Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is a set of teaching and learning strategies that are focussed on encouraging educative social interactions between learners. It is important to not conflate cooperative learning with group projects as you might remember them from your previous experiences in higher ed. Group projects are often assigned because faculty seem to have a sense that working together is a good thing for learners, along with a vague sense that modern jobs all require teamwork. Too often, they amount to repurposing an individual assignment (maybe a research paper) into the same task, but with multiple people handing in one item instead of 3-4. When these tasks are not well structured, the process becomes problematic.

 

We have all likely experienced less-than-ideal group projects where one or two people do most of the work, one member is seemingly absent altogether, and another’s work is of poor quality. This is not the kind of learning activity that inspires highly engaged learners.

Contrary to that model, cooperative learning is structured in a way that maximizes effort from all learners and, ideally, leads to all group members attaining high-level learning outcomes. In order to ensure this, there are 5 characteristics of learning groups that must be present for cooperative learning to occur: “positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interactions, appropriate use of social skills, and group processing” (Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 366).

Positive Interdependence

Positive interdependence, according to Johnson and Johnson is the idea that individuals in a learning environment are dependent upon each other for success. In other words, I cannot succeed unless you succeed and you cannot succeed unless I succeed. So, collectively, we are interdependent. Positive interdependence is the key that distinguishes cooperative learning from competitive learning, where learners are graded on a curve and only the top 2-3% of learners can earn ‘A’ grades.

Individual and Group Accountability

In cooperative learning environments, each individual in the group is held accountable for their contributions to the final product, and feedback is provided to both the individual and the group. This helps to ensure that learners who need more assistance are identified and can be supported as needed, and it also prevents the ‘social loafing’ that is common in typical ‘group projects’.

Promotive Interaction

Promotive interaction is the logistics of working and learning together as a cooperative group. The essence is that group members each need to work to promote the learning of each other member of the group. Since each person will be held accountable for their work and the entire group will only succeed if each member succeeds, there is a natural social pressure on more experienced members of the group to assist those with less experience or knowledge.

Interpersonal Skills

Not only do members of the group need to learn the content of the lesson or project, but they must also learn the process of working well as a cooperative group. Sometimes, these processes need to be taught directly, other times (like in graduate studies) it is reasonable to presume that group members will already possess and be willing to utilize effective social skills.

Group Processing

Finally, the group must be able to monitor their process with the goal of improving their work process and product. This metacognitive task is crucial to the long-term improvement and progress towards learning goals.

References

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An Educational Psychology Success Story: Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 365–379. Retrieved from JSTOR.