Course

Cooperative Learning (CL) is an instructional approach that promotes learners working together in small groups or teams to more effectively achieve their learning goals and build powerful relationships as learners. CL has been shown to improve learning in almost any situation. It is not a curriculum, nor is it a strategy to use for just one subject or just once a semester. CL is an integrated set of principles and techniques to increase and improve student interaction and interdependence. It has been extensively researched and found to be a powerful tool which can be used with any subject matter and any age of students. In addition to helping students to learn content and academic skills, CL also helps students learn valuable social skills such as responsibility, dependability, teamwork, and interdependence.

Throughout this course you will be learning not only how to use CL in your classroom or other setting, but you will also cover important principles of how people learn and how to apply those principals to critical issues.

Each unit will include structured Reflective Breaks to give you a chance to reflect on what you have studied and how it applies to your own current or past experiences and beliefs. There are also Comprehension Checks throughout to help you focus on key points in the lessons. You can work at your own pace and there is no single correct way to understand the material. Even the authors of this course have differing perspectives and approaches.

While this course can be taken by individuals working alone, we encourage you to work with others if possible. Learning together provides you the opportunity to apply the CL principles as you are introduced to them and try out the techniques before you use them with your students or colleagues. Perhaps most rewardingly, through sharing the learning experience you and those you work with will collaboratively achieve valuable insights and develop skills that will enrich your teaching and that of your colleagues.

Enjoy your learning adventure.

The Authors:

George M Jacobs, Kampung Senang Charity and Education Foundation, Singapore, george.jacobs@gmail.com

Michael A. Power, Ph.D., Geo Education & Research 

Amy Leow, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia

Cooperative learning (CL) is a teaching method that is built on research-based concepts of effective learning and practical strategies for helping students and others to work together in small groups, often of two, three, or four members. Group members cooperate to learn and achieve other important goals, such as becoming lifelong learners, knowing how to interact with others, and wanting to help others.

Many concepts play key roles in CL, and different people have different sets of principles. Table 1 illustrates one list of eight CL principles with which the authors have had success. Each will be more fully described below, as well as in the following subsections.

Table 1: List of the eight CL principles and their meanings

Cooperative learning (CL) is about much more that a group of techniques, such as Circle of Speakers or Everyone Can Explain, for organizing peer interactions. This section explores types of thinking that make us more enthusiastic to learn about and act in the spirit of CL. These overlapping ideas are positive interdependence, abundance not scarcity, being more rather than having more, freudenfreude, and the kampung spirit. We will explore each of these topics in this unit.

Many theories have been developed to explain and guide learning and teaching. In this unit we present very brief summaries of some of the more famous theories of learning, along with ideas about how each theory links with cooperative learning (CL). As these are all famous theories, please refer to books, websites, podcasts, etc. about learning theory to discover more about these theories, as well as many other valuable theories that attempt to provide insight into the vast puzzle of how we humans learn and use our learning.

One of the strengths of Cooperative Learning (CL) is flexibility. Teachers and students can customize the learning activities to suit what and how they are learning. Hundreds of techniques have been created. Plus, each technique has possible variations. Furthermore, different people may use different names for the same or similar technique.

Having a variety of techniques makes doing CL easy. Just take a technique, add whatever content students are learning, and Boom! – you have a CL activity. CL techniques usually include the first four CL principles: positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal opportunity to participate, and maximum peer interactions. Plus, teachers and students can add more ways to highlight these principles. Also, if you use only one or two techniques all the time the students could get bored and start to value cooperation less.

This section details the steps for 17 CL techniques. Not every technique will be right for every class or workshop topic. But, please remember that every technique can be varied. Possible variations are included with each of the CL techniques.

The free online book Cooperative learning and the SDGs contains a great deal of background on two topics: (1) Cooperative Learning (CL) and (2) the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). About half the book is devoted to lesson plans in which students can use CL techniques to learn about and promote the achievement of the SDGs.

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are (1) No Poverty, (2) Zero Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-Being, (4) Quality Education, (5) Gender Equality, (6) Clean Water and Sanitation, (7) Affordable and Clean Energy, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, (9) Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, (10) Reduced Inequalities, (11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, (12) Responsible Consumption and Production, (13) Climate Action, (14) Life Below Water; (15) Life on Land, (16) Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, and (17) Partnerships for the Goals.

CL and the SDGs fit well together for several reasons. Perhaps the principal reason why CL is a natural method for learning the SDGs lies in the CL principle of positive interdependence in which group members feel that they sink or swim together, that what helps one group member helps all. Then, the CL principle of cooperation as a value extends positive interdependence from small classroom groups to encompass larger and larger circles of compassion, so that students care about people, even people living on the other side of the world.

In this course on cooperative learning (CL), we have looked at one list of eight CL principles. Of all these principles, some people in education consider positive interdependence to be the most important principle, because it motivates students to help one another so that their group and all the group members can succeed.

Positive interdependence is the feeling among the members of a group that what helps one member helps all the members, and what hurts any member hurts all the members. In other words, the group members feel that they sink or swim together. If we can encourage students to feel positively interdependent with each other, students are more likely to support and trust each other.

The Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota discusses different types of positive interdependence. In this chapter, we discuss eight types of these types of positive interdependence are explained: goal, role, external challenge, resource, fantasy, identity, reward/celebration, and environment. By knowing more about these different types of positive interdependence, we and our students can think of more ways of building the feeling of mutual support among students and others.

In the previous unit of this course on cooperative learning (CL), we described various CL techniques. In the current unit of the course, we will discuss tips for helping CL work better. No doubt, you, your colleagues, and students will have more such tips, especially tips tailored to your specific learning/teaching contexts.

Problem: Students do not prepare before group activities (from a scenario developed by Nur Athifah Binti Mohd Noor).

Scenario

In the current scenario, the pre-class reading was part of the Flipped Classroom learning model, which contrasts with the traditional model. In traditional classrooms, teachers present information in class, and then, after class, at home or elsewhere, students do activities, usually alone, to practice what has been taught. In this model, most classroom time is spent with teachers talking and students sitting alone listening and taking notes. Thus, little opportunity is available for student-student interaction. The Flipped Classroom gets its name because it flips the traditional model upside down, with students studying the new material before class and, then doing activities, often in small groups, during class. However, Flipped Classroom learning only works if students come to class prepared. With unprepared students, teachers often have to resort to the traditional lecture mode, with little or no time remaining for group activities.

In this scenario the teacher has assigned reading homework for senior high school learners (known in some countries as pre-university learners) to complete before a lesson. However, upon entering the class, the teacher soon notices that not all learners have actually completed the assigned reading. This lack of preparation raises concerns about the success of the planned lesson, as that lesson involves students cooperating to apply and deepen their understanding of ideas from the readings, videos, etc.

Why The Problem Occurs

Many possible causes exist for learners lack of pre-class preparation. For example, learners often are accustomed to and comfortable with teacher-centred learning. The Flipped Classroom and other student-centred methods give students more freedom, but also necessitate more self-direction and responsibility on students’ part. Thus, the door swings wide open for students’ procrastination and negligence, and students face great temptation to walk through that door. At the same time, students often confront competing demands on their time from a plethora of sources.

Another cause of the problem is that the pre-class task may be too difficult or too time-consuming for some or all of the students. Students may lack a support network – family members, peers, tutors, etc. – to help them to overcome these difficulties. This support network includes not just academic help but also encouragement to strive, provision of role models who persevere in surmounting obstacles, and supply of promotive study conditions, including food, equipment, and a quiet place to study.

A third reason that students fail to prepare properly for class is that many students need to spend many hours a day to work to earn money or to fulfill family responsibilities such as taking care of small children or elderly family members. These responsibilities leave students with little or no time for pre-class preparation.

In education and many other fields, terminology can be confusing, because the same term can have different meanings, while two different terms can have the same or similar meanings. The present article focuses on the terminological questions that arise as some educators wonder if the terms cooperative learning and collaborative learning represent equivalent approaches/methods.

For this course, we suggest that: (1) the terms cooperative learning and collaborative learning should be treated as synonymous, as both represent student-centric approaches to learning; and (2) educators should be flexible in how they facilitate peer learning among their students. Toward this second goal, an article by Jacobs (2015) explores some of the issues educators may have in mind when they distinguish collaborative and cooperative learning.

In the next section, we will look at how learning, whether teacher-centered or student-centered, is associated with collaborative and cooperative learning techniques. 

Assessment allows teachers, students, and parents to find out what students know and are able to do, and whether they can demonstrate their learning. In cooperative learning, assessment can also cover how well students have functioned as group members. One important point is that not all assessment needs to involve grades. As teachers observe their class at work, they are conducting informal assessment which is a rich source of information on how well students are learning. During discussions, students can assess how well their classmates have mastered the material and, by comparison, how well they have mastered it themselves. When teachers or peers provide feedback, that is a valuable form of assessment too.

In cooperative learning (CL), assessment can happen on four levels:

• Self-assessment - each group member assesses themself
• Peer assessment – students assess one or more of their groupmates
• Group assessment – each group looks at how their group is functioning
• Teacher assessment – teachers assess each student and possibly each group.

Although CL is most often used in classrooms with students of all ages, it can be a powerful tool for learning among professionals as well. We have seen it used and used it ourselves working with adults in a variety of settings including staff meetings, administrative work sessions, professional development, and large group discussions. It is especially valuable in dealing with sensitive topics in which listening respectfully and hearing everyone’s point of view is so critical. We discuss a few examples in the following sections. You will probably think of others yourself as you go along.

Webb, N. M., Franke, M. L., De, T., Chan, A. G., Freund, D., Shein, P., et al. (2009). ‘Explain to your partner’: Teachers’ instructional practices and students’ dialogue in small groups. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39(1), 49–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057640802701986

Lim, S., Reidak, J., Chau, M. H., Zhu, C. H., Guo, Q., Brooks, T. A., Roe, J., & Jacobs, G. M. (2024). Cooperative learning and the SDGs. Peachey Publications. https://payhip.com/b/obOwr)

Pink, D. H. (2019). When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. Penguin.

Flores, C. (2017). Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. In A. Maley & N. Peachey (Eds.), Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom: With reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 41–47). British Council. https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/PUB_29200_Creativity_UN_SDG_v4S_WEB.pdf

Jacobs, G. M., Guo, Q., & Woo, M. W. J. (Eds.). (2024). Making groups work. Peachey Publications.  https://payhip.com/b/vcwaA.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (2013). Cooperation in the classroom (8th ed.). Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Isaac Newton wrote that his understanding of the world greatly benefitted from “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” In other words, he learned a great deal from those who came before him. That is certainly the case with this project. We have learned a great deal from the work in theory, research, and practice by many, many others, including Lynda Baloche, Celeste Brody, David and Roger Johnson, Robert Slavin, Kumiko Fushino, Christine Lee, Noreen Webb, Yael and Shlomo Sharan, and Dean Tjosvold. 

They were key starting points, but “the proof is in the pudding.” What really convinced us was what we saw in the thousands of classrooms we’ve been in as teachers, students, administrators, and consultants. We experienced the magic that can happen – cognitively and affectively – when people cooperate. We felt this magic not only in education but also in our other endeavours, whether running a marathon, playing tennis, campaigning for sustainable, kind diets, being family members, and working on this course. These experiences, provided by a different set of giants, convinced us that cooperative learning was worth sharing with you, the next generation of giants.

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