Cooperative Learning Guide: 3 Types of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning, or small-group learning, is a teaching strategy in which small groups of students work together and support each other to solve common goals. The groups work in physical proximity to each other, but without direct instruction by a teacher, and establish their own structure and support system, to promote team success and student achievement.

Educators’ roles in cooperative learning are strictly supportive: they help students by providing a clearly defined role, structuring the groups, and support teamwork without giving direct instruction. In cooperative learning, the students shoulder part of the teacher’s role, which includes conflict management. Though cooperative learning differs from a traditional classroom scenario, studies have shown the cooperative learning experiences can boost academic achievement and increase students’ self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.

Cooperative learning aims to foster interdependence, which means that team success is achieved by team members’ individual success. It also promotes critical social skills by requiring them to interact to solve the group learning task.

Researchers David Johnson and Roger Johnson, long-time cooperative learning theorists, have identified three types of cooperative learning:

1. 1. Cooperative base groups: A cooperative base group is long-lasting, stable, and diverse. This type of group supports each other in their academic achievement or the completion of a project. The long-term nature of these groups helps students build trust and loyalty while fostering group and individual accountability.
2. 2. Formal cooperative learning: Students work together in groups for as little time as a single class period to as long as several weeks. The teacher can structure any class or element of a class into a cooperative learning experience.
3. 3. Informal cooperative learning: This cooperative learning environment takes place during part or all of a single class period. Groups are temporary and quickly assembled to focus on an element of the class material, prepare for an upcoming test or project, or create closure on an instructional subject.

Five elements define a successful cooperative learning experience:

1. 1. Accountability: This learning experience prioritizes individual responsibility and group accountability. Students feel responsible for completing their respective tasks within the group, while the group feels accountable for meeting their goals.
2. 2. Group processing: Critical thinking is the ability to examine information rationally and make a reasoned judgment based on your analysis. In cooperative learning, the team develops critical thinking skills regarding their own work and the team’s efforts.
3. 3. Interpersonal and small group skills: Cooperative learning activities give students experience in both academics and social and interpersonal skills. Each team member learns more effective means of decision-making, trust-building, and conflict management—skills that will help them with both the group project and academics as a whole.
4. 4. Positive interdependence: In this learning experience, students feel responsible for both the group’s efforts and their own efforts to complete the task in the learning process.
5. 5. Promotive interaction: By working together in a shared physical space, students must learn how to verbalize ideas and problem-solving while working face-to-face. By learning to communicate their ideas better, it increased students’ commitment to the group goals.

There are many examples of cooperative learning strategies that teachers can implement in their classrooms, including:

1. 1. Fishbowl debate: Students are assembled in groups of three and given a topic to debate. Two students must take opposing positions on the subject, while the third listens to their presentations and decides who argues it best. The three students then present their findings.
2. 2. Jigsaw: Students are broken up into “home” and “expert” groups, and then each student is asked to research a different element of an umbrella topic. Students from home and expert groups are assigned the same subject to collaborate and then return to their home group to explain the subject to their home group. The entire group then gives a presentation on what they’ve learned about the umbrella topic.
3. 3. Stump your partner: Students create questions based on a classroom lecture and then quiz the person sitting next to them. Students can also submit the questions to the teacher, who can use them in an upcoming test or quiz.
4. 4. Think-pair-share: Also known as turn and talk, think-pair-share is an exercise in which the individual group members must collaborate with another student to answer a teacher’s question. The pair of students must then present their answers to the class.

Here is a brief overview of the cooperative learning process:

• Students are split into groups. Students are divided into small groups and receive instruction from the teacher about the group project. Each group member can be given a specific role, like research, writing, or presentation. They then work on the assignment and can only consider it finished when all group members complete their task and understand the project’s nature.
• Teachers offer support. Educators can support the group members working together but can’t aid the team or clarify questions for them: it’s up to the teacher to provide as straightforward an explanation of what’s needed before the team beginning their work.
• Teachers grade the project. Teachers then grade the project based on each pupil’s contributions to the final project. To assess student achievement, educators evaluate the significance and extent of their contributions.

Cooperative learning is similar to collaborative learning, and in some cases, the terms are interchangeable. But in collaborative learning, the team members work independently on specific tasks within the group to achieve a common objective. In cooperative learning experiences, the group works together to help each other solve the common goals.

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