Ch. 7: Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning is very different from simply allowing students to work in groups. Cooperative Learning assigns specific roles to students organized in small groups to accomplish a specific task. Doing so promotes positive interdependence and accountability, which is often lost when students are informally grouped together. Students also learn vital interpersonal processing skills.

It is strongly advise to group students heterogeneously, with a broad range of abilities in each group. Group should be kept small, between 2-5 students. Cooperative Learning should not be used on a daily basis - about once a week seems to offer the best results. Used too often, Cooperative Learning loses both its positive benefits and its appeal to students.

The authors suggest that Cooperative Learning an take place in 3 different types of groups: informal, formal, and base groups. Informal goups are just that: loose, informal arrangements of students for the purpose of accomplishing a brief, short-term objective (turn-to-your-neighbor, or a quick pair-share discussion, etc.). Formal groups are better for more complex tasks, where students are grouped heterogeneously and given specific roles (chairperson, recorder, fact-checker, etc.). Base groups are longer-term arrangements, lasting all semester or all year, that students use for a variety of activities. These might include classroom chores, daily errands, homework helpers or 'study-buddies," etc.