COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative learning is an approach to organizing classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. It differs from group work, and it has been described as "structuring positive interdependence." Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. Unlike individual learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning cooperatively capitalize on one another’s resources and skills (asking one another for information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring one another’s work, etc.). Furthermore, the teacher's role changes from giving information to facilitating students' learning. Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds. Ross and Smyth (1995) describe successful cooperative learning tasks as intellectually demanding, creative, open-ended, and involve higher order thinking tasks.  Five essential elements are identified for the successful incorporation of cooperative learning in the classroom.

Elements

Brown & Ciuffetelli Parker (2009) and Siltala (2010) discuss the 5 basic and essential elements to cooperative learning:

1. Positive interdependence
1. Students must fully participate and put forth effort within their group
2. Each group member has a task/role/responsibility therefore must believe that they are responsible for their learning and that of their group
2. Face-to-face promotive interaction
1. Members promote each other's success
2. Students explain to one another what they have or are learning and assist one another with understanding and completion of assignments
3. Individual and group accountability
1. Each student must demonstrate mastery of the content being studied
2. Each student is accountable for their learning and work, therefore eliminating “social loafing”
4. Social skills
1. Social skills that must be taught in order for successful cooperative learning to occur
2. Skills include effective communication, interpersonal and group skills
1. Leadership
2. Decision-making
3. Trust-building
4. Communication
5. Conflict-management skills
5. Group processing
1. Every so often groups must assess their effectiveness and decide how it can be improved

In order for student achievement to improve considerably, two characteristics must be present:^]

1. When designing cooperative learning tasks and reward structures, individual responsibility and accountability must be identified. Individuals must know exactly what their responsibilities are and that they are accountable to the group in order to reach their goal.
2. All group members must be involved in order for the group to complete the task. In order for this to occur each member must have a task that they are responsible for which cannot be completed by any other group member.

Cooperative Learning Techniques

There are a great number of cooperative learning techniques available. Some cooperative learning techniques utilize student pairing, while others utilize small groups of four or five students. Hundreds of techniques have been created into structures to use in any content area.Among the easy to implement structures are Think-Pair-Share, Think-Pair-Write, variations of Round Robin, and the Reciprocal Teaching Technique. A well known cooperative learning technique is the Jigsaw, Jigsaw II and Reverse Jigsaw.

Think Pair Share

Originally developed by Frank T. Lyman (1981) Think-Pair-Share allows for students to contemplate a posed question or problem silently. The student may write down thoughts or simply just brainstorm in his or her head. When prompted, the student pairs up with a peer and discusses his or her idea(s) and then listens to the ideas of his or her partner. Following pair dialogue, the teacher solicits responses from the whole group.

Jigsaw

Students are members of two groups: home group and expert group. In the heterogeneous home group, students are each assigned a different topic. Once a topic has been identified, students leave the home group and group with the other students with their assigned topic. In the new group, students learn the material together before returning to their home group. Once back in their home group, each student is accountable for teaching his or her assigned topic.

Jigsaw II

Jigsaw II is Robert Slavin's (1980) variation of Jigsaw in which members of the home group are assigned the same material, but focus on separate portions of the material. Each member must become an "expert" on his or her assigned portion and teach the other members of the home group.

STAD (or Student-Teams-Achievement Divisions)

Students are placed in small groups (or teams). The class in its entirety is presented with a lesson and the students are subsequently tested. Individuals are graded on the team's performance. Although the tests are taken individually, students are encouraged to work together to improve the overall performance of the group.

Benefits and applicability of cooperative learning:

• Students demonstrate academic achievement
• Cooperative learning methods are usually equally effective for all ability levels
• Cooperative learning is effective for all ethnic groups
• Student perceptions of one another are enhanced when given the opportunity to work with one another
• Cooperative learning increases self-esteem and self-concept
• Ethnic and physically/mentally handicapped barriers are broken down allowing for positive interactions and friendships to occur