Independence through Interdependence | What is Cooperative Learning?

Task

Students cannot complete their part without their peers

Identity

Students develop a sense of unity and rally together (flag, symbol, name)

Resource

Students must work together to share equipment, knowledge, and/or instructional resources

Environment

students physically isolated from others who are not in their group

Duty

Students have a particular role

Fantasy

Students use imagination and creativity to envision themselves in a collaborative situation (desert island or historical reenactment)

Reward

Students receive a bonus if their whole group achieves individually (80% or better on a quiz by all members)

Outside Enemy

Students are unified in their desire to perform better than other groups (coopetition)

Goal

All groups must have ONE goal (prove mastery, improve, add group scores and average, one product)

Positive Interdependence

Members of a group who share common goals perceive that working together is individually and collectively beneficial, and success depends on the participation of all the members.

Individual Accountability

A structural element that calls for each group member to make their share of contributions, to receive feedback on their efforts, and to be assessed on performance so it can be processed by the group.

Social Skills

How we communicate and interact with each other, both verbally and non-verbally, to ensure teamwork and to provide leadership, decision-making, trust-building, and conflict-management.

Group Processing

Opportunity to have the group analyze and discuss how well they maintained effective working relationships and achieved their goals.

Face-to-Face

Students promote each other's success by sharing resources. They help, support, encourage, and praise each other's efforts to learn.

Formal

Long or short term groups that engage students in an academic purpose utilizing the elements of cooperative learning.

Informal

Ad-hoc groups that last for a few minutes or a period to directly teach, set expectations, provide closure, and/or give processing time.

Base

Long-term heterogenous groups with stable membership whose purpose is support, help, encouragement, assistance, and relationships.

Cooperative

Instructional small groups that allow students to maximize their own and each other's learning.

Competitive

Students work against each other to achieve an academic goal.

Individualistic

Studentswork by themselves to accomplish learning goals unrelated to those of other students.

Pseudo

Students are assigned to work together but have no interest in doing so. They may see each other as rivals.

Traditional

Students are assigned to work together and accept that they have to do so, but very little joint work is required because students see that they are evaluated and rewarded as individuals based on task structures.

Pre-Instructional

Decisions that shape the nature of the task, the group structures, the room utilization, roles, and materials.

Monitor and Intervene

Observation to record and describe learning beahvior as it occurs in order to provide feedback for processing and improvement.

Teamwork Skills

Groups form, they function, they formulate to build deeper understanding, and they ferment to reconceuptualize material and cognitive conflicts.