How To Use Cooperative Learning Successfully

For the past few years, teachers have used cooperative learning as a means for teaching concepts, allowing students to actively participate, and giving students individual responsibilities. When this strategy is used correctly, it can promote great success in the classroom and enhance learning. Research has proven that when students are able to work collaboratively, creative thinking, problem solving, and applicable learning will occur.
The key to this strategy being successful relies on the planning by the teacher. Whenever the teacher takes the time to prepare the various assignments for each group and each individual student with each group, the outcomes can be quite significant. Instead of lecturing the students every day or assigning individual students class assignments, cooperative learning can provide experiences among the students that will promote discussions and that can include the students as contributors to the learning process.
Group Members Work as a Team
Whenever organizing cooperative learning groups, it is essential to plan prior to the day of the activity you want the groups to do. Many teachers believe that the groups should include a mix of student abilities. Placing students of different learning levels together can sometimes help those with lower levels improve their understanding of concepts being taught. With the right guidance, a teacher can motivate the students to work as a team and, in many cases, to respect each other whenever it comes to offering ideas.
There can also be times when the cooperative teams can be created spontaneously. This is especially true whenever the teacher is experiencing a teachable moment that may have arisen during a discussion. Even in this situation, the teacher can still create the groups according to different abilities. He can also organize the teams according to similar interests or opinions. The students will benefit in learning that working with others produces solutions and ideas that can be different or may be similar.
Monitor the Teams
One essential ingredient to the success of cooperative learning is the teacher’s role during the activity. It is very important that the students understand that the teacher is very interested in what they are discussing and accomplishing during the activity. Thus, monitoring each team throughout the time period becomes significant. Teachers who walk around and listen to what the students are discussing send a positive signal that they are interested in learning about their ideas.
Monitoring also means that teachers must not interfere during the group interaction. The purpose of the group observations is to insure that all members are contributing during the activity. The teacher may intervene whenever he observes that a student is withdrawn from the team discussion or there is misbehavior occurring during the team’s work time. In most cases, whenever the teacher has planned the cooperative learning task well, the students will be engaged in completing the task set before them as a team.
Set Time Limits
It is important that teachers organize a cooperative learning activity around time limits. Usually the periods of time for an activity are linked with the time linked with the explanation of the task and teams, the team work time, and the closing time once groups have completed what was assigned. Time limits also allow for a more organized lesson and can motivate teams to follow steps that must be followed in order for a goal to be reached.
The teacher should spend about five to 10 minutes explaining the activity and who the teams will be. Then the students should work during the majority of the time of the scheduled time for the subject. A closing time then is used in order to bring the teams back to the large class group. This is when the teacher can listen to the findings of the team, summarize what had been accomplished during the scheduled time, and announce the next step linked with the lesson being taught.
Cooperative learning can be a very successful experience for students. In many cases, cooperative learning can be linked with various types of activities which students must complete each day. Instead of certain tasks being independent work activities, the teacher can group the students so that they might learn in a collaborative environment. Whenever the teacher plans the cooperative learning activity and includes good team organization, ongoing team monitoring, and time limits which allow the greater time to teams working together, he will observe his students participating in interactive learning.

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