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Cooperative Learning Cooperative Learning (CL) is an educational strategy, in which small groups of students of different levels of abilities work together towards achieving some academic goals and improving their knowledge of subject. As a rule, teachers and instructors, who use cooperative strategy, split their classes into five-eight small teams, members of which are supposed to work together on various assignments or tasks, and help each other to learn, to advance and to receive better grades. As a rule, after working in the groups, students are tested and graded individually. CL is an effective and popular strategy, because it motivates, stimulates and encourages students to learn and to develop their social skills, gives opportunity to learn faster and more effective, provides feedback and interaction between teammates, improves psychological health and self-confidence of every individual in the class, etc. Educational approach of CL is one of the most thoroughly developed and best researched teaching concepts. The first studies on problems of cooperation and collaborating in education can be dated as ending of XIX century.
First programs on collaborative education were practically used in Cincinnati in 1906, but it those times the efforts of teaching specialists were directed on assisting students in connecting their work and study. In the last decades of XX century the problems of CL was a point of interest of many educational and social theorists. Such specialists like Roger and David Johnsons from the University of Minnesota, Shlomo Sharan from Israel University, or Robert Slavin have been investigating the benefits and features of CL from different angles. All their works and experiments proved that strategy of CL improves educational process in three main directions: (1) increasing of productivity and assistance towards the attainments; (2) creating supportive and friendly relations between the students, and (3) improving psychological condition and self-recognition of the students. Now the concept of CL is widely used by numerous educational establishments throughout the country.
Some universities and colleges like LaGuardia Community College, Cincinnati Technical College, Kettering and Antioch Universities, base their educational programs only on the concept of CL. But mostly teachers and instructors use this strategy optionally or when educational process will obviously benefit from it. Fundamentally, CL is not just a simple grouping of students in the class; it is a complicated concept of educating, which requires a lot of professionalism and experience from teachers. Not every group will work and collaborate successfully, that is why teachers and instructors must stimulate cooperation and mutual assistance in every team. According to the theory of Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1993, there are five necessary components of making CL strategy work successfully. Firstly, all the group members must be positively interdependent.
Every assignment for a group must be structured and shared between the students of one group in such a way, that everybody's contribution must be essential and indispensable for the success of the whole group. Everybody must understand that efforts of every each team member are required to succeed, and in case of anyones failure the entire work will be ruined. The second characteristic is structured accountability. It is necessary for teachers to establish and control two levels of accountability in every team: individual and group responsibility. Every student has to recognize personal responsibility: both for own share and contribution into the assignment, and for final achievement of the whole team. If the teachers monitor such understanding and personal perception of accountability among the teammates, then the team will definitely collaborate effectively.
The third essential element is communication and interaction between members of the same group. It is exceptionally important to work together, to share information and discuss the ideas face-to-face. Personal communication of the best way to learn, to support, to assist and to encourage, so the team must have frequent meetings, discussions, or other interpersonal activities, which will display personal development and ensure individual commitment of the teammates to each other. The next characteristic is following and obeying some social and behavioral rules. Every student of the team has to understand own role and place in the group, to develop own communicative and cooperative skills, learn how to participate in decision-making and conflict management, how to listen to the teammates, to support or to criticize their ideas, how to make the teamwork the most effective, useful and pleasant. And, finally, the last characteristic is group processing.
It is very important to discuss and analyze the development of the group and the strategies it has been following to achieve the goals. There must be special meetings, at which every team member has to express own opinion about what were helpful and unhelpful activities, whose contribution was the most valuable, what are the ways to increase the productivity and output of the group and how to achieve better results. There are many supporters and opponents of CL among the theorists and practicing teaching personnel. Undoubtedly, the advantages of using this strategy in schools and universities are considerable. The majority of them were already mentioned above in this work: CL helps to develop and improve social, communicative and collaborative abilities of the students, promote academic and learning achievements and make process of studying more interesting and pleasant. It helps team members to recognize own abilities in fighting for leadership in the group, or to observe own reaction in conditions of competition.
Tactic of CL favors to motivation and stimulation of students activity in studying; besides, it helps to develop and advance different individual qualities of every student, like self-esteem, responsibility, attention, self-realization, patience, tolerance, ability to support, to assist, to listen, to cooperate, and many others. Besides, as a rule CL makes students to be better organized, it improves discipline, behavior and attendance. It also influences comprehension, mutual understanding, social and educational orientation of the students, and usually CL is effective for advancing in thinking and creative activity. It is incredibly helpful for developing positive climate in the classrooms, and also CL is a very important instrument to improve ethnic and racial relations between the students of the same class.
Finally, strategy of CL is relatively easy to be implemented and does not require expenses. But there are also some negative and controversial points related with putting into action of CL concept in educational organizations. First of all, teachers are facing big problems with motivation and will of students to work together. Especially in elementary and secondary schools, social skills of children are not developed enough to make teamwork effective. Besides, in young ages children may not yet recognize own responsibility and importance of teamwork, they may simply turn it into joyful and noisy game. Strategy of CL can be more effective for students of higher levels, but there also some obstacles.
Many students are unsocial and have problems with opening their minds to collaboration and teamwork. Many students are afraid of failures and losing their social position on front of the class mates, so they may resist CL and try to work individually. Some students do not like to be dependent on other teammates, especially if there are differences in level of academic achievements between them. Finally, teachers and instructors may not be enough prepared and experienced for successful implementation of CL strategy, they may not be able to control group tendencies and behavior. That is why it is essential for effective use of CL concept in schools and universities, first of all, to have qualified and experienced teaching personnel, who will manage to prepare students for CL, to carry out the program successfully, to control teams interaction and behavior and keep it on proper level. Students must understand the benefits of collaborative education and accept this strategy as very effective and useful for their academic achievements and advancement.
Anyway, CL can be successfully used at any academic level: from elementary school to colleges and universities. There are some examples of particular CL programs, which were developed and launched by teaching specialists of the USA. Team Accelerated Instruction (TAI) in Mathematic is a strategy for primary school children, which applies CL for improving knowledge in math and algebra. Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition is a concept, directed on developing of reading and writing skills of young students; it integrates the newest results of practical researches on the filed of LC. There are a lot of CL programs, which were created for students of higher educational levels. One of the most known and popular is Roundtable, when a group of students discusses the problem together and everybody expresses the ideas or opinions in turn.
The other method is Brainstorm, when a team combines the ideas of every member in order to come out with a new advanced solution. Such techniques as Focused Listening and Structured Problem Solving are the modifications of Brainstorm: they also mean generating all the ideas into one final outcome. There are a number of other concepts of CL, like Group Roles, Collaborative Annotations, Team Expectations, Value Line, Double Entry Journal, Send-A-Problem, etc, which are being used in schools and universities of the USA. CL is a brilliant opportunity for students of any academic level to improve some essential social life-skills and to develop the ability to work collaboratively. Numerous benefits and positive effects, which collaborative teamwork provides on the majority of important outcomes, make CL one of the most effective and valuable instruments of modern educational process. Bibliography: Cooper, J.
L. , Robinson, P. , McKinney, M. (2002, April 4). Cooperative Learning in the Classroom. California State University. Dominguez Hills. Retrieved April 28, 2005, , from < web >.
Cooperative Education. (2005, April 27). Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 28, 2005, from the World Wide Web: < web >. Cooperative Learning (2000, March 7). The Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota.
Retrieved April 28, 2005, from < web >. Kagan, S. (1999, Winter). Cooperative Learning: Seventeen Pros and Seventeen Cons Plus Ten Tips for Success. Spencer Kagan Personal Page. Kagan Online Magazine. Retrieved April 28, 2005, from < web >.
Mills, B. J. (1996, May). Cultivating positive emotions to optimize health and well-being. The University of Tenessee at Chattanooga. The University of Tenessee at Chattanooga Instructional Excellence Retreat. Retrieved April 28, 2005, from < web >.
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