FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Anyone who has implemented Kagan Cooperative learning will tell you it is not cooperative learning as we know it. Traditional cooperative learning is a lesson-based approach, as in after lunch you be put into teams where you will each have a role.

Dr Spencer Kagan’s structural approach uses structures, a series of repeatable steps, to engage students and regulate and facilitate their interactions throughout the day. Kagan Structures are content-free so they can be used with any age group, any curriculum area, and in any context - from New Entrants to adult education.

Instead of emphasising complex cooperative learning lessons, theme units, projects, and centres, all of which demand extensive planning, preparation, and special materials, Kagan Structures make active engagement and cooperative learning easy. Kagan Structures are used as part of any existing lesson — with little or no special preparation and no special materials.

Kagan is an holistic, multi-faceted pedagogical approach that will make a difference to your students, academically and socially.

So why the one word - Kagan? Teachers who have trained, use Kagan as an all-encompassing term, as it’s just such a huge concept to describe in any other way.

To ensure students have the skills to work with others, and the will to do so, Kagan has specific structures and strategies that create a safe, caring, culturally responsive and cooperative learning environment to ensure all students are able and willing to engage in these structures.

Teambuilding and Classbuilding occurs regularly, constantly helping students seeing past the exterior and to the person inside.

Social and communication skills are built into every structure, which means they are learning and applying them at the same time - it’s like magic!

When students are engaged, they pay attention, they're motivated, they learn more, and the learning sticks. The biggest difference between the Kagan approach and teaching using ‘traditional’ methods is the ability to engage every student. Traditional classroom teaching captures the minds and attention of some students, but not all. Good teachers engage more students. But even the best teachers who use traditional instruction don't require every student to participate. With traditional instruction, there is always a subset of students who fall through the cracks. We're all too familiar with the results: a widening gap between high achievers and low achievers.

When students are actively engaged on a daily basis, everything changes. Engagement is the key! Engagement is the reason why veteran teachers who turn to Kagan Structures experience their greatest success ever.

Engagement is why low-performing and priority students who’s teachers use Kagan Structures outperform their peers who’s teachers don't.

Engagement is why students report they like school more, their teachers more, the academic content more, and feel better about themselves, and are less disruptive.

Engagement is the reason why principals of failing schools can turn schools around, quickly. Active student engagement gets straight to the root of the problem in many classrooms.

When you are using a Kagan Structure you know how many students are engaged at any one time, because we have structured the interaction.

When you look at photos of a structure, you can see the engagement taking place.

Without Kagan, unstructured interaction, its a bit of a guess as to how many are involved and participating. And we know which students will be opting out.

Kagan Structures close the achievement gap by creating dramatic gains for struggling students. Now they can no longer ‘hide’, but are supported to participate through the structure, and through sitting in carefully selected learning teams.

But the gains are not bought at the expense of high achievers; they too are engaged in a richer, more interactive learning environment. As brain-research is proving, meaningful engagement is just a better way to reach and teach all students.

Students need to work/talk at least as hard/often as the teacher. The more they interact with their peers and with the curriculum, the more they'll learn.

Kagan Structures require every student to participate frequently and approximately equally. Many of our priority learners contribute very little in the normal classroom.

We know that as soon as you have students interacting with other, you need really strong classroom management.

Kagan micro-manages movement and interactions, so even new teachers can use structures. In fact, feedback from new teachers is that Kagan made a huge difference to their classroom and behaviour management. When students are engaged, moving, and ‘allowed’ to talk to others, many of your behaviour issues will disappear.

We are so confident of this, that we like to model a structure or two for teachers while they watch their ‘difficult clients’.

Of course, other classroom practices and schoolwide changes can make a positive difference for students. But nothing makes an impact as immediate, powerful, and on so many outcomes as active student engagement.

When students are actively engaged on a daily basis, everything changes. Engagement is the key! Engagement is the reason why veteran teachers who turn to Kagan Structures experience their greatest success ever.

Engagement is why low-performing and priority students who’s teachers use Kagan Structures outperform their peers who’s teachers don't.

Engagement is why students report they like school more, their teachers more, the academic content more, and feel better about themselves, and are less disruptive.

Engagement is the reason why principals of failing schools can turn schools around, quickly. Active student engagement gets straight to the root of the problem in many classrooms.

IMHO I don’t know of any other intervention or programme that covers so much. Kagan is an holistic approach that leaves nothing to chance when it comes to having students interacting with each other, and setting up the optimum environment for that to happen.

We cover team formation, learning teams, teambuilding and cooperative skills, communication and social skills, relationship development, classroom management around movement, getting attention, instructions, noise, equipment, starting & finishing etc, class culture, values, Key Competencies, equal participation for all, accountability to participate, developing interdependence, high levels of simultaneous interaction, increasing oral language along with vocabulary development…the list goes on.

Planning improves because we now have to consider the function of what we are teaching and the desired level of student interaction.

Pedagogy is basically the science of teaching. Kagan is the ultimate pedagogical approach in that it’s able to be used with any level and content area so once you’ve mastered Kagan, you’ve got it for life. I have used Kagan from New Entrants to Year 13 Calculus, and although I know very little about Calculus or engineering, I can use a Kagan Structure to have the students interacting with each other and the content, and after all, they are the ones doing the learning - not me.

Kagan builds extraordinary teachers. I’ve seen it happen many times, including with my own practice.

Dare I say it, but the fastest uptake is by those who are already extremely effective teachers. They just get it!

Great question!

The answer: Most teachers think they are, but they lack the practical tools they need to make high levels of student engagement a daily reality. By no fault of their own, teachers learned traditional methods, and are teaching as they were taught. Many are simply unaware of an easier and more effective approach.

The power of Kagan Structures is that they distil the best of educational theory and research into very specific, easy-to-use teaching strategies. Mediocre teachers become good. Good teachers become great. And great teachers—well, they're already using Kagan Structures!

We like to say Kagan is powerful teaching, made simple.

Yes, due to our structures being content-free, Kagan can be used with any age group from 4-80 year olds, in any context, and in any curriculum area. This is one of the biggest advantages of Kagan, as it is true across-school and region PLD.

Once you learn Kagan Structures, you can use them for life - no matter what educational context. Or business context!

Over the past decades, Dr. Kagan and his team have developed, perfected, and shared with the world over 200 Kagan Structures. Dr. Kagan's book, Kagan Cooperative Learning, is the single most comprehensive and most popular book in the field of cooperative learning and is considered the must-have guide for active engagement strategies.

Kagan NZ prefers that this book is purchased when you attend your first workshop, because we have found that you really need to experience Kagan for yourself in order to successfully implement it in a classroom. Teachers have commented to us that they didn’t really get it until they had trained.

Our workshops are highly interactive and situational, and model exactly what we want to see in classrooms. Once you have mastered cooperative learning, then yes, you can easily learn new structures and strategies from a book.

It’s not often that we have the perfect the perfect classroom with perfect furniture. Teachers are gifted at making do with what we have and when you implement Kagan, you will work you magic as well.

Of course it’s nice to have desks that allow 4 students, with two per side, but I have seen Kagan done with all sorts of tables - round, semi-circle, hexagonal, trapezoids, beans, waves etc. The children soon learn who their team is and often problem-solve seating challenges for themselves.

We are happy to help, so do contact us if you need some input. We cn be quite imaginative at times.

Cooperative learning is our foundational workshop, so we would always encourage you to start there. This can be run as a whole school workshop, ie TOD, or with a group of teachers, across a Kahui Ako, or you can attend an open workshop.

It’s best that we meet and discuss whether Kagan is right for you, as often schools have a lot of PLD going on, (to be honest Kagan will replace many of them), and we have found it’s best to wait until the following year when we can be the main focus for the school.

We offer a wide range of professional development, covering cooperative learning, behaviour, leadership, literacy, maths, science, social science, growth mindset, and SEL, all delivered using Kagan Structures.

Throughout our site we use photos to show students and teachers and using Kagan Structures.