Opportunities to cooperate (cooperative learning)
Cooperative learning is a strategy that helps to build relationships while increasing academic skills.
Young adolescents need to socialize, be a part of a group, share feelings, receive emotional support, and learn to see things from other perspectives. Cooperative learning groups do not separate students on the basis of class, race, or gender, and the goals of middle schools are consistent with the goals of cooperative learning theories.1
Building consensus and resolving issues is an important skill for adolescents.
Cooperative goal structuring increases student achievement in middle grades. Research examined ways to enhance early adolescents’ positive relationships and increased academic achievement. The finding specified that when middle grades teachers implemented cooperative goal structures in learning situations, the following results occurred:
- Higher achievement for students
- Greater positive peer relationships
This research also indicated that the more successful students are in building positive peer relationships, the more likely these students are to achieve academic success.
Cooperative goal structures in the classroom require students to interact while working on academic assignments, thus building relationships while making academic progress. A cooperative goal structure exists when students perceive that they can reach their goals if and only if the other students with whom they are cooperatively linked also reach their goals. When goals are structured cooperatively, students tend to seek outcomes that are beneficial to all students with whom they are cooperatively linked.
Cooperative goal structures are applicable to school-related achievement and social goals. Examples of school-related achievement goals include mastering subject matter or meeting an achievement standard, such as earning an “A,” a 100 percent on a test, or striving for a 4.0 grade point average. Examples of school-related social goals include gaining approval from others, making personal relationships with peers, gaining a sense of belonging (i.e., feeling included, liked, respected, accepted, and supported), and being dependable and responsible.
This 2008 research reviewed 148 independent research studies comparing the relative effectiveness of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goal structures. These studies represented over eight decades of research on over 17,000 early adolescents, ages 12–15 years in grades 6–9. To learn more about this research, view Promoting Early Adolescents’ Achievement and Peer Relationships: The Effects of Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Goal Structures (PDF; Outside Source).
In the Spotlight
Kennedy Middle School, El Centro Elementary School District, a 2005 Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage Model School
Staff members at Kennedy plan frequent lunch activities that engage both students and teachers in fun competitions, skits, and food festivals. Students appreciate seeing their teachers join with them in fun activities that bond them in teams or in challenges.
One of the state-adopted science textbooks, Methods of Teaching: Applying Cognitive Science to Promote Student Learning, lists nine core concepts of instruction based on cognitive research findings. One concept is that human beings learn best in cooperation with other human beings when they use information they find to be personally meaningful. The authors suggest having students communicate using technology to encourage working together and using each other's expertise to check homework and prepare for tests.2
Other resources on cooperative learning are noted below.
Related Links
- Cooperative Learning, California Department of Education.
- Cooperative Learning: College of Education + Human Development (Outside Source), University of Minnesota.
- Cooperative Learning Institute And Interaction Book Company (Outside Source).
- Cooperative Learning Is a Brain Turn-On (Outside Source), March 2007, Volume 38, Number 4, Middle School Journal, Association for Middle Level Education.
- Jigsaw classroom (Outside Source).
- The Cooperative Learning Network (Outside Source).
- The New Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom and School (Outside Source), David W. Johnson, Roger T. Johnson and Edythe Johnson Holubec. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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Relationships with Peers
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Relationship building through student clubs and connections
Footnotes
1Jeanie M. Dotson, Cooperative Learning Structures Can Increase Student Achievement, Kagan Publishing & Professional Development, 2001.
2Preston D. Feden and Robert M. Vogel, "Methods of Teaching: Applying Cognitive Science to Promote Student Learning". Columbus, Ohio: McGraw-Hill, 2002.