Cooperative Learning Theory Jim Shetter Ed.636 Curriculum and Instructional Leadership September 26, 2012

What is It? Cooperative Learning Theory: Is an offshoot of Constructivism which incorporates the idea that the best learning occurs when students are actively engaged in the learning process and working in collaboration with other students to accomplish a shared goal. Constructivism focuses on personal experience as Cooperative Learning utilizes not only the student’s own experience to solidify knowledge, but also uses the experiences of others.

History of Cooperative Learning The strategy of cooperative learning was developed as a means to reduce competition in American schools, which James Coleman (1959) identified as a negative component of the education system. Building on the work of James Coleman, Robert Slavin conducted research on a form of cooperative learning he described as Student Team Learning. (1994)

Elements of Cooperative Learning There are 5 basic elements of successful cooperative learning: Positive Interdependence Face to Face Interaction Individual and Group Accountability Interpersonal and Small Group Skills Group Processing

Defining Elements 1. Positive interdependence: This will be achieved only when all individuals of the group feel that they cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds. 2. Promotes interaction: Student’s need to do work where they help each other understand by encouraging, supporting and helping one another. 3. Individual and group accountability: The group should be responsible for achieving its goal and each student should be responsible for his or her share of work. 4. Teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills: Social skills must be taught . Leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills empower students to manage both teamwork and task work successfully. 5. Group processing: Group members can discuss between each other how well or how bad they are achieving their goals within their group. Groups need to describe what proceedings can be changed in order to have a successful working relationship.

Examples of Cooperative Learning First example: Small groups of boys and girls, high and low ability students, from different ethnic backgrounds would work together for a long period of time. A research project or class presentation might be assigned to cooperative learning groups in which each student receives both an individual and a group grade. There are many different methods for example, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles or a game. This helps the teacher see what was the best way for the student to learn whatever subject they were teaching each other. Second example: There is a different group facilitator for each day. The facilitator is in charge of the group. The facilitator will distribute and collect materials for the group. This is great because in reality you are only dealing with 7 groups of facilitators in a class of 28 students. There is also a reduction in time needed to put things away because there is only one person per group that is in charge for that day that will take care of the necessities. Students explain things better to another student than a teacher to a class. The teacher can be boring, therefore a student can make the subject more interesting because he or she is using words that their fellow classmates can understand better and are accustomed to. Benefits: In today’s job market is looking for people with good interpersonal and problem-solving”. Participation in cooperative learning can help promote and achieve these skills.

Strength & Weakness Strengths Weakness According to researchers, cooperative learning groups work best when they meet the following criteria: Groups should be heterogeneous and, at least at the beginning, should be small, perhaps limited to two to six members. Research shows that cooperative learning promotes both intellectual and emotional growth. Students achieve higher achievement, especially for math in the elementary grades Students have higher levels of self-esteem and greater motivation to learn. Students can sense the positive regard they have for one another Understanding and cooperating among students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds are enhanced. Research also shows that cooperative learning can be a hardship to students when a group is not well developed. There is a great burden placed on children in the cooperative learning group. The great burden is making them responsible for each other’s learning apart from themselves. Cooperative learning group is based on one high-achieving student, two average and one low achiever. For obvious reasons the cooperative learning group is made up this way, basically because there should always be someone in the group that can learn the lesson and teach it to others. The high achievers of the group will understand the material better than anyone in the group as they explain it to others which takes more time for group discussion.

Classroom Principles 1. Heterogeneous Grouping: This principle means that the groups in which students do cooperative learning tasks are mixed on one or more of a number of variables including sex, ethnicity, social class, religion, personality, age, language proficiency, and diligence. 2. Collaborative Skills: Collaborative skills, such as giving reasons, are those needed to work with others. Students may lack these skills, the language involved in using the skills, or the inclination to apply the skills. Most books and websites on cooperative learning urge that collaborative skills be explicitly taught one at a time. 3. Group Autonomy: This principle encourages students to look to themselves for resources rather than relying solely on the teacher. When student groups are having difficulty, it is very tempting for teachers to intervene either in a particular group or with the entire class. We may sometimes want to resist this temptation. 4. Simultaneous Interaction: In classrooms in which group activities are not used, the normal interaction pattern is that of sequential interaction, in which one person at a time – usually the teacher – speaks. In contrast, when group activities are used, one student per group is speaking.  

Classroom Principles 5. Equal Participation: A frequent problem in groups is that one or two group members dominate the group and, for whatever reason, impede the participation of others. Cooperative learning offers many ways of promoting more equal participation among group members. 6. Individual Accountability: When we try to encourage individual accountability in groups, we hope that everyone will try to learn and to share their knowledge and ideas with others. 7. Positive Interdependence: This principle lies at the heart of CL. When positive interdependence exists among members of a group, they feel that what helps one member of the group helps the other members and that what hurts one member of the group hurts the other members. It is this “All for one, one for all” feeling that leads group members to want to help each other, to see that they share a common goal. 8. Cooperation as a Value: This principle means that rather than cooperation being only a way to learn, cooperation also becomes part of the content to be learned. This flows naturally from the most crucial cooperative learning principle, positive interdependence. Cooperation as a value involves taking the feeling of “All for one, one for all” and expanding it beyond the small classroom group to encompass the whole class, the whole school, bringing in increasingly greater numbers of people with whom to cooperate.

References Baloche, L. (1998). The cooperative classroom: Empowering learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Cohen, E. (1994). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous classroom (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Jacobs, G. M., Power, M. A., Loh, W. I. (2002). The teacher's sourcebook for cooperative learning: Practical techniques, basic principles, and frequently asked questions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. http://www.corwinpress.com/index1.asp?id=detail.asp?id=27713 Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1999). Learning together and alone (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Stanne, M. B. (2000). Cooperative learning methods: A meta-analysis. http://www.clcrc.com/pages/cl-methods.html. Kagan, S. (1994). Cooperative learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publications. Kohn, A. (1992). No contest: the case against competition. (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Miflin. Robinson, P. (Ed.). (2002). Individual differences and instructed language learning. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. Sapon-Shevin, M. (1999). Because we can change the world: A practical guide to building cooperative, inclusive classroom communities. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Sharan, S. (Ed.). (1994). Handbook of cooperative learning methods. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. Slavin, R. E. (1995). Cooperative learning: Theory, research, and practice (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.