Cooperative Learning

Definition:

Cooperative learning is a teaching method where students of mixed levels of ability are arranged into groups and rewarded according to the group's success, rather than the success of an individual member. Cooperative learning is sometimes thought of simply as 'group work,' but not all time the groups of students working together will be working collaboratively.

 

 Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. The teacher's role changes from giving information to facilitating students' learning^. Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds. Its doesn't depend on the performance of one individual in the group, it depends on the overall/general result, which includes the success academically and socially.

David and Roger Johnson are researchers that identified the five elements that are responsible for the cooperative learning:

1. Face to Face:
     During cooperative learning the most important thing is to make you students sit face to face to
     each other and not back to back, here the students will stay on their toe and they will have a direct
     communication with the rest of the group members.
2. Positive Interdependence: 
    Here the students will have the sense of responsibility and the sense that they are all together, one
    hand and one grade. The students here will be aware more about each one performances because
    the effort of each individual wont help this individual alone, but it will help the whole group. The
    grade is dependent on the effort of the whole group.
3. Individual Accountability:
    Each student is accountable for their own contribution of the group. Each student will know the
    goals clearly and knows what is her/ his responsibility and what is the whole group responsibility.
4. Social Skills:
    The social skills that the teacher need to teacher her students in order for a successful cooperative
    learning. Students don't learn not only the subject matter or the academic goals, but interpersonal
    skills and how to work in teams. Students are taught skills of communication, leadership, trust-
    building, friendship development... etc
5. Group Processing:
    Students here analyze their group work and reflect on it to see how far they worked successfully
    whether they applied the collaborative skills or not.

The teacher's role:

Lots of people believe that when they here cooperative learning it means that it's the time where the teacher can have a rest, but they are wrong. The teacher's role begin before, during and after the group work begin. The fist step that the teacher do is to make sure that her/his students received the instructions of the group work clearly. It's important to teach skills of collaboration. During the group work the teacher need to keep on circulating around the groups to make sure all the groups are working correct and that each student is participating without being ignored. At the end the teacher need to assess her students as a whole group and each individual alone in order to observe if each student understood the lesson properly.

Different Styles of Cooperative Learning:

There are different techniques for applying cooperative learning. Some cooperative learning includes students pair work, while other include small groups that are made up of four-five members. Such technique are known as:
  Think-Pair-Share, Say and Switch, Round table, Three-Step Interview, Corners, Graffiti, Jigsaw, Group Investigation, Team-Games-Tournaments.