This course often discusses Positive Interdependence, the key principle in cooperative learning. Positive Interdependence means that we feel as though it helps us when we help others. An example can be seen in relations between two neighboring countries: Indonesia and Singapore. Forest fires in Indonesia, sometimes caused by agricultural practices, can produce massive air pollution which poisons people in some areas of Indonesia and blows over to Singapore. Thus, citizens in both countries suffer, not to mention the fires’ global impact on the climate. Some people in Singapore have wanted to punish Indonesia for the fires, but others in Singapore felt positively interdependent with their Indonesian neighbors and worked to help Indonesia reduce the fires.

In education, Positive Interdependence normally refers to students helping their groupmates. When students feel positively interdependent with others, they strive to make CL work, so that both they and their classmates succeed. The CL literature is loaded with ideas for growing this feeling. A related CL principle, Cooperation as a Value, seeks to take the feeling of cooperation that has been nurtured within small classroom groups and expand it throughout the class, the school, the community, the city, the country, and the world.