Philosophers and psychologists in the 1930s and 1940s such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Morton Deutsh also influenced the cooperative learning theory practiced today.
[15] Dewey believed it was important that students develop knowledge and social skills that could be used outside of the classroom, and in the democratic society.
In 1975, they identified that cooperative learning promoted mutual liking, better communication, high acceptance and support, as well as demonstrated an increase in a variety of thinking strategies among individuals in the group.
In 1994 Johnson and Johnson published the five elements (positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, social skills, and processing) essential for effective group learning, achievement, and higher-order social, personal and cognitive skills (e.g., problem solving, reasoning, decision-making, planning, organizing, and reflecting).
[19][20] Morton Deutsch extended Lewin's notions by examining how the tension systems of different people may be interrelated.
[21][22] Formal cooperative learning is structured, facilitated, and monitored by the educator over time and is used to achieve group goals in task work (e.g. completing a unit).
Any course material or assignment can be adapted to this type of learning, and groups can vary from 2-6 people with discussions lasting from a few minutes up to an entire period.
[23] In group-based cooperative learning, these peer groups gather together over the long term (e.g. over the course of a year, or several years such as in high school or post-secondary studies) to develop and contribute to one another's knowledge mastery on a topic by regularly discussing material, encouraging one another, and supporting the academic and personal success of group members.
[28] Firstly, when designing cooperative learning tasks and reward structures, individual responsibility and accountability must be identified.
[29] Among the easy to implement structures are think-pair-share, think-pair-write, variations of Round Robin, and the reciprocal teaching technique.
[31] Originally developed by Frank T. Lyman (1981),[32] think-pair-share allows students to contemplate a posed question or problem silently.
[36] In a model that allows for student pairs to participate in a dialogue about text, partners take turns reading and asking questions of each other, receiving immediate feedback.
For instance, it was found that children who were taught using this strategy showed higher levels of accuracy in mathematical computations in comparison with those who were not.
Each group has differentiated questions that increase in cognitive demands to allow students to progress and meet the learning objective.
TGT is an effective technique of cooperative learning wherein groups are created that function in the class for a period of time.
[7] The disadvantages are that it is time consuming for new teachers, requires adequate facilities and infrastructure, and can create confusion in the classroom.
[25] The positive outcomes include academic gains, improved race relations and increased personal and social development.
[44] Cooperative learning has also been found to increase attendance, time on task, enjoyment of school and classes, motivation, and independence.
[28] Student perceptions of each other are enhanced when given the opportunity to work with one another, it increases self-esteem and self-concept, and ethnic and disability barriers are broken down, allowing for positive interactions and friendships to occur.
Because cooperative learning is constantly changing, there is a possibility that teachers may become confused and lack complete understanding of the method.
[15] Students often provide feedback in the form of evaluations or reviews on success of the teamwork experienced during cooperative learning experiences.
The more crucial elements include past bad experiences, group fatigue due to overuse of cooperative learning and whether they prefer to work alone.
Ironically, some of the students most indignant about "slackers" or "freeloaders" make immediate assumptions about their peers and insist from the outset that they will have to take care of everything in order to maintain control.
Therefore, to make groups more effective, the most important thing an instructor can do to defuse student resistance to cooperative learning is to focus attention on the issue of "fairness.
"[55]In order for students not to develop group hate the instructors must be very aware of this process and take steps to insure that the project is fair.
Research has highlighted concerns that in a cooperative learning settings, some students may depend heavily on others in the group who have a stronger grasp of the materials.
"For most instructors, one of the greatest pedagogical challenges for a group communication course is to help students realize that the benefits of cooperative learning outweigh the costs involved".
[64] Feichtner and Davis stated that this is because "entirely too many students are leaving the classroom experiencing only the frustrations of cooperative learning and not the numerous benefits possible through team based effort".
From the (often blind) viewpoint of instructors, we had always viewed cooperative learning as an added advantage for the students – an opportunity to receive additional support while working closely with their peers.
The conditions for constructive individualistic efforts are: for cooperation to be too costly, difficult or cumbersome because of the unavailability of skilled potential co-operators or the unavailability of the resources need for cooperation to take place; for the goal to be perceived as important, relevant, and worthwhile; for the participants to expect that they will be successful in achieving their goals; for the directions for completing the tasks to be clear and specific, so participants can proceed and evaluate their work without further clarification; and for accomplishments to be used subsequently in a cooperative effort.