Cooperative Learning in Education The purpose of this paper is to exa

According to Sharan and Sharan (1987), cooperative learning refers to several instructional strategies used by educators to foster learning through peer cooperation and communication. As Slavin (1982) puts it, cooperative learning techniques can be defined as:

. . . instructional methods in which students of all levels of performance work together in small groups toward a common goal. The essential feature of cooperative learning is that the success of one student helps other students to be successful (p.6).

In the last two decades, cooperative learning has been the focus of much educational research. In this regard, Johnson and Johnson have noted that as early as 1978, educators had found cooperative learning strategies to be instrumental in producing gains in students': (l) academic achievement; (2) ability to understand others' perspective; (3) social and cooperative skills; (4) motivation to learn; (5) emotional

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cooperative learning theorists do not desire to rid the schools of competitive learning strategies; however, instead of having individuals compete against one another or teams compete against other teams, they would advocate that teams compete against their previous achievement records. This use of competition, according to Slavin, should not be to motivate students to "beat" other students but rather to motivate them to attain learning goals while at the same time motivating them to care about how other students on their team are doing---in effect, to want for their team members that which they want for themselves, namely goal attainment. Slavin further notes that as used in the school classroom, competition tends to initiate learning patterns that leave some children feeling like "winners" while at the same time leaving others feeling like "losers." In this regard, he states that: There's nothing wrong with competition per se. What's wrong with competition, as it's often structured in the schools, is that it's unfair--the same kinds always win and the same kids also lose. Most children like to compete with one another as long as it's fair. And when competition is fair, it can be a positive thing (Slavin, 1987, p.75) A more
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Approximate Word count = 2407
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)