The Benefits Of Cooperative Learning

Cooperative learning is learning that occurs when students work in small groups to help each other learn (educational psychology). Throughout my years in the U.S. educational system, I have taken part in cooperative learning system. At times, I have found that it works very well each group member contributes information to the project or the worksheet and we learn off of each other. Other times, I have found that cooperative leaning doesn’t work. I will go in to more detail about why the cooperative learning does and does not work later in this paper. First, I would like to go in to more detail about what cooperative learning is.

Like I stated above cooperative learning is when students are put into groups to help each other learn the material

First, I will talk about how cooperative learning is good for students. According to Starting Point Teaching Entry Level Geoscience, cooperative learning studies have shown higher achievement, higher-level reasoning, more frequent generation of new ideas and solutions, and great transfer of what is learned from on situation to another. Cooperative learning has also shown higher test schools than traditional classes. Another way cooperative learning can produce a positive outcome in students is by mixing students up with students that are different. For example, a teacher can put highly skilled students with lower skilled students together which allows the lower skilled students to learn how the higher skilled student do their work, how they think, and the process they use to figure out problems this type of grouping is called heterogeneous ability. Teachers can also mix up their groups by putting students with different ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender together. By doing this you will be exposing students to improve interpersonal relations among students from different ethnic and socioeconomic

The first reason why cooperative learning doesn’t work for everyone I can relate to. Some students like to work alone (educational psychology), I found when I was forced to work in groups I was less active than if I was working on the assignment alone. While putting higher skilled students with lower skilled students together this might help the lower skilled students some feel that grouping these two together might hold back the higher skilled students. I have also been in groups that when the work is given to use we simply don’t do the work. We would rather sit around and socialize than do the work. I believe this happens a lot with cooperative learning when students are put with their friends in the groups. According to wcer.wisc.edu, cooperative learning can have a downfall when a student tries to take over the group. This doesn’t allow all the students to participate in the work and the power isn 't balanced which could cause problems when working in groups. Another problem that the cooperative learning system might have is the people in the group don’t get along. I could see this as a problem in higher grades such as 9th-12th grade because when students don’t like each other in high school it is very difficult to get them to work together to successfully complete a task. Lastly, one of the most common problem I saw when working in groups is students will be take part in “social