Cooperative Learning Social Skills

Literature review

According to Davidson and O'leary, Co-operative learning is a model used by teacher for teaching the necessary skills for effective group so that the students are able to learn their subject matter better, complete the given task on time, include and indulge all the members in the group, be able to solve the problems with minimal guidance from the teacher, resolve the differences among themselves and then the students enjoy working together for effective learning. When the students involve themselves in a group, their social skills get better. Their relationship with the people in their group helps them learn social skills and also their social skills improve as they deal with the varieties of people in the group (Macpherson,

When a student is made to work individually, their knowledge is limited. Three heads are better than one head so when there are more students in group there is variety of knowledge. When there is variety of knowledge one learns more and their wisdom expands. Interaction is one point where students lack behind. Most of the students in Bhutanese School fear to interact and participate individually because they are not used to it. So when we put them in groups, they are left with no choice and they are encouraged by their friends. Even in college levels, students have problem of sharing their views

The students will love to have different methods of assigning groups suggested by the teacher such as Instructor Assigned Groups, Randomly Assigned Groups, and Self-Selected Groups (Macpherson, 2009). And the most common example of this method involves "counting off" learners into 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, or A's, B's, C's, D's, etc. Another method involves assigning each learner a number and then creating even/odd groupings, number range groups (1-4, 5-8, 9-12, etc.), or random number groupings (Cagle, 2002). In reality both teachers and students don’t like to have permanent group instead of that they use different method to have equal learning and results in equal achievements levels especially for low ability students who had difficulties making success in the traditional classroom for that as a teacher should manage to students interests.

Main benefit of Cooperative Learning is that it enhances students' self-esteem which in turn motivates students to participate in the learning process (Johnson & Johnson 1989). A student with both high and low achievers increases their critical thinking skills and retains the information and interest in the subject matter improves (Kulik & Kulick 1979). This creates a positive cycle of good performance building higher self-esteem which in turn leads to more interest in the subject and better performance