What makes cooperative learning work johnson

Formal Cooperative Learning. David W. Edythe Johnson Holubec is a private consultant in Taylor, Texas. Member Book. Better Behavior Practices Print Book. By Ariel Tichnor-Wagner et al. About In this book, David and Roger Johnson and Edythe Johnson Holubec reinforce the cooperative learning theories found in Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom and expand those theories to include the school and school district.

Table of contents Dedication. If one fails, all fail. If there is no positive interdependence, there is no cooperation. The second essential element of cooperative learning is individual and group accountability. The group must be accountable for achieving its goals. The group has to be clear about its goals and be able to measure a its progress in achieving them and b the individual efforts of each of its members.

Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual in order to ascertain who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in completing the assignment. The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right. Students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals.

The third essential component of cooperative learning is promotive interaction, preferably face-to-face. Cooperative learning groups are both an academic support system every student has someone who is committed to helping him or her learn and a personal support system every student has someone who is committed to him or her as a person. The fourth essential element of cooperative learning is teaching students the required interpersonal and small group skills.

In cooperative learning groups students are required to learn academic subject matter taskwork and also to learn the interpersonal and small group skills required to function as part of a group teamwork. Cooperative learning is inherently more complex than competitive or individualistic learning because students have to engage simultaneously in taskwork and teamwork.

Group members must know how to provide effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management, and be motivated to use the prerequisite skills. Teachers have to teach teamwork skills just as purposefully and precisely as teachers do academic skills. Since cooperation and conflict are inherently related, the procedures and skills for managing conflicts constructively are especially important for the long-term success of learning groups.

Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson and Johnson and F.

Johnson The fifth essential component of cooperative learning is group processing. Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change. Continuous improvement of the process of learning results from the careful analysis of how members are working together.

These five elements are essential to all cooperative systems, no matter what their size. When international agreements are made and when international efforts to achieve mutual goals such as environmental protection occur, these five elements must be carefully implemented and maintained. The study of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts is commonly recognized as one of the oldest fields of research in social psychology.

Since then over studies have been conducted on the relative merits of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts and the conditions under which each is appropriate. This is one of the largest bodies of research within psychology and education. An extensive literature search was conducted aimed at identifying all the available studies from published and nonpublished sources. The research on social interdependence, furthermore, has an external validity and a generalizability rarely found in the social sciences.

The more variations in places, people, and procedures the research can withstand and still yield the same findings, the more externally valid the conclusions. The research has been conducted over twelve decades by many different researchers with markedly different theoretical and practical orientations working in different settings and countries.

A wide variety of research tasks, ways of structuring social interdependence, and measures of the dependent variables have been used. Participants in the studies varied from ages three to post-college adults and have come from different economic classes and cultural backgrounds. The studies were conducted with different durations, lasting from one session to sessions or more.

The research on social interdependence includes both theoretical and demonstration studies conducted in educational, business, and social service organizations. The diversity of these studies gives social interdependence theory wide generalizability and considerable external validity. Figure 1 shows the relationships among the outcomes.

Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research. From Table 1 it may be seen that cooperation promotes considerable greater effort to achieve than do competitive or individualistic efforts. Effort exerted to achieve includes such variables as achievement and productivity, long-term retention, on-task behavior, use of higher-level reasoning strategies, generation of new ideas and solutions, transfer of what is learned within one situation to another, intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, continuing motivation to learn, and positive attitudes toward learning and school.

The impact of cooperative learning on achievement means that if schools wish to prepare students to take proficiency tests to meet local and state standards, the use of cooperative learning should dominate instructional practice. An important aspect of school life is engagement in learning. One indication of engagement in learning is time on task. In addition, students working cooperatively tended to be more involved in activities and tasks, attach greater importance to success, and engage in more on-task behavior and less apathetic, off-task, disruptive behaviors.

Quality of relationships includes such variables as interpersonal attraction, liking, cohesion, esprit-de-corps, and social support. Stronger effects are found for peer support than for superior teacher support.

The high-quality studies tend to have even more powerful effects. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of these research results. There is a close association between antisocial behavior and rejection by the normal peer group. Rejected children tend to be deficient in a number of social-cognitive skills, including peer group entry, perception of peer group norms, response to provocation, and interpretation of prosocial interactions.

Among children referred to child guidance clinics, 30 to 75 percent depending on age are reported by their parents to experience peer difficulties. Moreover, children referred for psychological treatment have fewer friends and less contact with them than nonreferred children, their friendships are significantly less stable over time, and their understanding of the reciprocities and intimacies involved in friendships is less mature. Peer group acceptance and friendships may be built through the extensive use of cooperative learning.

Asley Montagu was fond of saying that with few exceptions the solitary animal in any species is an abnormal creature. Similarly, Karen Horney stated that the neurotic individual is someone who is inappropriately competitive and, therefore, unable to cooperate with others.

Montagu and Horney recognized that the essence of psychological health is the ability to develop and maintain cooperative relationships.

People who are unable to do so often a become depressed, anxious, frustrated, and lonely, b tend to feel afraid, inadequate, helpless, hopeless, and isolated, and c rigidly cling to unproductive and ineffective ways of coping with adversity.

The samples studied included middle-class junior-high students, middle-class high school seniors, high-school age juvenile prisoners, adult prisoners, Olympic ice-hockey players, adult step-couples, and business executives in China. The diversity of the samples studied and the variety of measures of psychological health provide considerable generalizability of the results of the studies. A strong relationship was found between cooperativeness and psychological health, a mixed picture was found with competitiveness and psychological health, and a strong relationship was found between an individualistic orientation and psychological pathology.

Teachers who wish to use cooperative learning should ideally base their classroom practices on theory validated by research. The closer classroom practices are to validated theory, the more likely they will be effective. When more directly practice is connected to theory, furthermore, the more likely practice will be refined, upgraded, and improved over the years.

There are, however, few classroom practices that are directly based on validated theory. The close relationship between theory, research, and practice makes cooperative learning somewhat unique.

It also creates a set of issues for teachers using cooperative learning. The first issue is understanding the nature of social interdependence. The interdependence may be positive which results in individuals working cooperatively to achieve their mutual goals or negative which results in individuals competing to see who will achieve the goal.

In competitive situations, the opposite psychological processes may be found. The fundamental premise of social interdependence theory is that the way in which goals are structured determines how individuals interact, and those interaction patterns create outcomes.

Positive goal interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative goal interdependence tends to result in oppositional interaction, and no interdependence tends to result in no interaction. The second issue is understanding the research validating social interdependence theory. In team-based learning instructors assign students with diverse skill sets and backgrounds to permanent groups of five to seven members to enhance the quality of student learning [ 5 ].

Students are individually accountable for homework assignments and for contributing to team efforts in class. Significant credit is given for inclass team activities and application exercises aimed at increasing both academic learning and team development.

The activities are structured to give students frequent and timely feedback on their efforts. In the s, Sir James Britton and others in England [ 6 ] created an active learning procedure known as Collaborative Learning based on the theorizing of Vygotsky [ 7 ]. Peer-assisted learning PALS involves classmates of equal status actively helping each other to acquire knowledge and skills [ 8 ].

It subsumes Reciprocal Peer Tutoring , which places same-age students into pairs of comparable ability and gives them the responsibility is to keep each other engaged academically [ 9 ]. Peer-assisted learning is based on cooperation, as assistance and encouragement tends not to take place in competitive interaction. Almost all forms of active learning assume that students will work cooperatively in small groups.

Cooperative learning is, therefore, the foundation on which most active learning strategies are built. Most methods of active learning require the use of cooperative learning as an essential part of their method. Cooperative learning is the foundation on which most active learning methods are built. Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals [ 10 , 11 ]. When cooperating, individuals work to achieve outcomes that benefit themselves and all other group members.

It is often compared to competitive learning students working to accomplish academic goals that only one or a few participants can attain and individualistic learning each student working by him- or herself to complete assignments.

Student efforts are evaluated on a criteria-referenced basis in cooperative and individualistic learning, while in competitive learning students are evaluated on a norm-referenced basis. Any learning task in any subject area with any curriculum may be structured cooperatively, but there are limitations on when and where competitive and individualistic learning may be used appropriately.

Cooperative learning is largely based on two theories: Structure-Process-Outcome theory and Social Interdependence theory. Watson and Johnson [ 12 ] theorized that the way a situation is structured determines the process individuals engage in to complete the task, which determines the outcomes of the situation. The processes of interaction, in other words, determine outcomes, not the structure of the situation directly.

This theory focuses instructors on structuring learning goals to create desired processes of interaction among students and between the students and the instructor. Once the desired processes of interaction occur, outcomes will tend to automatically result [ 10 , 13 ]. A second theory underlying cooperative learning is social interdependence theory [ 10 ].

In the early s Kurt Koffka, proposed that groups were dynamic wholes in which the interdependence among members could vary. In the s Kurt Lewin stated that the interdependence among members created by common goals is the essence of a group.

In addition, motivation to accomplish the common goals results from an intrinsic state of tension within each group member. For interdependence to exist, there must be more than one person or entity involved, and the persons or entities must have dynamic impact on each other. It should be noted that the authors of this chapter David and Roger Johnson coined the term social interdependence theory to describe their expanded version of the theory of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts.

Deutsch believed that social interdependence theory included more than cooperative, competitive, and individualistic processes, so he reserved the term for a future yet undefined theory. In his theory of cooperation and competition, Deutsch posits that cooperation is created by positive goal interdependence , which exists when group members perceive that they can reach their goals if and only if the other group members also reach their goals [ 14 , 15 ].

Competition is created by negative goal interdependence , which exists when group members perceive that they can obtain their goals if and only if the other group members fail to obtain their goals. Individualistic efforts are creative by no goal interdependence , which exists when individuals perceive that reaching their goal is independent from other individuals attaining their goals.

Positive goal interdependence tends to result in promotive interaction, negative goal interdependence tends to result in oppositional interaction, and no goal interdependence results in an absence of interaction.

The relationship between the cooperation and competition and the interaction pattern each elicits tends to be bidirectional. Each may cause the other. Four types of cooperative learning have been derived from cooperation and competition theory [ 1 ]. Formal cooperative learning may be implemented to teach specific content, informal cooperative learning may be implemented to ensure active cognitive processing of information during direct teaching, cooperative base groups may be implemented to provide long-term support and assistance, and constructive controversy may be implemented to create academic, intellectual conflicts to enhance achievement and creative problem solving.

Instructors can structure any course requirement or assignment in any curriculum or subject area for any age student cooperatively. To structure formal cooperative learning the instructor: Makes a series of decisions about how to structure the learning groups what size groups, how students are assigned to groups, what roles to assign, how to arrange materials, and how to arrange the room.

The instructor also specifies the objectives for the lesson one academic and one social skills. Teaches the academic content students are expected to master and apply.

Monitors the functioning of the learning groups and intervenes to a teach needed social skills and b provide needed academic assistance.

Uses the preset criteria for excellent to evaluate student performance. The instructor then ensures that groups process how effectively members worked together. During direct teaching, such as a lecture, demonstration, or video, the teacher structures informal cooperative learning groups.

Students engage in three-to-five minute focused discussions before and after the direct teaching and three-to-five minute turn-to-your-partner discussions interspersed throughout the direct teaching. Informal cooperative learning can create a mood conducive to learning, focus student attention on the material to be learned, set expectations as to what will be covered in a class session, ensure that students cognitively process the material being taught, and provide closure to an instructional session.

During direct teaching the instructor needs to ensure that students do the intellectual work of explaining what they are learning, conceptually organizing the material, summarizing it, and integrating it into existing conceptual frameworks.

Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership in which students provide one another with support, encouragement, and assistance to make academic progress by attending class, completing assignments, learning assigned material [ 1 ].

The use of base groups tends to improve attendance, personalizes the work required and the school experience, and improves the quality and quantity of learning. Base groups have permanent membership and provide the long-term caring peer relationships necessary to help students developed in healthy ways cognitively and socially as well as influence members to exert effort in striving to achieve.

Base groups formally meet to provide help and assistance to each other, verify that each member is completing assignments and progressing satisfactory through the academic program, and discuss the academic progress of each member. It is especially important to have base groups in large classes or schools and when the subject matter is complex and difficult.

Constructive controversy involves the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of proposed actions aimed at synthesizing novel and creative solutions. It also involves dissent and argumentation [ 20 ]. Dissent may be defined as differing in opinion or conclusion, especially from the majority. Argumentation is a social process in which two or more individuals engage in a dialog where arguments are constructed, presented, and critiqued.