Cooperation

Cooperation in classroom can mean many things. It involves the level at which students participate in decision-making, how teacher and students work together to resolve problems, and how all levels of the school  organization  participate together to achieve common goals.

In the classroom, a cooperative learning lesson involves students working in small groups to accomplish a learning task. Cooperative learning may also help to lessen the fatalistic attitude toward schooling that is often found among students from minority groups and those who have experienced repeated failure in the schools. True cooperative learning experience requires that a number of criteria be met.  They are:

  • Division of labor among students in the group

  • Face-to-face interaction between students

  • Assignment of specific roles and duties to students

  • Group processing of a task

  • Positive interdependence in which students all need to do their assigned duties in order for the task to be completed

  • Individual accountability for completing one's own assigned duties

  • The development of social skills as a result of cooperative interaction

  • Provision of group rewards by the teacher

When teacher has cooperation as a interpersonal skill

When teachers come together to share information, resources, ideas, and expertise, learning becomes more accessible and effective for students. Cooperation means purposefully building interpersonal relationships and working towards healthy interdependence. Teachers can develop genuine cooperation teams in which they share goals, engage in mutually beneficial professional learning, use communal resources to increase student achievement, and advance their own skills, knowledge, and beliefs related to student learning.


Benefits

Here are many benefits for classroom instruction when cooperative learning strategies are done correctly. There are several briefly discussed here including: 

  • Promotion of social interaction, 

  • Build up of student self-confidence,

  •  Improvement in collaborative skills of students, 

  • The improvement in student decision-making skills. 

Cooperative learning-run classrooms can also assist teachers in working with students who have wider skill gaps.

Strategies for Building Teachers Cooperation

To initiate or revitalize teacher cooperation in  school, here are  some of strategies.

  • Create a truly shared vision and goals. For example, identifying  team’s shared vision of caring for students and student learning, setting goals related to that vision, discussing how the team’s work can help attain those goals, and checking in often to assess progress.

  • Develop a sense of community. Getting to know colleagues, understanding their passions, and taking the time to connect on a personal level can help members gain mutual respect and look past perceived eccentricities in others.

  • Identify group norms. When we are transparent about our work and our beliefs, our colleagues can see our limitations as well as our strengths, placing us in a position of vulnerability.


Exercise 

This activity  help increase cooperative learning in classroom.

Popcorn Share

In this cooperative learning activity, the teacher poses a question or problem with multiple answers and gives think time. Then the teacher calls, “Popcorn,” and students quickly and voluntarily pop-up from their chairs one at a time and share their answer. Take it a step further to involve all students – have the seated students write the responses and mark the incorrect answers. Then at the end of activity discuss the incorrect answers.