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11, Teaching for Motivation for more on this strategy.) Following is an except from a teacher who
tried this method with a student with a poor school record and few friends in the class:We were doing an activity that involved decimal points and I was going around and noticed he was
the only one out of his group that had all the right answers. I was able to say, “Juan! You have
figured out all of this worksheet correctly. You understand how decimals work... Can you explain it
to your group? I’ll be back in a minute to see how you did.” And I left. I couldn’t believe it; he was
actually explaining it to all the others. I didn’t have faith it was going to work, but in fact he
explained it so well that all of the others understood it and were applying it to their worksheets. They
were excited about it. So then I made it public among the whole class, and from then on they began
calling him “the smart one.” (Graves & Graves, 1991, p. 14)Another approach to assigning competence is to thoroughly train lower-status students to be experts
in a task so that they can teach higher-status students how to do the task (Cohen, Lockheed, &
Lohman, 1976). However, it is essential for the training to be effective; if the leaders do not succeed,
it will only confirm their lower status.Note that reducing status differences using these two methods requires that teachers use higher-level,
open-ended, complex tasks that afford the use of multiple cognitive abilities. Otherwise, students will not
find it plausible that multiple cognitive abilities are needed for the assigned task.
Complex Instruction. Complex Instruction is a collaborative learning format that emphasizes
complex tasks, roles, and reducing status differences (Cohen & Lotan, 1997). Complex instruction lessons
are arranged around stations, as described by Lotan (1997, pp. 16-17):
At seven swarming learning stations, four or five students are working together, each group on a different
task. At the station by the door, students consult an ancient map of a castle town, carefully checking the key to
the map. They find out that housing patterns in Tokugawa, Japan, closely replicated the social standing of the
inhabitants. “Yeah,” says LaToya, one of the students, “that’s like Beverly Hills, 90210, and East LA, right
here in California.
At the next station, students read and carefully interpret excerpts from the legal codes of feudal Japan.
“That’s not fair!” Jimmy exclaims. “They can’t have different laws for different people!” “Obviously, they
did,” countered Eddie. “That’s like in feudal Europe, remember? Last quarter, remember?”
...At each of the stations, students explore the different aspects of social stratification and social barriers
in the context of Tokugawa, Japan. In the process, they read, write, build a three-dimensional map of a castle
town, prepare a skit about law enforcement in feudal Japan, ... or analyze a graph showing the frequency of
peasant uprisings. (Lotan, 1997, pp. 16-17)Each lesson begins with a brief introduction, in which the teacher may briefly explain concepts related to
some of the more challenging stations. Students work at the stations for about 30-35 minutes. The last 30-
35 minutes is devoted to group presentations and class discussions. Teachers assign cognitive roles prior to
the students’ work in stations, and they regularly use the two methods for reducing status differences that
you have just read about.
Researchers have evaluated complex instruction with elementary and middle school students (Cohen
et al., 1997). They found that students who learn using complex instruction outperformed students in
control classes on a variety of measures, including some measures of standardized tests of reading and
mathematics. Both elementary and middle school students benefited from participating in complex
instruction.