Cooperative Learning

In today's classrooms teachers include and rely in cooperative learning on one of the ways to get a lesson across. All students have different views on this including me. For the most part I enjoy cooperative learning especially when I end up in a group in which we all work well together. However, this is not always the case and sometimes cooperative learning can add so much extra stress and frustration that it would be easier to just do all the work yourself. So there are definite pros and cons to cooperative learning.

                

Pros.	Cons.
Get exposed to new ideas and people	Need to split up work evenly, so it’s not just one person doing all the work. So everyone pitches in.
Allows for construction of knowledge through social interactions	Hard for everyone to get together, especially in post-secondary due to varying class schedules and work.
Everybody’s success depends on others - “all the boats need to rise and fall together”	Creates stress

Five factors that follow with the ideas of pros and cons of cooperative learning and guide you to a better cooperative learning experience are the:

Five Components of Cooperative Learning

1. Positive Interdependence
• Everybodys success depends on others
• Everyone needs to have something invested
2. Positive face-to-face Interactions
• Positive Motivator
• The group should be a kind of community
3. Interpersonal and small group interactions
• Different roles to create interactions. i.e.
• Encourager
• Praiser
• Gatekeeper
• Coach
• Question Commander
• Checker
• Taskmaster
• Recorder
• Reflector
• Quiet Captain
• Materials Monitor
4. Individual Accountability
• One may do most pf the work, other may not show up. Yet all receive the same mark
• Everyone needs to be accountable, and encouraged to work together and do their share of the work
5. Critical Reflection
• When we reflect upon what happened or what we did, and construct knowledge
• how we evaluate
• why?