviews some theoretical aspects of bilingual education and offers new perspectives for analysing it. The last part deals with the new programme for bilingual education in Israel, examines its meaning and goals, and discusses possible models for promoting the programme.

Cooperation and helping in the classroom: A contextual approach

Abstract This paper discusses the instructional and prosocial research traditions in the study of peer interaction. It specifically examines the effect of the cooperative task, and whether helping behavior is initiated by the student or by the teacher, on the level of elaboration in peer interaction. Tasks that require students to work together produce higher levels of elaboration (application, evaluation) than do tasks that require students only to pool their individual efforts or share resources (characterized by information exchange). Ways to design tasks that promote high-level elaboration are discussed.

Academic Achievement of Elementary School Children in Small-Group versus Whole-Class Instruction

A three week experiment was conducted comparing the academic achievement of pupils in five classrooms (N = 108) taught in small cooperative groups against that of pupils from five classes (N = 109) taught in the traditional whole-class approach. Special achievement tests were prepared for each grade level, two through six. These tests were constructed with items requiring responses at low and high levels of cognitive functioning. Pupils in grades two, four, and six from small-group classrooms excelled on high level items as predicted. Pupils in the fifth grade produced superior answers on questions requiring original contributions. Achievement scores of both groups did not differ on items measuring low level cognitive functioning.

Effects of an Instructional Change Program on Teachers' Behavior, Attitudes, and Perceptions:

A field experiment was conducted to change current instructional methods in the classroom to cooperative, small-group teaching (SGT) instead of the whole-class, presentation-recitation method. Fifty teachers, constituting the majority of the staff in three elementary schools serving a lower class neighborhood in the larger Tel-Aviv, Israel area participated in this experiment which lasted more than 18 months. Findings revealed that: Implementation of SGT occurred during the second year of the project following eight months of workshops and the adoption of teacher self-help teams for monitoring classroom instructional performance. The experimental group registered a significant positive change on an attitude questionnaire indicating a more progressive and less controlling approach to teaching and to education in general. Implementers of small-group learning were found to be less conservative and more willing to take risks, more spontaneous and imaginative, more open to feelings, and more socially oriented than were teachers who did not implement the new methods in their classrooms. In intensive interviews conducted with all teachers, implementers of SGT expressed greater openness to educational innovations and a greater sense of being able to cope with problems in the classroom than teachers who did not implement the small-group approach.

Social Networks in the School Context: Effects of Culture and Gender

Similarities and differences in children’s interpersonal relationships were assessed through examination of the effects of culture and gender as reflected in the quality of children’s relationships in their social network at school. Two cultural contexts representing collectivistic and individualistic orientations were studied. Questionnaires were completed by 1449 fourth- and fifth-grade students (604 Arab and 845 Jewish students) regarding their best friend, their class peers, their homeroom teacher, and their class climate. As expected, findings demonstrated better quality of peer relationships among Arab students (from a relatively collectivistic culture) and among boys, whereas Jewish students (from a relatively individualistic culture) and girls showed better quality of best-friend relationships than their counterparts. The results also highlighted a similarity in children’s relationships for both cultures and both genders, reflected in the highest intimacy of best-friend relationships.

A new bilingual education in the conflict-ridden Israeli reality: language practices

Under the Israeli language education policy, the mother tongue is learned first for several years, followed by a second language (English for Jews, Hebrew for Arabs) and then a third language (English for Arabs, Arabic/French for Jews). This type of limited bilingualism seems to suit the Israeli reality in the context of the Israeli–Arab conflict, the definition and perception of Israel as a Jewish–Zionist state and the complex Jewish–Arab relations within Israel. In 1997, the Hand in Hand Center for Jewish–Arab Education in Israel initiated a new model of Hebrew–Arabic bilingual education in Israel, assuming that direct contact between Arab and Jewish pupils would bring about far-reaching changes in the conflict-ridden Israeli society. Currently, three schools have adopted the new model. Several studies of the new model have provided rich information, mainly about educational, cultural and national issues. However, no systematic study has focused on the implementation of bilingual education in the schools; less emphasis has been placed on actual language practices in the classroom and the school environment in relation to ideology and policy. This article attempts to investigate and document the interaction between Hebrew and Arabic in a location which conceptually places both languages on equal footing.

Do Friends Share and Communicate More than Non-Friends?.

Eighty children, kindergarteners and first graders, were assigned to classmate same-sex pairs of friends and non-friends. Each dyad was asked to draw on a single sheet of paper using paints and cuttings. Social communicative behaviors; smiles, looks and verbal activity, and sharing behaviors; exchange of materials and use of space, were observed. Interobserver reliability was 0.80. Results showed that friends unexpectedly exhibited less sharing and less communicative behaviors, while they showed more task activity. An explanatory model is suggested to account for social intimacy among friends; task relevant behaviors are maximized, and other social behaviors minimized among friends. Non-friends minimized task relevant behaviors and maximized social communicative behaviors. Implications for the vicissitudes of intimacy among friends are discussed.