The Effects Of Cooperative Learning

Researchers report that, regardless of the subject matter, students working in small groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats.
-Barbara Gross Davis, Tools for Teaching
The idea that students learn more by doing something than by just watching and listening has been known to teachers and cooperative learning is by its nature an active method. Beyond that, cooperation enhances learning in many ways. Weak students working individually used to give up when they get stuck; while working cooperatively, they keep going. Strong students faced with the task of explaining and clarifying lessons to weaker students often find gaps in their own understanding and

The cooperative learning model requires student cooperation in its task and goal. The lessons are created in a way that students must cooperate in order to achieve the learning objectives.

The effects of cooperative learning activities have been positive for increased academic achievement in recent studies conducted in different students. In the effects of cooperative learning on academic achievement researchers have repeatedly examined cooperative and individualistic instruction. Other studies have evaluated the effects of cooperative and individualistic learning experiences by comparing achievement on academics of different students. Results indicate that cooperative learning experiences promote higher achievement and greater maintenance for all students.

When students work cooperatively together, they show increased participation in group discussions, demonstrate a more complicated level of discussion, engage in less interruptions when others speak, and provide more intellectually important contributions. By working cooperatively, students develop an understanding of the unity of purpose of the group and the need to help and support each other's learning which, in turn, motivates them to provide information, prompts, reminders, and encouragement to others' requests for help or supposed need

He notes that the difference between the more and less effective cooperative-learning classes was that the effective ones stressed group goals and individual accountability. But still Slavin (1996) further argues that "cooperative learning has its greatest effects on student learning when groups are recognized or rewarded based on the individual learning of their group members" (p. 52). On the study of Gillies and Ashman 1996,1998 found that when students worked in groups where they were trained to cooperate, the students demonstrated more on task behavior, gave more detailed explanations and assistance to each other, and obtained higher learning outcomes than their untrained