Cooperation Through Movement Education and Children’s Literature

Abstract

This article demonstrates evidence-based practice that integrates movement education with children's literature, in order to promote cooperation among Bengali kindergarteners, from an urban public school in Midwestern USA. First, the authors argue the need for this integration based on limitations of previous scholarship. Second, authors present their developmentally and culturally appropriate conceptual framework based on Bhavnagri and Samuel's research, along with the theory of cooperation and schema development. Third, children's understanding of cooperation concepts (helping, turn taking, sharing, dividing labor, negotiating, coordinating, exchanging information, and perspective taking) embedded in literature are analyzed. Concomitantly, children demonstrated same cooperation sub-skills during four movement activities related to the stories. Fourth, authors reflect that cooperation was successful because activities met Johnson and Johnson's guidelines of high social interactions, high emotional involvement, and effective communication. Finally, the authors recommend that integration of cooperation and movement education is beneficial for educational programs in diverse settings.

Project Based Learning Improves 5-6 Years Olds Cooperative Skills

“…Research shown that youngest children has better skills compare to oldest in terms of cooperative skills [31]. Cooperative contain of eight characteristics, which are positive dependent, interaction, responsibility, sharing, negotiation, and perspective taking [8] [32].…”

“…Cooperative skills are important to face global competition and one of international educational purpose [8] [9]. Such cooperative skills develop early in life as toddlers and preschoolers gain perspective-taking abilities and come to understand the behaviors of others in terms of mental states [10] [11].…”

Role Playing For Cooperative Skills

“…Groupbased cooperation there is mutual motivation among friends, support, assistance, for mutual success, such as mutual responsibility to fight together [17]. One of the goals of international education is to develop individuals who are independent and able to cooperate [18]. So by developing the ability of children's cooperation it will be ready in the face of global competition and realize the goals of international education.…”

Storytelling as Promoting Moral Consciousness: Religious Education Teachers’ Perspectives

“…In this concern, Kelley (2008) capitalized the significant role of storytelling in identifying learners' attitudes, ethics and views. Further, Molenda and Bhavnagri (2009) established the effectiveness of storytelling in supporting cooperation morals such as; assisting others , sharing, taking and giving turns, allocating duties, discussing, directing, transaction, and presenting views.…”