Cooperative Learning
Slavin (1994) defines cooperative learning as students working together wherein they become responsible for both one another’s learning as well as their own individual learning.
Johnson and Johnson (1996) defined cooperative learning as the pedagogical use of small groups of two or more students who work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning.
Johnson and Johnson (1996) identify four types of cooperative learning:
Formal cooperative learning -- students work together to achieve shared learning goals and jointly complete educational tasks. Teachers tell the students the objectives for the lesson, make preinstructional planning decisions, explain the task to the students, monitor student learning, intervene to provide assistance, and, evaluate students’ learning and help the students evaluate their own learning.
Informal cooperative learning -- teachers assign students to work together to achieve a joint learning goal. Learning groups are temporary and meet for small periods of time.
The cooperative base group -- students are grouped together over a long time period and groups are made up of mixed ability. Base groups are established to support peer group members throughout the academic year with the goals of making academic progress and positive social development. Cooperative base groups are often developed in formal cooperative learning settings.
Academic controversy groupings -- students are paired in terms of being cognitively incompatible with the idea that the two students work towards reaching agreement. Academic controversy often involves the use of formal and informal cooperative learning arrangements.
Other significant cooperative learning methods articulated by Slavin (1994) include:
Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) -- consists of five major components:
1) class presentations, 2) team activities, 3) quizzes, 4) individual improvement evaluations, and 5) team recognition.
Teams-Games-Tournament (TGT) -- similar to STAD except TGT uses academic tournaments instead of quizzes and individual improvement scores.
Team Assisted Individualization (TAI) -- focuses on the individualization of mathematics instruction and uses a specialized set of curriculum materials.
Jigsaw -- Students start with a home group. That group is responsible for learning an assigned portion of a task that is prescribed by the teacher. Then the teacher separates students into new groups -- jigsaw groups -- by assigning one member from each home group to a new group. If an activity begins with groups A, B, C, and D, the jigsaw groups have a member from A, B, C, and D. In the jigsaw groups, students share information and complete some sort of project or product.
Group investigation -- students work together in heterogeneous groups; requires prior training in communication and social skills.
Content for this page was modified from Computers and Cooperative Learning: A Literature Review by Scott Adams' originally posted 01 November 2004.
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