Introducing the Book. The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (9780312425074): Thomas L. Friedman. NETS Standards. Information Literacy Resources. What is Cooperative Learning? Cooperative learning involves more than students working together on a lab or field project. It requires teachers to structure cooperative interdependence among the students. These structures involve five key elements which can be implemented in a variety of ways. There are also different types of cooperative groups appropriate for different situations.
More than Just Working in Groups Five key elements differentiate cooperative learning from simply putting students into groups to learn (Johnson et al., 2006). Positive Interdependence: You'll know when you've succeeded in structuring positive interdependence when students perceive that they "sink or swim together. " Individual Accountability: The essence of individual accountability in cooperative learning is "students learn together, but perform alone. " Implementing the Elements of Cooperative Learning There are a variety of techniques that can be used to promote one or more of the elements of effective cooperative learning groups. Rules, Right and Wrong, and Children.