Classroom Activities in Math and Reading in Early, Middle, and Late Elementary School

This study examined activities used during elementary school math and reading instruction. Teachers reported their use of cooperative, competitive, and individual activities in math and reading, their subjective evaluations of teaching each subject, and their level of focus on promoting students’ interests. Analyses indicated that teachers used more competitive activities in math than reading. Additionally, individual math activities increased across grades whereas individual reading activities were similar across grades. Finally, the appeal of teaching both reading and math declined across elementary school grade. Results are discussed in terms of teachers’ goals and student motivation. Classroom Activities in Math and Reading in Early, Middle, and Late Elementary School Teachers can choose among an almost limitless selection of activities and approaches when they decide how to teach subject content and design lesson plans. It is likely that, in this process, teachers base their decisions on their own personal experiences as well as on the goals they have for their students. This possibility raises certain questions: Do teachers’ instructional choices vary by grade level? Do teachers’ own teaching goals predict their activity choices? Does prior teaching experience predict the activities teachers choose? Although these questions are fascinating, most of the research on teachers’ use of classroom activities has focused on the outcomes of using various classroom techniques. Consequently, researchers have identified classroom structures and activities that promote learning and motivation among students (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985; Johnson & Johnson, 1991; Schraw & Lehman, 2001; Slavin, 1996), but we know much less about what teachers actually do in their classrooms. Although prior research clarifies how instructional practices can affect student motivation, it leaves unanswered when and by whom various strategies will be implemented. Prior research on instructional techniques rarely considers variables that might affect teachers’ choices to use certain activities over others. One notable exception is a study by Kurita and Zarbatany (1991), examining the extent to which teachers believed various motivational strategies were acceptable and feasible to implement in the classroom. The results showed that practical variables played a crucial role in teachers’ reports. For example, teachers favored activities with which they were familiar and that took little time to prepare. Similarly, the present study examines activity choices as outcomes on their own, to better understand the variables that may go into teachers’ complex decisions regarding instruction. An important dimension along which classroom activities can vary is interpersonal focus, including cooperative, competitive, and individual activities (Deusch, 1949; Johnson & Johnson, 1991; Kohn, 1992; Slavin, 1996). Whereas cooperative activities involve students by having them work collaboratively with peers to produce a joint product, competitive activities involve students by having them try to outperform each other. In contrast, individual activities are inherently less social, and focus students on their own learning in a classroom situation. As mentioned above, these types of activities are usually studied with an eye toward examining their effects on student achievement and motivation. Results of these studies indicate that cooperative activities promote a broad range of positive outcomes, and that competitive and individual activities have more mixed results (see Slavin, 1996; Stanne, Johnson, & Johnson, 1999; for reviews). One purpose of the current research is to test how teachers’ selections to use cooperative, competitive, and individual learning activities vary by critical variables such as the subject area being taught (math versus reading) and school grade. The current research also examines the extent to which characteristics of teachers predict activity choices, including the extent to which teachers have teaching experience, are focused on promoting their students’ interests, and have positive experiences while teaching the specific subject content. Some research suggests that the classroom activities that teachers choose vary by grade level. For example, Anderman et al., (2001) found that teachers’ use of motivational strategies that focused students on performing well relative to others was positively correlated with grade level. This is consistent with other research indicating that teachers make performance comparisons between students more salient in older than in younger grades, and a marked increase has been identified in the transition from elementary to middle school (Anderman et al., 2001; Midgley, Anderman, & Hicks, 1995). Because competition involves comparing individuals’ levels of performance, we hypothesized that competitive activities would be selected more in older than in younger elementary school grades. We are not aware of any research that links teachers’ use of cooperative learning activities with elementary school grade level and therefore could not formulate an a priori hypothesis for this type of activity. We also examined the extent to which teachers’ activity choices varied by the subject being taught. In this study we tested whether the use of cooperative, competitive, and individual activities was different in math versus reading. Prior research suggests that competition can facilitate performance when the task requires quick, well-learned responses rather than new and difficult work (e.g., Hunt & Hillery, 1973; Sanders & Baron, 1975; Triplett, 1898). Consistent with this, some math content in elementary school involves the application of rules and the practice of arithmetic operations (e.g., learning the multiplication tables). Elementary school students in math may be practicing skills that are becoming well-learned, and these pursuits might be especially conducive to competitive classroom activities. In contrast, reading might be less conducive to competitive classroom activities because, reading instruction might require students to use material in new ways. We hypothesized that competitive activities would be incorporated more often into math than in reading lessons because the subject content in math is more likely to involve the application of well-learned rules. Due to the lack of research that would suggest how cooperative and individual activities might vary by subject area, we did not specify hypotheses for these activities. We also examined several variables that were associated with the teachers more directly. First, we included a measure of teachers’ years of experience. Not only is this a measure of whether teachers are novice versus expert in terms of the years they have spent teaching, but it also provides an index of how much time has passed since they finished their teacher education programs. Specifically, given the change in the past 15 years in the greater emphasis placed on cooperative learning activities (Johnson & Johnson, 1991), we hypothesized that teachers who finished their teacher education programs more recently would use more cooperative activities than those who completed their teacher education programs a longer time ago. We also measured the extent to which teachers reported that nurturing their students’ interests was important to them. We hypothesized that teachers who wanted to provide activities that promote their students’ interests might be more likely to invest time in cooperative activities. As suggested above, a body of research has accumulated that points to the positive effects of cooperative learning activities on motivation and performance, and cooperative learning is generally heralded as an ideal approach to instruction (Kohn, 1992; Mitchell, 1993; O’Donnell & O’Kelly, 1994). Therefore, teachers who are focused on promoting student interests might use cooperative learning activities in their classrooms, regardless of when they finished their teacher training. We also hypothesized that these teachers may be more likely to select individual activities in their lessons, thereby providing flexibility in the curriculum to allow students to explore their own interests. Finally, we measured teachers’ own evaluations of the experiences they had while teaching math and reading. This composite measure included the extent to which they enjoyed as well as felt comfortable and expert teaching math and reading. We did not have hypotheses concerning how teacher’s own evaluation of the appeal of teaching a particular subject would relate to the use of cooperative, competitive, and individual activities, but we wanted to explore these relationships in the current study.