Barnett, M.A. In the 1970s they were busy failing at putting them into practice.” Those two sentences by Michael Fullan (1982, p. 5) will produce in many of us an unpleasant little twinge of recognition, particularly since this pattern of failing to implement reforms successfully did not end with the 1970s. Two justifications are frequently heard: first, children enjoy competing and, second, like it or not, they need to learn how to do so. Creating a cooperative learning environment: An ecological approach. Some educators believe they are doing children a favor by having them compete since this will prepare them for the rivalry they will encounter when they leave school. Because I have elsewhere argued that schools can and should play a role in helping children to become good people and not merely good learners (Kohn, 1990, 1991a), I will not attempt to reconstruct such a case here. Some teachers have not bargained for either of these changes. 89).[4]. When this evidence is added to the enormous collection of data showing that competition can undermine both self-esteem and the quality of learning, the case for avoiding win/lose structures altogether — at least in the classroom — grows more compelling. It requires teachers to structure cooperative interdependence among the students. Tjosvold, D. (1983). Rev. Digging deeper into the genesis of cooperative learning, Schmuck (1985) argued that cooperative learning owes much of its early intellectual development to the work of John Dewey and Kurt Lewin, Ronald Lippitt and Morton Deutsch. But even to the extent that some experience with failure is useful, let us remember that failure does not require losing. Such an analysis, moreover, ought to take place while there is still time to address the problems we find. Conversely, while there is plenty of reason to arrange for children to have successful experiences with learning, interpersonal interaction, and so on, there is no reason for their success ever to occur in the context of triumphing over someone else. cooperative learning groups, and cooperative based groups (Johnson & Johnson, 2008). From a distance, those who promote cooperation in the classroom seem distinguished principally by this commitment, particularly when contrasted with the rest of the education field. Models that call for the creation of a caring classroom community, and not merely the teaching of discrete social skills such as listening carefully or making eye contact (e.g., Solomon et al., 1990), would be even more disconcerting to teachers who see such objectives as inappropriate. There is an enormous difference between emphasizing those aspects of teamwork that are likely to have wide appeal and effectively gutting cooperative learning in order to render it innocuous. Generosity in nursery school boys. And if they are required to adopt the new method, even fewer will implement it with a reasonable degree of fidelity (Rich, 1990, p. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Team Learning Project. This can be a frightening prospect to a teacher who is unprepared to evaluate the validity of a novel idea that students inevitably propose” (Stigler and Stevenson, 1991, p. 44). It pulls us into the common world or it fails altogether (Bellah et al. Cooperative learning also increases one's self-esteem, social skills, and study skills. The most obvious response is to water down the change in order to dilute its impact; in the case at hand, this process might be styled “co-opting cooperation.” This option, as should be clear from the foregoing, I want to repudiate explicitly. (1989). Teachers who continue to believe that there is value in having students try to defeat each other can keep competition alive in two ways even while making use of CL. Cooperation and the ideology of individualism in the schools. The second feature of CL identified as potentially discordant with teachers’ values is its emphasis on social goals. They recognize that “socializing” is not something one relegates to recess and lunch, something that distracts from learning; rather, they know that learning proceeds not only from what transpires between student and teacher or between student and text but also from what happens between student and student. Sullivan, A. Swidler, and S.M. Foot, M.J. Morgan, and R.H. Shute. If each student's part is essential, then each student is David and Roger Johnson, brothers who have spent two decades cooperating to research and refine the idea of cooperative learning, have referred to this optimal balance as “constructive controversy,” “creative conflict,” or, more poetically, “friendly excursions into disequilibrium.” Their research suggests that this approach is generally preferred by students to either “concurrence-seeking” or debate, and that it promotes both more effective learning and more interpersonal attraction than the other models (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1986). Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. We’ve all seen it many times: when one student is called on, the other students who have their hands up register their disappointment with a little ‘Oh.’ It’s a structure that sets the kids against each other (S. Kagan in Brandt, 1989/1990, p. 8). Rich’s analysis not only draws out the implication of devaluing social goals, but also reminds us of a fundamental truth: Policy makers, trainers, and theorists cannot change what goes on in classrooms. Teaching and Teacher Education 6 (1), 81-91. Smith. Under these conditions, group members may simply each turn in their share of the project, not necessarily even looking at their partners' work, and move on to the next task. In the long run, there is no substitute for constructive controversy — an ongoing dialogue in the fullest sense of that word — on the subject of the convictions that predispose some people to delete or dilute CL. If in-group efforts don't work, you can put the non-participator on probation, working on a project alone, for the next unit. Cooperative learning also builds an ethnic relation among students creating mutual understanding between them. CL DEMANDS ATTENTION TO SOCIAL GOALS. Different color chips can be used to integrate different types of contributions (brainstorming, critical reflection, etc) throughout the exercise. A. Combs. the groups share a goal and materials. In most cases, it doesn't last. It may be a problem of motivation or immaturity or it may simply be the case that the student is too shy or too passive to get involved with the group. Pantiz (2003) provides a list of techniques that to some extent address both issues: As you observe students engaged in group work, something to watch for is a student on the sidelines or dominating the conversation. The theoretical source of collaborative learning, neo-Piagetian and For Freudians, humans are antisocial by instinct and driven principally by intrapsychic forces; for behaviorists, the laws of learning pertain to the individual organism as it responds to the contingencies of its environment; for humanists, the summum bonum is self-actualization; for developmentalists, maturity and health are typically equated with autonomy and individuation; and so on. Second, dividing a class into teams and announcing that students should work with their groupmates is not sufficient for, much less equivalent to, cooperative learning. This message continues to be learned in classrooms around the nation despite literally hundreds of studies confirming that competition in the classroom not only sabotages relationships and undermines self-confidence but also impedes achievement and long-term interest in learning (Johnson and Johnson, 1989; Kohn, 1992b; Nicholls, 1989). Phi Delta Kappan, March, 496-506. (New York: Basic Books). ——. (“OK, kids, it’s the third Friday of the month. Many students have had little experience or bad experience with criticizing peers or are unwilling to receive criticism in return. While not all teachers who use CL reject competition tout court, it is safe to assume that the more enthusiastic a teacher’s endorsement of the value of setting children against each other in competitions, the greater the likelihood that he or she will be inclined to reject CL.). Kohn, A. They may be lost if CL’s social aspects are not given the appropriate weight and attention. Spring, 12-47. (1992a). Tipton. Cooperation in Education (newsletter of the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education) 5 (1): 4-5. Some proponents take pride in the fact that CL is “easy to sell to teachers because it doesn’t make them change that much of what they do.” Unfortunately, this sales job “sells short both teachers and the process and potential of cooperative learning” (Sapon-Shevin and Schniedewind, 1989/1990, p. 65; also see Sapon-Shevin, 1991). (1989/1990). Incorporating the use of talking chips also promotes contributions by all group members. CL CHALLENGES OUR COMMITMENT TO THE VALUE OF COMPETITION. Cooperative learning is an educational concept that really took off in the early 1990s, and it has evolved ever since. Advocates of CL need to grapple with these aspects of cooperation in the classroom and understand how they may be unsettling to many teachers. But teachers who expect to stay on center stage once children are in groups, teachers who scorn social goals as inappropriate to the classroom, and teachers who are firmly committed to individualistic or competitive arrangements might as well hear from the beginning that CL will rock these expectations and values. 1991, pp. (For an engaging introduction intended for non-specialists, see Gursky [1991].) Educational Leadership, February, 83-87. A sociological critique of individualism in education. ——. and T.D. There is much more to cooperative learning than merely arranging students into groups, and it has been described as "structuring positive interdependence." Similarly, the positive interdependence at the heart of CL — the probability of one child’s success being enhanced by another’s success — is quite different from self-sacrifice. First, and most fundamentally, CL is sometimes regarded as a gimmick to perk up a classroom now and then, offering a break from serious instruction. Some do so deliberately, others inadvertently. Stigler, J.W. In traditional lecture classes, many instructors see success as covering as much material related to the class topic as possible. The predominant experience with cooperation in our society consists of having a group of people work together in order to defeat another group of people. As a new teacher, you are considering using cooperative learning. According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. Caring kids: The role of the schools. Collaborative learning doesn’t just come naturally for most – myself included. It is no longer all about "telling them as m… Remember, that means today we work in teams!”) While teachers doubtless will want to continue making some use of whole-class discussion and individualized work, CL can — and, I would argue, ought to — become the “default” classroom arrangement. 2013). To that extent, any proposal that children should learn cooperatively will strike some teachers as unfamiliar or peculiar (and therefore will be dismissed as “unrealistic,” “idealistic,” or “utopian”) — and even as un-American, radical, and subversive. Male, M. (1989). There is a certain pleasure to be taken from the role of king or queen, even if one’s subjects are very short. The goals for courses which employ cooperative learning are not the same as those for a straight lecture class. CL is not simply a set of techniques. Workshops that cut corners were in existence long before most of us had heard of cooperative learning. As noted above, this approach is probably counterproductive on its own terms since children need to be helped to work together effectively in order to learn from each other. Rutherford, E. and P. Mussen. The jigsaw is a cooperative learning technique with a three-decade track record of successfully increasing positive educational outcomes. But because CL, correctly understood, requires a radical reconceptualization of what learning involves and how the people who spend the day together in a classroom relate to each other, a host of problems and questions inexorably appear. According to Randall, the many benefits of cooperative learning sometimes blind us to its drawbacks. Sometimes, it's the other way around. Building in positive interdependence and individual accountability (which is one of the. It is no longer all about "telling them as much as possible about X." Before concluding these remarks on the rejection of CL, I should note that the extent and intensity of some educators’ resistance cannot be predicted just by understanding CL’s challenge to a teacher’s control of the classroom, to an exclusively academic agenda, to individualism and competition, respectively. Far preferable is a third alternative: inviting disagreement but nesting it in a framework of positive interdependence. What to do about children who resist being in the same group? We love the Kagan cooperative structures & use them all the time in our classrooms K-6. Often a perfectionist student may warn an instructor early on that he or she really cannot deal with group work. For curriculum guides that not only suggest the use of CL but make cooperation and competition topics for study, see Schniedewind and Davidson (1987) and Hierta (1984). Educational Foundations 5 (1991): 5-17. Much of the research on collaborative and cooperative learning is rooted in the work of Piaget and Vygotsky (Dillenbourg et al., 1996). In fact, the psychological benefits of failure are often overrated; the experience quickly becomes redundant and gratuitously punishing. We do not need to antagonize CL’s skeptics gratuitously. Neither, I will argue, is necessary for any conceivable academic or social goal. I regularly meet teachers who shine with generosity of spirit and an instinct for what children need to grow. Cowie, H. and J. Rudduck. Hargreaves here calls our attention to the largely tacit doctrine that the only purpose of schooling is to offer each individual a set of skills. The analogy has its limits, but it captures two features of CL: its demand that the teacher guide students in helping each other to learn (rather than being the only source of ideas and information in the room) and its introduction of uncertainty in place of a predictable progression through a prepared lesson plan. Educational Leadership, December/January, 63-65. Still, both of these structures are supported by an ideological apparatus in our culture, and both are challenged by cooperative learning. (1974). They may evaluate some projects as group efforts, which is what they are. 6. When students in American schools are not separated from each other — and sometimes even when they are — they are set against each other, told in effect that their success comes at the price of someone else’s failure and vice versa. Although Hargreaves offers no specific alternative curricula, his implication is that schooling (and surely CL) would take on an entirely different coloration if its long-range goal was social transformation and not simply the education of a collection of discrete individuals. Second, notwithstanding this comment in the introduction, the manual proceeds to set out the rules for how “students compete” in the tournaments (p. 24; see also Slavin, 1990, ch. Lanzetta, J.T. This essay began by offering an account of what is impeding the successful implementation of CL. From this perspective, cooperative learning could be seen as grossly inefficient, since many instructors see about a 50% reduction in the ground they can cover (McManus, 1996(more info)). Using Student Team Learning. Selling cooperative learning without selling it short. If the solo project doesn't get finished or isn't done well, the nonparticipator should probably continue to work alone for the rest of the term. Ideological impediments to instructional innovation: The case of cooperative learning. The Competitive Ethos and Democratic Education. Without assigning blame, it is possible to treat this problem just like hitchhiking; help the group to restructure their group dynamics by increasing interdependence, social skills procedures, processing, individual accountability, etc. Perhaps another analogy will make the point: The notion that we best prepare children for unpleasant experiences by providing them with unpleasant experiences at a tender age is exactly as sensible as the proposition that because the environment is teeming with carcinogens, children ought to be exposed to as many cancer-causing agents as possible while they are young. Tickwell, England: Education NOW Books. Limited budgets for in-service programs, as for other aspects of public education, also help to account for the reliance on inadequate — and, in the long run, counterproductive — training sessions. Each member that is in the group is responsible for learning the information given, and also for helping their fellow group members learn the information as well. In each case, the task of figuring out the reason for this rejection, if it is undertaken at all, is conducted as a post mortem, by which time a new pedagogical transplant is already underway. Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Co. ——. (1991). The same is true for those wedded to a classroom configuration in which an omnipotent teacher imparts truth to passive student receptacles, and so forth. collaborative learning also involves teachers and, in general, the whole context of teaching. (1987). I have seen many teachers acquire cooperative learning methods and use them in their classes only to abandon them when the consultants left the scene. The International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education Newsletter 7 (5 & 6): 3-4. Cooperative learning: New horizons, old threats. (1987/1988). In my experience, teachers who play games that do not create winners and losers find no less, and often a good deal more, enthusiasm for these activities. For example, socio-constructivists borrow Piaget’s system of developmental stages describing children’s cognitive progress, as well as All they can do is invite teachers to change what goes on in classrooms. British Journal of Educational Studies 28 (3): 187-198. You'll want to make sure his or her former team is not excessively handicapped by having one fewer member. The question we might ask, in other words, is: What profit is there to gaining converts to a reform if we have lost the soul of that reform in the process? Learning from one another: The challenge. (1986). Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. Shy or unconfident students may be able to get involved with help from the rest of the group, so the first attempt to deal with the problem, if you wish to give the student the benefit of a doubt, would be an informal request to the group to make an effort to involve the shy student. We may be confident that not a single graduate of this school, upon entering college or the work force, will suddenly exclaim, “Whoa! (1989). It needs to be taught and practiced over and over again until it becomes like second nature. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Competition signifies mutually exclusive goal attainment, an arrangement in which one person succeeds only if others fail — or, in the stronger variety, only by actively making others fail. It has been estimated, for example, that only five to 10 percent of participants in a CL workshop will continue to use the cooperative approach over time if ongoing coaching and support are absent (Male, 1989). B. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child. In the process, we may turn up deeper, unsettling truths about the ideology of American education. In fact, “competition may serve to suppress generosity to others to a greater extent than cooperation serves to enhance it” (Barnett, Matthews, and Corbin, 1979, p. 93). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. David Hargreaves, an astringent English educational critic who argues that collaborative experiences are largely denied to teachers as well as students because of our ideological commitment to educating separate individuals, offers a startling observation in passing that has the effect of reframing the discussion about CL: We tend to see collective experiences merely as means of giving students a range of social skills, the capacities to ‘get along’ with other people. Tjovsvold, D., D.W. Johnson, and R.T. Johnson. Part of this shift is reflected in the movement toward Whole Language learning, about which much has been written. A larger group (3 or 4) reduces the pressure to get along a little, especially if they are assigned to critically read a different person's work each time. The goals now necessarily include complementing the development of students' analytical skills and critical thinking with social and cooperative skills in order to enhance their ability to work well together. While it’s debatable as to why cooperative learning flew under the radar for so long, it’s undeniably a powerful and effective teaching strategy.. collaborative learning as it relates to learning outcomes at the college level, for students in technology. This behavior is rare, with only about 7% of students riding the group coattail according to Kaufman et al., 1999 . Cooperative learning and staff development. New York: Academic Press. and H.W. 3rd ed. “In the 1960s educators were busy developing and introducing reforms. Like the conversation between a teacher and a pupil, a situation in which “teachers instruct pupils to talk to each other,” specifying what and when and how they may talk, leaves the teacher in control. Students wo… Feshbach, N.D. (1978). Sapon-Shevin (1991) has mischievously referred to this approach as the “hamburger helper” model of cooperative learning. Informal cooperative learning, lasting from a few minutes to one class period, are short-term and ad-hoc groups in which students are required to work together to achieve a shared learning goal. The fact that success and victory are conceptually — and, often, practically — distinct experiences helps to explain why people typically perform better when they are not engaged in competition. In short, there are no compelling reasons to have students try to beat one another — even for a small fraction of their total educational experience. John Huss argues that, while this is a problem, it is not because cooperative learning does not work. students have greater motivation to learn. and B.G. Some children, after all, may be “threatened by group work…as a legitimate way of working and so give a powerful message to the teacher who experiments with a new method” (Cowie and Rudduck, 1990, p. 250). This teaching approach involves placing students in small groups or teams to complete work tasks, projects or tests. (1991). Even if some experience with it were useful, children have more than they could ever need. ——. CL is not tantamount to unanimity, conformity, or the subjugation of the individual. The more pressing question, however, is what to do with a specific reform that is discrepant with the values of some who are being asked to adopt it. For these reasons, CL trainers and teachers typically are skeptical of competition. (1991a). Interpersonal skills include actively listening, stating ideas freely, accepting responsibility and providing constructive criticism. American Educator. Conflict between individuals can diminish or stall a group’s ability to work together, which raises a significant problem when group members are too young to have fully formed conflict-resolution skills. The instructor then hands them out to group members to review anonymously, then returns them to the original author for revision before grading. Johnson, D.W., R.T. Johnson, and K.A. C. Harber and R. Meighan. It may also be necessary to teach students about how to give and receive constructive criticism. Teachers who seek to turn a classroom into a caring community will be hard-pressed to justify any use of competitive activities; if the point is to promote concern and compassion for one another, then the last structure they would adopt, even temporarily, would be one in which students must work at cross-purposes. Sometimes, the student with the problem will be the one to complain to the instructor (that his or her teammates are not pulling their weight). Making children fail in order to teach them to cope — in fact, any use of competition — calls to mind an ironic notice I once saw tacked to a wall in a sixth-grade classroom: The beatings will continue until morale improves. This is, however, comparing apples to oranges. Individual teachers may sometimes decide to turn a cooperative learning experience into an intergroup competition, but the best-known packaged model requiring groups to compete against each other is Teams-Games-Tournament, devised by Robert Slavin and his colleagues. Even when attention is given to the development of children’s social skills and prosocial orientation, this enterprise is “frequently viewed through an instrumental prism of how [these skills] affect academic achievement rather than as schooling goals with inherent legitimacy” (Rich, 1990, p. 83). For predictive purposes, we would also want to know the teacher’s subject matter, the grade level and achievement record of his or her students, and the model of CL to which that teacher had been exposed (Rich, 1990). Cambridge, Mass. It is disappointing when, instead of following their instincts, experience, and data to the logical conclusion, they continue to make use of competitive classroom activities — either alongside CL or as a framework in which to fit CL. Cooperative learning is a learning model in which the students are working together in small groups to help each other to complete a common task (Roger & Johnson, 1994; Siegel, 2005; Slavin, 1983). Arguably, it has failed altogether. Even if this is an overstatement, enough rejection of CL is taking place to warrant a systematic analysis. Consider three common misconceptions that may persist after one has been introduced to the concept in too perfunctory a fashion. The idea of cooperative learning has been around for decades, but it never got to the same prominence as blended learning or differentiated instruction.. And if they are required to participate in the workshop, few of them will arrive at the decision to adopt the new method, assuming they are allowed some choice in the matter, no matter how well the workshop is conducted. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Alliance of Cooperatives. Brandt, R. (1989/1990). If this fails, once again, it may be best to break up the group and let some people work on their own. Ever since conventional curricula and systems of classroom management it becomes like second nature to sure... 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