Cooperative Learning Essay

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Today’s society is a place where there has been a major emphasis on competitiveness and competition. Consequently, it is of little surprise that our education system has been dominated by competitive and individualistic approaches to teaching (Johnson & Johnson, 1987). Unfortunately, competition as it is usually applied in the classroom has spawned environments in which winning is the key focus, where individuals compete for personal gain and success to the detriment of others. However, as society has learned of the negative effects of both competitive and individualistic approaches to learning, we have seen the birth of new, group-based approaches, in particular that of cooperative learning (Slavin, 1996). Cooperative learning has been one of the greatest success stories throughout the history of educational innovation (Slavin, 1999). Having gained widespread acceptance in classrooms worldwide as a strategy with many educational benefits, it is of little surprise to see that cooperative learning is fast becoming a standard part of our educational practice (Cohen, 1994). As such, students are finding themselves a part of the “cooperative classroom” and on a larger scale, the “cooperative school”. The cooperative classroom is one in which students and teachers work together in all activities with a sense of cooperation. Cooperation may be defined as “the willful engaging of one’s self with others through mutual action, ideas, and possibilities” (Samples, 1992, p.33). Having established such a classroom atmosphere, teachers are able to implement an approach to learning known as cooperative learning. Cooperative learning refers to students working together in small groups, without direct teacher supervision, in which everyone is able to participate on an assigned collective task (Cohen, 1994). However, is cooperative learning simply an approach that

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