Pioneering Perspectives in Cooperative Learning

Theory, Research, and Classroom Practice for Diverse Approaches to CL

Neil Davidson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367618360
  9780367618353
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000361537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Offering first-hand insights from the early originators of Cooperative Learning (CL), this volume documents the evolution of CL, illustrating its historical and contemporary research, and highlights the personal experiences which have helped inspire and ground this concept.

Each of the chapters in Pioneering Perspectives in Cooperative Learning foregrounds a key approach to CL, and documents the experiences, research, and fruitful collaborations which have shaped and driven their development. Contributions from leading scholars include Aronson, Davidson, Kagan, Johnson & Johnson, Schmuck, the Sharans, Slavin and Madden, as well as retrospective pieces on the work of Deutsch and Cohen. These chapters detail the historical development of cooperative learning, cooperation versus competition, and cover major approaches including the jigsaw classroom; complex instruction; the learning together model, and several more. Chapters include qualitative, personal, and retrospective accounts, whereby authors outline the research and theory which underpins each approach while highlighting practical strategies for classroom implementation.

This text will primarily be of interest to professors, researchers, scholars, and doctorial students with an interest in the theory of learning, educational research, and educational and social psychology more broadly. Practitioners of CL with an interest in varied forms of small group learning and classroom practice, as well as those interested in the history and sociology of education, will also benefit from the volume.

Chapter 1
Introduction to Pioneering Perspectives in Cooperative Learning

Neil Davidson

The following famous quotations are by anthropologist Margaret Mead, who studied change processes in varied societies (in Keys, 1982, p. 79).

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.

A small group of such committed people emerged in the development of cooperative learning (CL). In this volume, we tell the stories of a dozen scholars who envisioned, introduced, and developed the notion of students learning together actively in cooperative small groups—to enjoy learning with peers, to engage in discussions of challenging and meaningful ideas, to develop skills in cooperation and teamwork, to learn more effectively, and to master not only basic facts and skills but also more complex thinking processes.

The small group of invited authors consists of those who made major contributions to the development of CL beginning in the 1960s or the early 1970s and continuing throughout their careers. Individually and collectively, these scholars have made a profound impact on the field of education in the latter half of the 20th century and continuing through the present. The living history of cooperative learning will emerge in part through the authors’ reflections, and personal stories or anecdotes about their own work, starting from its beginnings and moving to the current state of the art and future impact on education.

Nature of the Book

The combined efforts in this volume provide a comprehensive description of the development of cooperative learning as viewed by its major contributors—the originators, pioneers, developers, and leaders in the field. The chapters in the book therefore consider all of the major approaches and methods of cooperative learning.

The primary purpose of this comprehensive volume is to clearly present each of these CL approaches together with their theoretical foundations, research base, and classroom procedures. The most recent comprehensive book on CL (Sharan, 1994, 1999) is now more than 20 years old, and the field has changed considerably since its publication.

A secondary purpose of this book is historical. The historical development of cooperative learning will emerge in part through the authors’ reflections, and personal stories or anecdotes about their own work, starting from its beginnings and moving forward from there. There has not been any prior book on the history of cooperative learning. This volume partly fills that gap in a unique way through qualitative, personal retrospective accounts by the pioneers of CL, and it provides an opportunity for each of us to take a retrospective look at our life work with cooperative small-group learning over a period of about 50 years.

Guidelines for chapter authors were presented right at the beginning of this project. Here is a small sample of those guidelines. In reflecting on your career, a chapter can deal with your own personal journey with CL, your philosophy and motivation for beginning this work, and who or what inspired you. Additional “self-reflection” questions to consider are as follows: What ideas or concepts were foundational to you? How did you get started? How successful were your first attempts? What helped you through the rough spots? How did your work change or evolve over time?

This volume is more than historical because it offers for the first time a progression from the past to the present state-of-the art knowledge in theory, research, and practice, to building a strong case for the successful future development, implementation, and impact of CL.

This volume sets forth perspectives on the following issues in the field:

• How is cooperative learning defined?
• What are the major approaches to cooperative learning?
• What are the common elements of all the approaches?
• Which attributes distinguish one approach from another?
• What are the state-of-the art classroom practices with each approach?
• What are the theoretical foundations for each approach?
• What is the research base for each approach?
• How are cooperative learning and collaborative learning related?

The Pioneering Scholars and Their Topics (Abbreviated Titles)

The alphabetical lineup of pioneering scholars and abbreviated topic titles includes:

• Elliot Aronson: Jigsaw
• Elizabeth Cohen (written by Rachel A. Lotan and Nicole I. Holthuis): Building equitable classrooms via Complex Instruction
• Neil Davidson: Cooperative learning in mathematics and beyond
• Morton Deutsch (written by Laurie Stevahn): Theories of cooperation, conflict, and justice
• David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson: Learning together model and constructive controversy
• Spencer Kagan: Structural approach
• Richard Schmuck: Small-group processes and organization development (with co-authors Richard Arends and Neil Davidson)
• Yael Sharan and Shlomo Sharan: Design for change: a teacher education project for cooperative learning and group investigation
• Robert E. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden: Student Team Learning and Success for All (SFA)

Rachel Hertz-Lazarowitz was also a pioneering scholar in group investigation. References to her work are included in the Sharans’ chapter.

Overview of Small-Group Learning: Cooperative, Collaborative, Problem-Based, and Team-Based Learning

Let us place cooperative learning in a larger context. In the past few decades, many educators have moved toward instructional approaches in which students are active participants in the learning process. Among the most-often used approaches to stimulate active learning in the classroom is small-group work. Early efforts at group-based, active learning have led to more defined pedagogies of cooperative and collaborative learning (Barnes & Todd, 1977; Britton, 1973; Bruffee, 1993) and, more recently, problem-based learning (PBL) and team-based learning (TBL). Cooperative and collaborative learning are employed at all levels of education, whereas PBL (Barrows, 1986) and TBL (Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2004) have been applied mainly in higher education. This volume is focused upon cooperative learning. The confusing relationship between cooperative and collaborative learning is clarified in this introduction. A brief discussion of the other approaches to small-group learning, PBL and TBL, will be presented later in Davidson’s chapter.

Cooperative Learning

Origins

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “cooperate” comes from the late 16th century: from Latin cooperat— “worked together,” from the verb cooperari, from co- “together” + operari “to work” — to work together, jointly on an activity or project. CL, then, involves a focus on students co-laboring to accomplish a learning task, a social product, together, just as the root word suggests (Davidson & Major, 2014).

The term “cooperative learning” began to appear in the literature about 1980. Prior to that time, terms such as “small group learning” were employed. But an earlier book by Alice Miel (1952) was entitled Cooperative Procedures in Learning.

Definitions and Descriptions

The main definitions and descriptions of cooperative learning demonstrate the importance of students working together in small groups in a mutually supportive manner to learn academic content and, in some definitions, to construct their own knowledge. The following are several major examples (from Davidson & Major, 2014):

• “Cooperative learning will be defined as students working together in a group small enough that everyone can participate on a collective task that has been clearly assigned. Moreover, students are expected to carry out their task without direct and immediate supervision of the teacher. The study of cooperative learning should not be confused with small groups that teachers often compose for the purpose of intense, direct instruction—for example, reading groups” (Cohen, 1994, p. 3).
• “Cooperative learning refers to a set of instructional methods in which students are encouraged or required to work together on academic tasks. Cooperative learning methods may be as simple as having students sit together to discuss or help one another with classroom assignments, or may be quite complex. Cooperative learning is distinguished from peer tutoring in that all students learn the same material, that there is no tutor or tutee, and that information usually comes initially from a teacher rather than a student” (Slavin, 1987, p. 1161).
• “The structural approach to cooperative learning is based on the creation, analysis, and systematic application of structures, or content-free ways of organizing social interaction in the classroom. [Examples are Three-Step Interview, RoundRobin, RallyRobin, and RoundTable.] Structures usually involve a series of steps, with prescribed behavior at each step. An important cornerstone of the approach is the distinction between ‘structures’ and ‘activities’” (Kagan, 1989, p. 12; Kagan & Kagan, 2009).
• “Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals, and cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning. Within cooperative learning groups, students are given two responsibilities: to learn the assigned material and make sure that all other members of their group do likewise. Their success is measured by a fixed set of standards. Thus, a student seeks an outcome that is beneficial to himself or herself and beneficial to all other group members” (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, p. 121).
• “Cooperative learning encompasses a wide range of strategies for promoting academic learning through peer cooperation and communication. As the term ‘cooperative learning’ implies, students help each other learn, share ideas and resources, and plan cooperatively what and how to study. The teacher does not dictate specific instructions but rather allows students varying degrees of choice as to the substance and goals of their learning activities, thus making students active participants in the process of acquiring knowledge…. Cooperative learning encourages, and is in fact built upon, the contributions of group members” (Sharan & Sharan, 1987, p. 21).

Sample Procedures and Techniques

A great strength of cooperative learning is a range of specific methods/procedures to foster cooperation in learning by working together. Cooperative tasks are organized in a way that requires students to work together in order to be able to complete the assignment. Descriptions of many cooperative learning methods/procedures are given throughout the chapters in this volume. Here is a brief listing.

Simple Procedures

Think-Pair-Share (Lyman)

Three-Step Interview, Sage-N-Scribe, RallyRobin, RoundTable (Kagan)

• More Complex Procedures
• Formulate-listen-share-create (Johnsons)
• Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD), Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT), Team-Assisted Individualization (TAI), Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC) (Slavin and Madden)
• Numbered heads together (Kagan)
• Jigsaw (Aronson)
• Group investigation (Sharan and Sharan)
• Co-op Co-op (Kagan)
• Constructive controversy (Johnsons)
• Success for All, a whole school model employing CL (Slavin and Madden)
• (The Tribes program, developed by Jeanne Gibbs in 1970, is an early approach to building community in cooperative learning.)

Research

Cooperative learning has shown up well in over 1,000 educational research studies designed to test its effectiveness. Research conducted in many different subject areas and various age groups of students has shown positive effects favoring cooperative learning in academic achievement, development of higher order thinking skills (both critical a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• 1 Introduction to Pioneering Perspectives in Cooperative Learning
• 2 The Legacy of Morton Deutsch: Theories of Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice
• 3 Learning Together and Alone: The History of Our Involvement in Cooperative Learning
• 4 Complex Instruction for Diverse and Equitable Classrooms: In Loving Memory of Elizabeth G. Cohen
• 5 The Structural Approach and Kagan Structures
• 6 Student Team Learning and Success for All: A Personal History and Overview
• 7 The Jigsaw Classroom: A Personal Odyssey Into A Systemic National Problem
• 8 Design for Change: A Teacher Education Project for Cooperative Learning and Group Investigation in Israel
• 9 About Richard Schmuck’s Contributions to the Study of Organization Development and Cooperation in Education
• 10 Cooperative Learning in Mathematics and Beyond
• 11 Synthesis of CL Approaches and a Multifaceted Rationale for CL—Past, Present, and Future
• Index