Cooperative Learning

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Cooperative Learning
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• Cooperative learning is actually a generic term
  that refers to numerous methods for grouping
  students.

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• Cooperation, a form of collaboration, is "working
  together to accomplish shared goals" (Johnson
  Johnson, 1989, p. 2).

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• Students working in cooperative groups tend to be
  more intrinsically motivated, intellectually
  curious, caring of others, and psychologically
  healthy. That is not to say that competition and
  individual work should not be valued and
  encouraged, however.

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• For example, competition is appropriate when
  there can be only one winner, as in a sports
  event, and individualistic effort is appropriate
  when the goal is personally beneficial and has no
  influence on the goals of others.

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• Effective cooperative learning occurs when
  students work together to accomplish shared goals
  and when positive structures are in place to
  support that process (Johnson Johnson, 1999).

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Criteria for effective cooperative learning
groups include

• Students understand that their membership in a
  learning group means that they either succeed or
  failtogether. (Deutsch, 1962).
• "Positive interdependence" includes mutual goals,
  joint rewards, resource interdependence (each
  group member has different resources that must be
  combined to complete the assignment), and role
  interdependence (each group member is assigned a
  specific role).

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• Students help each other learn and encourage
  individual team members' success.
• Individuals in the group understand that they are
  accountable to each other and to the group as a
  distinct unit.

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• Interpersonal and small-group skills are in
  place, including communication, decision making,
  conflict resolution, and time management.
• Members are aware of the group's processes.
  Individual members talk about "the group" as a
  unique entity.

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Key Research Findings

• Organizing students in heterogeneous cooperative
  learning groups at least once a week has a
  significant effect on learning (Marzano,
  Pickering, Pollock, 2001).

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• The amount, generalization, breadth, and
  applicability of the research on cooperative,
  competitive, and individualistic efforts provides
  considerable validation of the use of cooperative
  learning to achieve diverse outcomes, including
  achievement, time on task, motivation, transfer
  of learning, and other benefits (Cohen, 1994a
  Johnson, 1970 Johnson Johnson, 1974, 1978,
  1989, 1999a, 2000 Kohn, 1992 Sharan, 1980
  Slavin, 1977, 1991).

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• Cooperative learning can be ineffective when
  support structures are not in place (Reder
  Simon, 1997).

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Implementation

• Teachers who are successful at facilitating
  cooperative learning employ research-based
  strategies, such as
• Keep group size small. Ideally, learning groups
  include no more than four students. Base groups
  may be larger, up to six students.

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• 2. Use ability grouping sparingly. Students
  across the spectrum of abilities benefit by
  heterogeneous grouping, especially low-ability
  students.
• 3. Don't use cooperative learning for all
  instructional goals. While cooperative learning
  is a powerful strategy, it can be overused, or
  misapplied. Students need time to investigate
  ideas and pursue interests on their own.

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• 4. Use a variety of strategies when choosing
  students for groups. Many selection strategies
  (common clothing, favorite colors, letters in
  names, birthdays) will work when attempting to
  randomly group students.
• 5. Facilitate success. Develop organizational
  tools, forms, learning journals, and other
  structuring documents that foster the smooth
  processes needed for effective cooperation and
  group work. Use online tools for ubiquitous
  access to forms.

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• 6. Support new groups. Cooperative learning is a
  practiced skill that requires monitoring and
  adjustment. Teach specific skills before grouping
  students, define criteria for success, and
  develop rubrics for key expectations. Meet with
  new group members to support their success.

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• There is a difference between simply having
  students work in a group and structuring groups
  of students to work cooperatively. A group of
  students sitting at the same table doing their
  own work, but free to talk with each other as
  they work, is not structured to be a cooperative
  group, as there is no positive interdependence.
  Perhaps it could be called individualistic
  learning with talking.

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• For this to be a cooperative learning situation,
  there needs to be an accepted common goal on
  which the group is rewarded for its efforts. If a
  group of students has been assigned to do a
  report, but only one student does all the work
  and the others go along for a free ride, it is
  not a cooperative group.

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• A cooperative group has a sense of individual
  accountability that means that all students need
  to know the material or spell well for the whole
  group to be successful. Putting students into
  groups does not necessarily gain a cooperative
  relationship it has to be structured and managed
  by the teacher or professor.

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ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING

• It is only under certain conditions that
  cooperative efforts may be expected to be more
  productive than competitive and individualistic
  efforts. Those conditions are

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• Clearly perceived positive interdependence
• Considerable face-to-face interaction
• Clearly perceived individual accountability and
  personal responsibility to achieve the groups
  goals
• Frequent use of the relevant interpersonal and
  small-group skills
• Frequent and regular group processing of current
  functioning to improve the groups future
  effectiveness

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• All students need to learn and work in
  environments where their individual strengths are
  recognized and individual needs are addressed.
  All students need to learn within a supportive
  community in order to feel safe enough to take
  risks.

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• Helping Establishing norms about when, how, and
  why we help others is critical to the full
  implementation of cooperative learning. Because
  many teachers and students have received cultural
  messages that say that "needing help is bad or
  shameful" and "offering help to others will
  embarrass them," it is important to establish new
  classroom norms. Two of the most critical values
  are 1) Everyone is good at something and can
  help others, and 2) Everyone is entitled to and
  can benefit from help and support from others.

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• Teachers may want to help students structure a
  "Classroom Classifieds" in which students
  identify their own strengths and skills and name
  these as "Help Offered" (can help with
  multiplication, good at jumping rope, can teach
  sign language, know a lot about frogs).
  Concurrently, they can identify their needs and
  learning goals and identify these as "Help
  Wanted" (want to learn to make friendship
  bracelets, need help with spelling, want to learn
  how to play ball games at recess).

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• It is important that such activities be
  structured so that every child is both a teacher
  and a learner, as a way of challenging rigid
  notions that there are some people who give help
  and some people who need help.

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• It is important to create a classroom space for
  people to proudly claim what they are good at and
  safely ask for the help and support they need
  without fear or embarrassment, humiliation, or
  isolation.

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• One of the often unexpected but welcome benefits
  of including children with specific behavioral
  and educational challenges in the classroom is
  that teachers are encouraged to rethink previous
  beliefs and practices related to the curriculum
  and pedagogy.

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• The teacher who decides to use manipulatives for
  math (instead of worksheets) because one child
  quite clearly requires that approach often finds
  that many other students also benefit from this
  hands-on, participatory approach. Teachers who
  move away from text-based question-and-answer
  approaches to teaching in order to accommodate
  students who require more active involvement in
  the curriculum are generally pleased to find that
  such an orientation is of benefit to all
  students.

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• In forming groups, some teachers focus on student
  choice, asking students who they would like to
  work with. Although it makes sense for teachers
  to provide students with multiple opportunities
  to choose within the school day, student choice
  may not be the best way to form groups. When
  students choose their own groups and work only
  with others they already know, the groups often
  tend to be same gender, race, and ability. These
  more homogeneous groups work against the broader
  goals of cooperative learning in which teachers
  are striving to help the students learn to value
  the diversity that exists in the classroom and in
  society.

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• There are ways, however, that teachers can
  incorporate some aspects of student choice into
  group formation. For example, Deborah Quick, a
  fourth grade teacher, forms new groups
  periodically throughout the year and asks each
  student to respond (privately) to a number of
  questions including "Who are two people you
  think you could work well with?", "Who are two
  people you don't know well and would like to
  know?"

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• By asking students these questions, she is
  allowing them to participate in group formation,
  but also emphasizing that although it is
  important to work with students they already
  know, it is also important to learn to accept,
  value, and work with others they do not know well
  yet.

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Job Responsibilities

• Leader / Captain
• Recorder
• Timer
• Materials Person
• Reporter
• Artist
• Encourager / Motivator