What Is Cooperative Learning

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In this assignment I will review literature and research on the impact of group work in developing learning in the mathematics classroom.

Theoretical approaches to group work

When discussing the theoretical approaches that underpin the use of group work in the classroom, I will attribute the majority of my focus to the history and development of the constructivist approach and the social learning theory. The idea of constructivism was to provide an environment centred around the learner which encouraged communication, innovativeness and cooperation when developing knowledge and reasoning, a place where questions are valued (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). It is important to establish at this stage, whilst we shall be discussing learning cooperatively, that constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs when the learner constructs their own knowledge and understanding. The subject must directly participate in the learning process and learning will not happen if information is simply disclosed by one person and received by another. Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge, not simply the receivers (Nahalka, 2003). Constructivism recognises that as teachers, it is important to provide pupils with a personal and challenging experience and to ensure that collaboration between a partnership or a group arises. This interaction is instrumental in allowing pupils to desert individual ideas and concepts. It becomes the teacher’s role to moderate and challenge, in order to enable pupil’s ideas in the light of the new experience (Ollerenshaw and Ritchie, 1995). The teacher’s role is not merely to convey to students information about mathematics. One of the teacher’s primary responsibilities is to facilitate profound cognitive restructuring and conceptual reorganizations.’ (Cobb, 1988: 89)

A valued contributor to the constructivist approach to teaching has been Ernst von Glasersfeld, whose radical constructivism still is at the heart of debate amongst today’s theorists. Von Glaserfeld studied the works of Jean Piaget and developed the view that knowledge is purely subjective, paying particular focus on individual self-regulation and the building of conceptual structures through reflection and abstraction. According to von Glasersfeld, knowledge is constructed when an individual learns to see their problem as that of their own, and something that must be overcome to progress towards their goal (Von Glasersfeld’s, 1989) 

‘Constructivism is a theory of knowledge with roots in philosophy, psychology cybernetics. It asserts two main principles whose application has far reaching consequences for the study of cognitive development and learning, as well as for the practice of teaching, psychotherapy and interpersonal management in general. The two principles are: knowledge is not passively received but actively built up by the cognising subject; the function of cognition is adaptive and serves the organisation of the experimental world, not the discovery of ontological reality.’

 (von Glasersfeld, 1989 quoted from Jaworski, 1994: 15-16)

He argues that knowledge is not passively received but actively built up by the cognizing subject and that people develop their individual view of the world alone.

On the other side of the spectrum far removed from this individualistic approach would be the theory of social constructivism. This emphasizes the role of culture and context in developing personal and shared interpretations and understanding of reality. This was famously adopted by Lev Vygotsky in the early twentieth century. He observed that;

 "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals." (Vygotsky, 1978: pg 57)

Thus according to Vygotsky, social interaction is a fundamental aspect of successful cognitive and intellectual growth. A concept is first presented to a child socially, either by a parent, peer or teacher, later to appear inside the child through the process of internalisation.( ) He places great emphasis on dialogue and other interaction between the learners. One of the key elements of Vygotsky’s work was the development of the concept of a zone of proximal development (ZPD). Vygotsky defined this zone as

‘the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance with peer collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978 : p.86).

In other words, a student is able to perform certain tasks better under adult guidance or with peer collaboration. Vygotsky was not alone with his position on socio-learning, Bruner (1966) emphasised the importance of the social nature of learning. He believed that learning within a social environment would provide the structure and stimulus for person to learn. An interesting reasoning was that human lives are not lived in isolation (Royer, 2004).

With two clear conflicting ideologies between an individualistic (subjective) and a socio cultural (inter subjective) approach, it beckons the question which theory you adopt. The focus on the answer to such a question has led to the structuring and enhancement of the field. Jaworski (1994) indicates that in today’s modern society there tends to be a movement from a radical to a social view and draws comparison with the move from a Piagetian to a Vygotskian view of learning (Jaworski, 1994: 25).

Although Cobb made an influential case for coordinating socio cultural and cognitive constructivist perspectives, proposing

"that the adoption of one perspective or another should be justified in terms of its potential to address issues whose resolution might contribute to the improvement of students’ education" (Cobb, 1994, p.18). 

In conclusion a teacher should make a decision on what approach to adopt, based on how it would best fit their students.

What is Cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning is a teaching approach with small mixed groups, will the aim that all participants benefit from the interaction. There is a substantial amount of literature methods and techniques which consider such factors as group ability, success and the awarding of this success. According to Slavin (1988) cooperative learning covers learning methods in which students work in small groups ( generally 4-6 students) and group success is awarded in different ways. Both group rewards and individual accountability are necessary for cooperative methods to be most effective. Group rewards with individual accountability means that each individual is rewarded only when others in his or her group also succeed, which prevents high achievers from dominating the work. Thus, cooperative group work that incorporates both group rewards and individual accountability not only forces students to take responsibility for their own mastery of the material, but also makes the students responsible for their classmates’ mastery. However, according to (Christison, 1990) cooperative learning is a classroom learning approach which is used to increase motivation and retention, to help students to develop positive thoughts about themselves and their friends , to develop students ability to solve problems and think critically and to help the student develop cooperative skills.  

The main aim of cooperative learning is to install the mentality that the group is working together to increase their own and their friends learning to the top level and not to encourage competition. Competition adopts a win-lose situation where superior students win all the rewards and recognition while low-achieving students are left demotivated with nothing to show for the lesson. In contrast everyone benefits from a cooperative learning environment. Students help each other and in doing so build a supportive community which raises the performance level of each member (Kagan 1986) and this in turn leads to higher self-esteem in all students (Webb 1982).   Each member of the group should help all the other members to learn. (Reeve, 1996) believes there are psychosocial benefits to be gain when students work together. According to Reeves students can be increasing engaged and find significant enjoyment when social interaction is integrated into their learning experience. In order to carry out cooperative learning successfully, the group must have a purpose, and all the students in the group should undertake responsibility to achieve the aim of the group. In this approach, students should combine their own efforts with those of their friends in the group because the essence of this approach is "either we swim together or we sink together". No matter what his/her success level is, every student should believe that he does what he can to contribute to the success of the group. Every group member should be aware of the concept of commitment of aim and commitment of success. "In this method, the group members should be in face to face interaction. This interaction is obtain by helping each other, giving feedback, relying on each other, discussing and encouraging each other" ( Johnson and Johnson, 1989). For communication and social skills, students should be taught the required small group skills and interpersonal skills. Such as leadership, decision making, trustworthiness, communicating and resolving conflict skills. If these skills are not present in the student, cooperative study cannot be achieved. Also, no matter what level the students’ ability and competence levels are, their contributions to the group should be appreciated. Students should be given the opportunity to show themselves at the subject they are good at. Slavin(1992) emphasizes that

"Students will learn from one another because in their discussions of the content, cognitive conflicts will arise, inadequate reasoning will be exposed, disequilibrium will occur, and higher quality understandings will emerge". 

What makes a successful group?

In this chapter I shall discuss just a selection of the many opinions around what makes a successful group. I shall begin with one of my oldest readings, David and Roger Johnson (1975) created a list of five conditions they believed made a successful group work these were; positive interdependence, face to face interaction, individual and group accountability, interpersonal and small-group skills and group processing. They believed that this "instructional arrangement" would allow a group of two to six students the opportunity to work together and learn cooperatively. They believed that through this collaboration students could build on their knowledge. Moving away from the necessary arrangement of a group, there has been a significant amount of work analysing the power of communication within a lesson. Mercer (1995) argued that thinking and communicating were inseparable in effective classroom talk. His view was derived from a modern interpretation of Vygotsky’s view of learning. Mercer argued that learning with in the ZPD with the MKO is based on children having to explain and justify their decisions to each other – the characteristics of exploratory talk. Mercer has been supported by Courtas (2007) who discussed the necessity that a teacher encourages constructive talk in a lesson. Courtas believed that talk was instrumental in engaging students in their learning and allowed for pupils to build interpersonal relationships in the classroom. Courtas understood that the impact that of such conversations did not just have a cognitive result, but that it had far greater psychological and social result.

"The psychological and social impact of talk can have a particularly dramatic impact on pupil motivation, particularly in challenging classrooms, because talk boots children’s self-esteem and helps to establish relationships based on respect. If it is structured effectively, talk can help the teacher relax and bring the fun and pleasure back into any classroom." (V. Courtas (2007) Constructive Talk in Challenging Classrooms, Routledge p66.)

Courtas understood that talk could have a positive psychological effect on pupils if planned correctly, otherwise the lesson could have the adverse result, making constructive learning a rather difficult task. Although Vygotsky developed the concept of constructive learning, he did not provide a model or an idea of how it could be instrumented in the classroom. So in all his hardwork he may have succeeded in convincing todays teachers that cooperative learning is a very beneficial practice, but he left its application totally open to discussion. This has led to interesting developments, but the most significant is the idea of scaffolding proposed by Wood, Brunner and Ross (1976), to provide a way of maintaining a correct balance of providing support as the more knowledgeable partner, when implementing Vygotsky’s ZPD. Scaffolding was defined as 'those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner’s capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence' (Wood et al, 1976:p.90). In simpler terms, scaffolding reduces freedom in which a child has to cope, in order to direct attention to a particular problem, rather like adding stabilisers on a bike. The idea is that over time the child’s confidence increases and they become less reliant on the more knowledgeable other. Whilst using this model it is important for the MKO to prevent the chid from regressing, it is knowing the children and what they are capable of, knowing when to remove the scaffolding and how they will cope on their own (Brunner, 1978). This idea of scaffolding can be applied to students talking within a group, if you encourage the student to start from what they already know about a subject, they feel more involved and confident, it is the teachers role to adopt such a technique. If the teacher can structure and organise a lesson that involves constructivist learning within groups, then this is the most organic form of learning and child development (M. Neamen, M. Strong 2001).Group work allows for children to learn from each other, question each other.

"Small group learning can have an enormous impact on pupil self-confidence as the pupils realise that both their own experience and their existing knowledge are valuable in assimilating new ideas. Group work thus changes and improves relationships in the classroom and helps pupils to understand that learning is a collaborative process." (Courtas (2007):p.54)

Is group work in Mathematics effective?

We have discussed the values of group work in general, but to conclude my studies one needs to judge its impact solely in Mathematics. A study into the development of high order mathematics by Peterson (1988) suggested that teaching approaches should place greater weight on problem solving and active learning and recommended that pupils should work in small cooperative peer groups. However, Peterson also encouraged student independence and self-direction. (Jaworski, 1994). It may be best to visit more recent studies, Brodie (2000) discussed the effect of cooperative learning in a mathematical classroom.

‘Peer interaction…Is seen to provide support for the construction of mathematical meaning by pupil, since it allows more time and space for pupil talk and activity. However, as with any teaching strategy, working with small groups is not unproblematic. Pupils might struggle to communicate with and hence learn from each other, and might reinforce rather than challenge mathematical misconceptions.’ (Brodie (2000:p9) Like Peterson, Brodie resisted on given a definitive answer on if group learning provided an overall benefit to students in a mathematical environment. One has looked further and struggled to find and definitive research on group work in Mathematics in particular. However there are two areas of research that have not been the focus of group work but which include group work processes and which may offer some perspectives on the subject specific issues in within class groupings. One is thinking skills and the other is assessment for learning, both of which require within-class group work since one key element of thinking skills work is collaborative inquiry and feedback and in assessment for learning, peer assessment is a central element. In the primary thinking skills work, Robertson (2002) reports on pupils' constructs of what helps them to learn in numeracy and noted that children are expected to express ideas, explanations and reasons, offer suggestions, agree and disagree with peers, ask questions and reflect on their own learning. Pupils as young as 5-6 years of age were able to give reasons of why these processes helped them, e.g. 'If you listen, you hear your friends' ideas and that gives you some and then you can help to solve the problem' (p.59). These pupils were observed during numeracy lessons to listen to their peers and give explanations in pairs and small groups. They saw the relevance of numbers to their everyday life (e.g. shopping, cards) and were concerned to 'get it right' which they believed that they were more likely to do if they worked together on it. This perspective of 'getting it right' may be more prevalent in mathematics than some other subjects and later develops into learning valid procedures and understanding the concepts on which they are based (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2003). A similar approach was adopted by Webb and colleagues (Webb, 1991; Webb & Farivar, 1999; Webb & Mastergeorge, 2003) in mathematics classes in secondary and middle schools in the United States. Webb found that helping, explaining and supporting skills used in group conversations were associated with higher levels of attainment, and that pupils could be provided training programmes (in their classes) to enhance these skills.

To conclude the literature and research seem to support the use of group work in a classroom environment. Although literature is unclear if a cooperative learning approach is a benefit to the teaching of mathematics. However, one believes that the effectiveness of group work is not dependent upon the curriculum area, but rather the preparation put into the lesson, and the understanding of the teacher.

"When students participate in engaging learning activities in well-designed, supportive cooperative groups, their affective filters are not blocking the flow of information. When you plan your group so that each member’s strengths have authentic importance to the ultimate success of the group’s activity, you have created a situation where individual learning styles, skills, and talents are valued, and students shine in their own way and learn from each other in the areas where they are not an expert. They call on each other’s guidance to solve compelling problems and develop their interpersonal skills by communicating their ideas to partners". (Toga & Thompson, 2003)