Cooperative Learning and Its Importance and Elements

The educational process has evolved greatly over the past years, and certainly this development has been accompanied by an evolution in strategies, techniques, and methods of education, and cooperative learning is only one of these modern methods of learning, which is the subject of our article.

First: What is cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning is a method of organizing social interaction inside and outside the classroom. Through it, the goals of the educational process are fully achieved, and it is one of the alternatives that the teacher uses for classroom dealing. The application of this method is not limited to a specific class or a specific age, rather it can be applied to all ages.

When applying this method, the students sit in the circular session, and the method of dialogue and discussion is adopted to achieve the desired educational learning results, and the students do not rely on the teacher, but rather they cooperate with each other.

Cooperative learning can then be defined as a learning method that relies on dividing students into several heterogeneous groups, and within each group are students of different cognitive levels. The number of members of one group ranges between 4 and 6 students. The members of each group cooperate to achieve common educational goals.

Second: The benefits of cooperative learning

Cooperative learning has many benefits that can be summarized in a group of points, which we will enumerate as follows:

• Increased achievement: 19 out of 27 studies conducted on cooperative education indicated an increase in student achievement, and the students explained through these studies that they prefer group learning, as it gives everyone the opportunity to feel success and self-respect, and this method enables them to present their ideas and express their different points of view on a particular topic.
• Fostering collective attitudes: Class groups allow students to exchange ideas, explain points of view, and ask questions without fear. It also gives them the opportunity to help each other and assume the responsibilities imposed on them, in addition to providing mechanisms for social communication.

The cooperative learning method addresses individual differences, whether in terms of motives, attitudes, or ability. This method also creates a sentimental and emotional atmosphere for students who do not want or like to participate in front of the class. This method reduces the atmosphere of the authoritarian classroom, which causes anxiety to many students, and prevents them from expressing their opinions and points of view.

The development of cooperation, communication, and interaction skills is one of the important things achieved by this method, which prepares students to work in the future within cooperative frameworks, especially in this era when the focus on working within teams and groups has become clear and essential.

Advantages of cooperative learning:

In addition to the previous benefits, the cooperative learning method has many advantages, the most important of which is satisfying the basic needs of students, such as the need to perform tasks that challenge their capabilities, that is, the need for achievement. This type of learning deserves the effort that the teacher makes to achieve greater satisfaction for the students, and also satisfies their need for appreciation and love, belonging, and empathy, and helps the students carry out their tasks in different circumstances, and then satisfies their need for change and difference and to break out of the ordinary

Also, cooperative learning helps underachieving students, as it spares them the feeling of failure. One of the advantages of the cooperative learning method is also helping students to form friendships because it gives them the opportunity to get to know each other, develops their communication skills, and teaches them how to provide assistance and support and how to learn from each other. Also, we will not forget the great role of this type of learning in increasing the student’s confidence in themselves and others.

Third: Elements of cooperative learning

Cooperative learning consists of a set of elements, as follows:

1. Positive Connection:

The members of the same group should work together as one person. If they fail, they all fail, and if they succeed, they all succeed. The teacher must give a specific collective goal, and all individuals must make an effort to achieve it. Also, they must keep in mind that the effort they make is not only for them, but rather, it is an effort made to serve the group. Only in this way positive dependence is achieved, as positive connection leads to a kind of connection between the success of others and the success of an individual, and in fact this is the essence of cooperative learning.

2. Individual and collective accountability:

Each team or group is responsible for fully performing its tasks, and each member of this group must also be responsible for performing the work entrusted to them, as it is not fair to take the fatigue, effort, and success of others. Therefore, each must be subject to individual accountability when the process of evaluating the performance of group members takes place, and in the end the results of these evaluations are returned to both the individual and the group to provide support and assistance to those who need it to complete their mission.

3. Enhanced interaction:

This interaction occurs when the students praise each other's performance and efforts in a way that stimulates and encourages the learning process. In this method of learning, which is an educational support system, each member of the group is obligated to support and help others; That is, students support each other.

4. Teaching students personal and social skills:

Cooperative learning groups are not limited to learning academic subjects, rather, cooperative learning contributes to learning many personal and social skills so that they can integrate into one group and participate in teamwork. Group members must know a lot about effective leadership skills, decision-making, communication, conflict management, and other skills necessary for the success of cooperative learning groups in the long term. Of course, it is the responsibility of teachers to teach students teamwork skills effectively and accurately, as they do when teaching other educational skills.

5. Feedback:

Each group needs at the end of its work to discuss the extent of success in achieving the goals or tasks required of it to evaluate the work of individuals, to describe the extent of each individual's participation, and then to take appropriate decisions regarding the wrong behaviors that must be changed and the good ones that must be continued. A process of analysis and refutation must take place for the work of the group members. This is to ensure the continuity of the learning process.

Fourth: When does cooperative learning become bad?

There are many factors that impede the implementation of collaborative learning as required, distance it from its desired goal, and make it bad and inappropriate to improve the educational process. These factors include:

1. Classroom climate: The classroom climate must be calm and disciplined in order to help the success of collaborative work. Noise and chaos are things that distract students from their tasks and work, and cause tension inside the classroom. This will certainly reflect negatively on students’ performance and their learning.
2. Limited class time: Collaborative work takes more time than other methods. This forces the teacher to occupy the next class, and in many cases some groups finish their work and tasks before others, so they start talking with other groups. In this case, if the teacher is not able to manage the work, cooperative learning will become bad.
3. The size of the classroom and its compatibility with this method of learning: If the size of the classroom is not appropriate and the number of students is large, this will negatively affect the learning process, and the large number of students makes it difficult for the teacher to divide the class into groups, and the presence of many groups makes it difficult for everyone to follow up, and difficult for the teacher to adjust the groups.
4. Motivation: In order for cooperative learning to be successful, students must have a commitment to work and the ability to carry out their tasks on their own, otherwise this method will not achieve much benefit.

Disadvantages of cooperative learning:

In the same context, we will enumerate the most negative aspects of cooperative learning which affect the course of the educational process:

1. Teaching small groups is more difficult than teaching a class without dividing it up. This is due to the complexity of class management issues.
2. Students’ keeping pace with each other is necessary for the success of this method, but at the same time it is difficult. Some students will have less energy than others and a low ability to work, and this of course hinders the work of the team.
3. Inability to integrate: If group members cannot integrate, they will not be able to learn, and many may leave the task before completing it.
4. It differs from what students are accustomed to doing individually: This is what makes group work difficult for them, and applying the saying “one for all” is not an easy matter.
5. Students with high achievement should give the correct answers, and they should also teach students with less achievement so that the process will be more successful, and this is difficult and requires the development of many skills.

Fifth: The role of the teacher in cooperative learning

The teacher today is no longer, as in the past, "the only source of information and prompter of knowledge", rather they have turned into a guide. In the collaborative learning method, the teacher is the planner and it is their responsibility to evaluate and implement, divide the class into equal groups, and support group members to carry out the educational tasks assigned to them, in addition to teaching them social and communication skills and giving them special instructions and the rules of cooperative learning strategies. The role of the teacher in planning appears through the following aspects: reviewing the objectives, determining the number of members of each group, and defining the role of each individual within the group to achieve the element of positive connection.

In implementation, the role of the teacher appears by defining and explaining the tasks of the academic group, working to ensure interaction, using social skills in achieving goals, and choosing appropriate behaviors to show cooperation in the best way between groups.

In terms of support, the teacher must always be present to provide assistance and guidance and monitor the work of group members to ensure that they show good development and performance. As for class management, the teacher must organize the classroom environment to adapt to the educational reality, and they must also contribute to establishing social relationships between students and teaching them leadership skills and the basics of teamwork, and the teacher must evaluate the work and work to correct errors to ensure its continuity and improvement.

Sixth: Group Learning Objectives

Group learning has a set of goals. We will mention the most important of which we as follows:

1. Teaching students to take responsibility and create a spirit of cooperation among them.
2. Allowing each student to show their mental strength and to express their opinions freely.
3. Introducing students to the correct way of making decisions and solving problems.
4. Developing students' communication skills.
5. Spreading the culture of helping others and teaching students to trust themselves and others.
6. Honest competition to explode the students' creative energies.
7. Gaining new experiences, getting to know other people's points of view, listening to them, and discussing them rationally and politely.
8. Developing students' talents and their reasoning skills.

In conclusion:

The cooperative learning strategy is one of the strategies that make learning more enjoyable for students, and thus more useful and capable of communicating information. In our article, we got acquainted with this strategy, its most important benefits and advantages, and we also touched on its negatives.