cooperative learning

1. ONLINE ASSIGNMENT ON
COOPERATIVE LEARNING
SUBMITTED BY
DIVYA. A.S
ENGLISH OPTIONAL
REG. NO. 165/13376010
1

2. INTRODUCTION
“United we stand, divided we fall”
If classrooms and schools are to become places where people achieve worthy
goals, they must become places where students, teachers, administrators and other
staff cooperate in pursuit of those goals. Such cooperation must be consciously
implemented until it becomes a natural way of acting and interacting. It must takes
place at all levels of schooling from the classroom to the school.
Cooperation means working together to accomplish shared goals. Within
cooperative activities individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to all other group
members. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups that allows
students to work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning. In
cooperative learning situations, there is a positive interdependence among students’
goal attainments.
2

3. Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize
classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. There is much
more to cooperative learning than merely arranging students into groups and it has
been described as “structuring positive interdependence. Students must work in
groups to complete tasks collectively towards academic goals. Unlike individual
learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning cooperatively can
capitalize on one another’s skills and resources. The teacher’s role changes from
giving information to facilitating students’ learning. Everyone succeeds when the
group succeeds.
Ross and Smyth describe successful cooperative learning tasks as
intellectually demanding, creative, open ended and involve higher order thinking
tasks. Gaining expertise in using cooperative learning is in itself a cooperative
process that requires a team effort.
For cooperation to work well, teachers must explicitly structure five essential
components.
The first and most important component is positive interdependence. It is
successfully structured when group members perceive that they are linked with each
other so that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds. It is the heart of
cooperative learning.
3

4. The second essential component of cooperative learning is promotive
interaction, preferably face-to-face. Promotive interaction includes orally explaining
how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, teaching
one’s knowledge to classmates and connecting present and past learning.
The third essential component of cooperative learning is individual
accountability. It exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed
and the results are given back to the group and the individual.
The fourth essential component of cooperative learning is interpersonal and
small-group skills, skills such as leadership, decision making, trust-building,
communication and conflict management must be taught purposefully and precisely
as academic skills.
The fifth essential component of cooperative learning is group processing.
Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving
their goals and maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe
what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what
behavior to continue or change.
TYPES OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING.
Cooperative learning can be used in various ways, including
⦁ Formal cooperative learning
⦁ Informal cooperative learning
4

5. ⦁ Cooperative base groups
⦁ Cooperative structures.
⦁ Formal cooperative learning is students working together from one class
period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals by ensuring they
and their group mates successfully complete the learning tasks assigned.
⦁ Informal cooperative learning helps teachers ensure that students do the
intellectual work of organizing, explaining, summarizing and integrating
material into existing conceptual structures during direct teaching.
⦁ Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning
groups with suitable membership that last for atleast a year and perhaps
until all members are graduated.
⦁ In order to use cooperative learning the majority of the time teachers must
identify and cooperatively structure generic lessons and repetitive course
routines.
STEPS FOR SETTING UP GROUP LEARNING
Before implementation
⦁ Develop a positive classroom environment. Devise ways for students to
become acquainted early in the year. Have them work on a newsletter, play
or other project.
⦁ Previous to organizing collaborative groups and assigning academic tasks,
develop a cooperative climate in the classroom. This can be accomplished by
engaging students in fun team-building activities.
5

6. ⦁ Consider upcoming academic tasks and determine the number of students
who will be assigned to each group. The size of the group will depend on the
students’ ability to interact well with others.
⦁ Decide how long the groups will work together. It may range from one task to
one curriculum unit, to one semester, to a whole year.
⦁ Determine the academic and behavioural objectives for the task.
⦁ Plan the arrangement of the room for the up-coming group –oriented task.
Arrange group seating so that students will be close to each other to share
materials.
⦁ Prepare materials for distribution to the group.
⦁ Determine roles for group members. In addition to cooperative and
‘brainstorming’ with others, each group member should be assigned a duty
to perform during the project.
Implementation
⦁ Explain what will occur. Explain the rules. Arrange students into teams at
tables or where desks have been pushed together.
⦁ Present and clearly explain the assignment that will probably take several
class periods to complete.
⦁ Avoid the temptation to lead the groups.
⦁ More among the groups to assure that they are actively engaged in their roles
6

7. and following designated procedures.
⦁ Evaluate each groups’ performance. Grades might be assigned based upon
the average performance of the group.
After implementation
⦁ Have the learning groups assess how will they worked together and discuss
how they can improve their functioning and performance.
BENEFITS AND APPLICABILITY
⦁ Students demonstrate academic achievement
⦁ Effective for all ability levels.
⦁ Effective for all ethnic groups.
⦁ Increases self-esteem and self – concept.
COOPERATIVE LEARNING RESULTS IN:
⦁ Increased higher level reasoning
⦁ Increased generation of new ideas and solutions.
⦁ Greater transfer of learning between situations.
⦁ It can be seen as a characteristic of innovative business.
⦁ Embedding of social and work skills.
LIMITATION
7

8. Cooperative learning has many limitations that could cause the process to be
more complicated than first perceived. Cooperative learning is constantly changing,
there is a possibility that teachers may become confused and lack complete
understanding of the method. The fact that cooperative learning is such a dynamic
practice means, it cannot be used effectively in many situations.
While cooperative learning will consume time, the most effective application
of cooperative learning hinges on an active instructor. Teachers implementing
cooperative learning may also be challenged with resistance and hostility from
students who believe that they are being held back by their slower teammates or by
students who are less confident and feel that they are being ignored or demeaned by
their team.
Students often provide feedback in the form of evaluations or reviews on
success of the teamwork experienced during the cooperative learning experiences.
Peer review and evaluations may not reflect true experiences due to perceived
competition among peers. Students might feel pressured into submitting inaccurate
evaluations due to bullying.
8

9. CONCLUSION
As Aristotle said, “for things we have to learn before we can do them, we
learn by doing them.” Teachers have to do cooperative learning for some time,
before they begin to gain real expertise. This requires support, encouragement and
assistance from colleagues. Transfer and maintenance, therefore depend largely on
teachers themselves being organized into cooperative teams.
Cooperative learning is more than merely having students sit together,
helping the others do their work. Neither is assigning a group of students to “work
together” unless you assure that all will contribute their share to the product.
9

10. REFERENCES
Web resources:
www.jigsaw.org
www.cooperativelearning.com
www.cooperativelearningtasks.co
10