Cooperative Learning*Richard M. Fel

Cooperative Learning*

Richard M. Felder1, and Rebecca Brent2

1Department of Chemical Engineering, N.C. State University,
Raleigh, NC 27695-7905
2Education Designs, Inc., Cary, NC 27518

The term cooperative learning (CL) refers to students working in teams on an assignment or project under conditions in which certain criteria are satisfied, including that the team members be held individually accountable for the complete content of the assignment or project. This chapter summarizes the defining criteria of cooperative learning, surveys CL applications, summarizes the research base that attests to the effectiveness of the method, and outlines proven methods for implementing CL and overcoming common obstacles to its success.


Introduction

Many students who have worked in a team in a laboratory- or project-based course do not have fond memories of the experience. Some recall one or two team members doing all the work and the others simply going along for the ride but getting the same grade. Others remember dominant students, whose intense desire for a good grade led them to stifle their teammates’ efforts to contribute. Still others recall arrangements in which the work was divided up and the completed parts were stapled together and turned in, with each team member knowing little or nothing about what any of the others did. Whatever else these students learned from their team experiences, they learned to avoid team projects whenever possible.

Cooperative learning is an approach to groupwork that minimizes the occurrence of those unpleasant situations and maximizes the learning and satisfaction that result from working on a high-performance team. A large and rapidly growing body of research confirms the effectiveness of cooperative learning in higher education (1-4). Relative to students taught traditionally—i.e., with instructor- centered lectures, individual assignments, and competitive grading—cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, better high- level reasoning and critical thinking skills, deeper understanding of learned material, greater time on task and less disruptive behavior in class, lower levels of anxiety and stress, greater intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve, greater ability to view situations from others’ perspectives, more positive and supportive relationships with peers, more positive attitudes toward subject areas, and higher self-esteem. Another nontrivial benefit for instructors is that when assignments are done cooperatively, the number of papers to grade decreases by a factor of three or four.

There are several reasons why cooperative learning works as well as it does. The idea that students learn more by doing something active than by simply watching and listening has long been known to both cognitive psychologists and effective teachers (5, 6) and cooperative learning is by its nature an active method. Beyond that, cooperation enhances learning in several ways. Weak students working individually are likely to give up when they get stuck; working cooperatively, they keep going. Strong students faced with the task of explaining and clarifying material to weaker students often find gaps in their own understanding and fill them in. Students working alone may tend to delay completing assignments or skip


* P.A. Mabrouk, ed., Active Learning: Models from the Analytical Sciences, ACS Symposium Series 970, Chapter 4, pp. 34–53. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 2007.

them altogether, but when they know that others are counting on them, they are motivated to do the work in a timely manner.

The proven benefits of cooperative learning notwithstanding, instructors who attempt it frequently encounter resistance and sometimes open hostility from the students. Bright students complain about begin held back by their slower teammates; weak or unassertive students complain about being discounted or ignored in group sessions; and resentments build when some team members fail to pull their weight. Knowledgeable and patient instructors find ways to deal with these problems, but others become discouraged and revert to the traditional teacher-centered instructional paradigm, which is a loss both for them and for their students.

In this chapter we describe cooperative learning methods that have been proven effective in a variety of instructional settings. We then suggest ways to maximize the benefits of the approach and to deal with the difficulties that may arise when cooperative learning is implemented.

What is Cooperative Learning?

Several definitions of cooperative learning have been formulated. The one most widely used in higher education is probably that of David and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota. According to the Johnson & Johnson model, cooperative learning is instruction that involves students working in teams to accomplish a common goal, under conditions that include the following elements (7):

1. Positive interdependence. Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequences.

2. Individual accountability. All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of all of the material to be learned.

3. Face-to-face promotive interaction. Although some of the group work may be parcelled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging reasoning and conclusions, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another.

4. Appropriate use of collaborative skills. Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills.

5. Group processing. Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future.

Cooperative learning is not simply a synonym for students working in groups. A learning exercise only qualifies as cooperative learning to the extent that the five listed elements are present.

Cooperative Learning Structures

Cooperative learning can be used in for any type of assignment that can be given to students in lecture classes, laboratories, or project-based courses. Following are some of the structures that have been used, with some recommendations for how they may be effectively implemented. (Additional suggestions are given at the conclusion of the chapter.)






2


Problem Sets

Students complete some or most of their homework assignments in teams. The teams are encouraged to include only the names of actual participants on the solution set that they hand in. The students are initially disinclined to leave anyone’s name off, but eventually they get tired of letting nonparticipants (“hitchhikers,” in cooperative learning parlance) get good grades for work they didn’t do and begin to omit names, at which point many hitchhikers—unhappy about getting zeroes on assignments—start cooperating.

The team gets a grade for the assignment, but eventually the performance of each team member should be assessed and the results used to adjust the average team homework grade separately for each team member. Adjusting team grades for individual performance is one of the principal ways of assuring individual accountability in cooperative learning, second only in importance to giving individual exams. Later in this chapter we will describe systems for performing the performance assessments and making the adjustments.

We recommend using a mixture of individual and team assignments in a lecture course rather than having all assignments completed by teams. One obvious reason is to provide another measure of individual accountability. Another is that if there is a lot of dropping and adding in the first one or two weeks of the course, it is better to wait until the class population stabilizes before forming teams.

We also suggest advising teams not to simply meet and complete each assignment together. One team member is usually the fastest problem solver and begins almost every homework problem solution in the group sessions, and the other members then have to figure out how to get the solutions started for the first time on the individual tests, which is not a good time for them to have to do it. We recommend instead that all team members outline solutions individually before meeting to work out the details. On the first few assignments we require team members to sign and hand in their outlines to help them acquire the habit.

Laboratories and Projects

Laboratories and projects may be carried out by teams (as they often are in traditional curricula), except that again the team grades should be adjusted for individual performance.

The problem with team labs and projects as they are normally conducted is that there is no individual accountability at all. The result is the familiar situation in which some team members do the bulk of the work, others contribute little and understand little or nothing about the project, everyone gets the same grade, and resentment abounds. Adjusting the team project grades for individual performance goes a long way toward correcting these injustices. In addition, it is good practice to include some individual testing on every aspect of the project and have the results count toward the final course grade. If this is done, hitchhikers who understand either nothing or only the little they did personally will be penalized and perhaps induced to play a more active role in subsequent work.

Jigsaw

Jigsaw is a cooperative learning structure applicable to team assignments that call for expertise in several distinct areas. For example, in a laboratory exercise, areas of expertise might include experimental design, equipment calibration and opera

Results (Vietnamese) 1:

Cooperative Learning*Richard M. Felder1, and Rebecca Brent21Department of Chemical Engineering, N.C. State University,Raleigh, NC 27695-79052Education Designs, Inc., Cary, NC 27518The term cooperative learning (CL) refers to students working in teams on an assignment or project under conditions in which certain criteria are satisfied, including that the team members be held individually accountable for the complete content of the assignment or project. This chapter summarizes the defining criteria of cooperative learning, surveys CL applications, summarizes the research base that attests to the effectiveness of the method, and outlines proven methods for implementing CL and overcoming common obstacles to its success.IntroductionMany students who have worked in a team in a laboratory- or project-based course do not have fond memories of the experience. Some recall one or two team members doing all the work and the others simply going along for the ride but getting the same grade. Others remember dominant students, whose intense desire for a good grade led them to stifle their teammates’ efforts to contribute. Still others recall arrangements in which the work was divided up and the completed parts were stapled together and turned in, with each team member knowing little or nothing about what any of the others did. Whatever else these students learned from their team experiences, they learned to avoid team projects whenever possible.Cooperative learning is an approach to groupwork that minimizes the occurrence of those unpleasant situations and maximizes the learning and satisfaction that result from working on a high-performance team. A large and rapidly growing body of research confirms the effectiveness of cooperative learning in higher education (1-4). Relative to students taught traditionally—i.e., with instructor- centered lectures, individual assignments, and competitive grading—cooperatively taught students tend to exhibit higher academic achievement, greater persistence through graduation, better high- level reasoning and critical thinking skills, deeper understanding of learned material, greater time on task and less disruptive behavior in class, lower levels of anxiety and stress, greater intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve, greater ability to view situations from others’ perspectives, more positive and supportive relationships with peers, more positive attitudes toward subject areas, and higher self-esteem. Another nontrivial benefit for instructors is that when assignments are done cooperatively, the number of papers to grade decreases by a factor of three or four.Có rất nhiều lý do tại sao hợp tác học tập công trình cũng như nó không. Ý tưởng rằng học sinh tìm hiểu thêm bằng cách làm một cái gì đó hoạt động hơn bởi chỉ cần xem và nghe lâu đã được biết đến để cả hai nhà tâm lý học nhận thức và giáo viên có hiệu quả (5, 6) và hợp tác học tập là bởi bản chất của nó một phương pháp hoạt động. Ngoài ra, hợp tác nâng cao học tập trong một số cách. Yếu sinh viên làm việc cá nhân có khả năng bỏ khi họ gặp khó khăn; làm việc hợp tác, họ tiếp tục đi. Sinh viên mạnh mẽ phải đối mặt với nhiệm vụ giải thích và làm rõ các vật liệu để yếu hơn học sinh thường tìm thấy lỗ hổng trong hiểu biết của riêng mình và điền vào. Sinh viên làm việc một mình có thể có xu hướng để trì hoãn hoàn thành bài tập hoặc bỏ qua* P.A. Mabrouk, ed., học tập tích cực: mô hình từ các phân tích khoa học, hội nghị chuyên đề ACS loạt 970, chương 4, trang 34-53. Washington, DC: Hội hóa học, năm 2007. họ hoàn toàn, nhưng khi họ biết rằng những người khác đang đếm trên chúng, họ có động cơ để làm việc một cách kịp thời.The proven benefits of cooperative learning notwithstanding, instructors who attempt it frequently encounter resistance and sometimes open hostility from the students. Bright students complain about begin held back by their slower teammates; weak or unassertive students complain about being discounted or ignored in group sessions; and resentments build when some team members fail to pull their weight. Knowledgeable and patient instructors find ways to deal with these problems, but others become discouraged and revert to the traditional teacher-centered instructional paradigm, which is a loss both for them and for their students.In this chapter we describe cooperative learning methods that have been proven effective in a variety of instructional settings. We then suggest ways to maximize the benefits of the approach and to deal with the difficulties that may arise when cooperative learning is implemented.What is Cooperative Learning?Several definitions of cooperative learning have been formulated. The one most widely used in higher education is probably that of David and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota. According to the Johnson & Johnson model, cooperative learning is instruction that involves students working in teams to accomplish a common goal, under conditions that include the following elements (7):1. Positive interdependence. Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequences. 2. Individual accountability. All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of all of the material to be learned. 3. Face-to-face promotive interaction. Although some of the group work may be parcelled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging reasoning and conclusions, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another. 4. Appropriate use of collaborative skills. Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills. 5. Group processing. Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future. Cooperative learning is not simply a synonym for students working in groups. A learning exercise only qualifies as cooperative learning to the extent that the five listed elements are present.Cooperative Learning StructuresCooperative learning can be used in for any type of assignment that can be given to students in lecture classes, laboratories, or project-based courses. Following are some of the structures that have been used, with some recommendations for how they may be effectively implemented. (Additional suggestions are given at the conclusion of the chapter.) 2 Problem SetsStudents complete some or most of their homework assignments in teams. The teams are encouraged to include only the names of actual participants on the solution set that they hand in. The students are initially disinclined to leave anyone’s name off, but eventually they get tired of letting nonparticipants (“hitchhikers,” in cooperative learning parlance) get good grades for work they didn’t do and begin to omit names, at which point many hitchhikers—unhappy about getting zeroes on assignments—start cooperating.The team gets a grade for the assignment, but eventually the performance of each team member should be assessed and the results used to adjust the average team homework grade separately for each team member. Adjusting team grades for individual performance is one of the principal ways of assuring individual accountability in cooperative learning, second only in importance to giving individual exams. Later in this chapter we will describe systems for performing the performance assessments and making the adjustments.We recommend using a mixture of individual and team assignments in a lecture course rather than having all assignments completed by teams. One obvious reason is to provide another measure of individual accountability. Another is that if there is a lot of dropping and adding in the first one or two weeks of the course, it is better to wait until the class population stabilizes before forming teams.We also suggest advising teams not to simply meet and complete each assignment together. One team member is usually the fastest problem solver and begins almost every homework problem solution in the group sessions, and the other members then have to figure out how to get the solutions started for the first time on the individual tests, which is not a good time for them to have to do it. We recommend instead that all team members outline solutions individually before meeting to work out the details. On the first few assignments we require team members to sign and hand in their outlines to help them acquire the habit.Laboratories and ProjectsLaboratories and projects may be carried out by teams (as they often are in traditional curricula), except that again the team grades should be adjusted for individual performance.The problem with team labs and projects as they are normally conducted is that there is no individual accountability at all. The result is the familiar situation in which some team members do the bulk of the work, others contribute little and understand little or nothing about the project, everyone gets the same grade, and resentment abounds. Adjusting the team project grades for individual performance goes a long way toward correcting these injustices. In addition, it is good practice to include some individual testing on every aspect of the project and have the results count toward the final course grade. If this is done, hitchhikers who understand either nothing or only the little they did personally will be penalized and perhaps induced to play a more active role in subsequent work.JigsawJigsaw is a cooperative learning structure applicable to team assignments that call for expertise in several distinct areas. For example, in a laboratory exercise, areas of expertise might include experimental design, equipment calibration and opera