Cooperative and Collaborative Learning
Background
Cooperative Language Learning (CLL) is part of a more general instructional approach also known as Collaborative Learning (CL). Cooperative Learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom. It has defined as follows:
Cooperative Learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others. (Olsen & Kagan, 1992: 8)
According to Johnson et al., Cooperative Learning sought to do the following:
• Raise the achievement of all students, including those who are gifted or academically handicapped;
• Help the teacher build positive relationships among students;
• Give students the experiences they need for healthy social, psychological, and cognitive development;
• Replace the competitive organizational structure of most classrooms and schools with a team-based, high-performance organizational structure.
(Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1994: 2)
In second language teaching, CL (where it is often referred to as Cooperative Language Learning—CLL) has been embraced as a way of promoting communicative interaction in the classroom and is seen as an extension of the principles of Communicative Language Teaching. It is viewed as a learner-centered approach to teaching held to offer advantages over teacher-fronted classroom methods. In language teaching its goals are:
• To provide opportunities for naturalistic second language acquisition through the use of interactive pair and group activities;
• To provide teachers with a methodology to enable them to achieve this goal and one that can be applied in a variety of curriculum settings (e.g. content-based,foreign language classrooms; mainstreaming);
• To enable focused attention to particular lexical items, language structures, and communicative functions through the use of interactive tasks;
• To provide opportunities for learners to develop successful learning and communicative strategies;
• To enhance learners’ motivation and reduce learners’ stress and to create a positive affective classroom environment.
CLL is thus an approach that crosses both mainstream education and second and foreign language teaching.
Theory
The language theory underlying Cooperative Language Learning is founded on some basic premises about the interactive/cooperative nature of language and language learning, and builds on these premises in several ways.
The learning theory of Cooperative Learning advocates draw heavily on the theoretical work of developmental psychologists Jean Piaget (e.g. 1965) and Lev Vygotsky (e.g. 1962), both of whom stress the central role of social interaction in learning. As we have indicated, a central premise of CLL is that learners develop communicative competence in a language by conversing in socially or pedagogically structured situations. CLL advocates have proposed certain interactive structures that are considered optimal for learning the appropriate rules and practices in conversing in a new language. CLL also seeks to develop learners’ critical thinking skills, which are seen as central to learning of any sort.
The word “cooperative” in Cooperative Learning emphasizes another important dimension of CLL: It seeks to develop classrooms that foster cooperation rather than competition in learning. Advocates of CLL in general education stress the benefits of cooperation in promoting learning:
Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals. Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes beneficial to themselves and all other group members. Cooperative Learning is the instructional use of small groups through which students work together to maximize their own and others’ learning. It may be contrasted with competitive learning in which students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as a grade of “A”. (Johnson et al., 1994: 4)
From the perspective of second language teaching, McGroarty (1989) offers six learning advantages for ESL students in CLL classrooms:
1. Increased frequency and variety of second language practice through different types of interaction;
2. Possibility for development or use of language in ways that support cognitive development and increased language skills;
3. Opportunities to integrate language with content-based instruction;
4. Opportunities to include a greater variety of curricular materials to stimulate language as well as concept learning;
5. Freedom for teachers to master new professional skills, particularly those emphasizing communication;
6. Opportunities for students to act as resources for each other, thus assuming a more active role in their learning.
Objectives
The objectives of CLL is to develop critical thinking skills, and to develop communicative competence through socially structured interaction activities. These can be regarded as the overall objectives of CLL. More specific objectives will derive from the context in which it is used.
Types of learning and teaching activities
Johnson et al., (1994: 4-5) describe three types of cooperative learning groups:
1. Formal cooperative learning groups. These last from one class period to several weeks. These are established for a specific task and involve students working together to achieve shared learning goals.
2. Information cooperative learning groups. These are ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to a class period and are used to focus student attention or to facilitate learning during direct teaching.
3. Cooperative base groups. These are long term, lasting for at least a year and consist of heterogeneous learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is to allow members to give each other the support, help, encouragement, and assistance they need to succeed academically.
Olsen and Kagan (1992) propose the following key elements of successfulgroup-based learning in CL:
• Positive interdependence;
• Group formation;
• Individual accountability;
• Social skills;
• Structuring and structures.
Positive interdependence occurs when group members feel that what helps one member helps all and what hurts one member hurts all. It is created by the structure of CL tasks and by building a spirit of mutual support within the group. For example, a group may produce a single product such as an essay or the scores for members of a group may be averaged.
Group formation is an important factor in creating positive interdependence. Factors involved in setting up groups include:
• Deciding on the size of the group: This will depend on the tasks they have to carry out, the age of the learners, and time limits for the lesson. Typical group size is from two to four.
• Assigning students to groups: Groups can be teacher-selected, random, or student-selected, although teacher-selected is recommended as the usual mode so as to create groups that are heterogeneous on such variable as past achievement, ethnicity, or sex.
• Student roles in groups: Each group member has a specific role to play in a group, such as noise monitor, turn-taker monitor, recorder, or summarizer.
Individual accountability involves both group and individual performance, for example, by assigning each student a grade on his or her portion of a team project or by calling on a student at random to share with the whole class, with group members, or with another group.
Social skills determine the way students interact with their teammates. Usually some explicit instruction in social skills is needed to ensure successful interaction.
Structuring and structures refer to ways of organizing student interaction and different ways students are to interact such as three-step interview or Round Robin (discussed later in this section).
Numerous descriptions exist of activity types that can be used with CLL. Coelho(1992b: 132) describes three major kinds of cooperative learning tasks and their learning focus, each of which has many variations.
1. Team practice from common input—skill development and mastery of facts.
• All students work on the same material.
• Practice could follow a traditional teacher-directed presentation of new material and for that reason is a good starting point for teachers and/or students new to group work.
• The task is to make sure that everyone in the group knows the answer to a question and can explain how the answer was obtained or understand the material. Because students want their team to do well, they coach and tutor each other to make sure that any member of the group could answer for all of them and explain their team’s answer.
• When the teacher takes up the question or assignment, anyone in a group may be called on to answer for the team.
• This technique is good for review and for practice tests; the group takes the practice test together, but each student will eventually do an assignment or take a test individually.
• This technique is effective in situations where the composition of the groups is unstable (in adult programs, for example). Students can form new groups every day.
2. Jigsaw: differentiated but predetermined input—evaluation and synthesis of facts and opinions.
• Each group member receives different pieces of the information;
• Students regroup in topic groups (expert groups) composed of people with the same piece to master the material and prepare to teach it;
• Students return to home groups (Jigsaw groups) to share their information with each other;
• Students synthesize the information through discussion;
• Each student produces an assignment of part of a group project, or takes a test, to demonstrate synthesis of all the information presented by all group members;
• This method of organization may require team-building activities for both home groups and topic groups, long-term group involvement, and rehearsal ofpresentation methods;
• This method is very useful in the multilevel class, allowing for both homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping in terms of English proficiency;
• Information-gap activities in language teaching are jigsaw activities in the form of pair work. Partners have data (in the form of text, tables, charts, etc.) with missing information to be supplied during interaction with another partner.
3. Cooperative projects: topics/resources selected by students—discovery learning.
• Topics may be different for each group.
• Students identify subtopics for each group member.
• Steering committee may coordinate the work of the class as a whole.
• Students research the information using resources such as library reference, interviews and visual media.
• Students synthesize their information for a group presentation: oral and/or written. Each group member plays a part in the presentation.
• Each group presents to the whole class.
• This method places greater emphasis on individualization and students’interests. Each student’s assignment is unique.
• Students need plenty of previous experience with more structured group work for this to be effective.
Olsen and Kagan (1992: 88) describe the following examples of CLL activities:
Three-step interview: (1) Students are in pairs; one is interviewer and the other is interviewee. (2) Students reverse roles. (3) Each shares with team member what was learned during the two interviews.
Roundtable: There is one piece of paper and one pen for each team. (1) One student makes a contribution and (2) passes the paper and pen to the student of his or her left. (3) Each student makes contributions in turn. If done orally the structure is called Round Robin.
Think-Pair-Share: (1) Teacher poses a question (usually a low-consensus question). (2) Students think of a response. (3) Students discuss their responses with a partner. (4) Students share their partner’s response with the class.
Solve-Pair-Share: (1) Teacher poses a problem (a low-consensus or high-consensus item that may be resolved with different strategies). (2) Students work out solutions individually. (3) Students explain how they solved the problem in Interview or Round Robin structures.
Numbered Heads: (1) Students number off in teams. (2) Teacher asks a question (usually high-consensus). (3) Heads Together—students literally put their heads together and make sure everyone knows and can explain the answer. (4) Teacher calls a number and students with that number raise their hands to be called on, as in traditional classroom.
Learner roles
The primary role of the learner is as a member of a group who must work collaboratively on tasks with other group members. Learners have to learn teamwork skills. Learners are also directors of their own learning. They are taught to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning, which is viewed as a compilation of lifelong learning skills. Thus, learning is something that requires students’ direct and active involvement and participation. Pair grouping is the most typical CLL format, ensuring the maximum amount of time both learners spend in learning tasks. Pair tasks in which learners alternate roles involve partners in the role of tutors, checkers, recorders, and information shares.
Teacher roles
The role the teachers in CLL differs from the role of teachers in traditional teacher-fronted lesson. The teacher has to create a highly structured and well-organized leaning environment in the classroom, setting goals, planning and structuring tasks, establishing the physical arrangement of the classroom, assigning students to groups and roles, and selecting materials and time (Johnson et al., 1994). An important role for the teachers is that of facilitator of learning. In their role as facilitator, the teachers must move around the class helping students and groups as needs arise:
During this time the teacher interacts, teaches, refocuses, questions, clarifies, supports, expands, celebrates, and empathizes. Depending on what problems evolve, the following supportive behaviors are utilized. Facilitators are giving feedback, redirecting the group with questions, encouraging the group to solve its own problems, extending activity, encouraging thinking, managing conflict, observingstudents, and supplying resources. (Harel, 1992: 169)
Teachers speak less than in teacher-fronted classes. They provide broad questions to challenge thinking, they prepare students for the tasks they carry out, they assist students with the learning tasks, and they give few commands, imposing less disciplinary control.
The role of instructional materials
Materials play an important part in creating opportunities for students to work cooperatively. The same materials can be used as are used in other types of lessons but variations are required in how the materials are used. For example, if students are working in groups, each might have one set of materials (or groups might have different sets of materials), or each group member might need a copy of a text to read and refer to. Materials may be specially designed for CLL learning (such as commercially sold jigsaw and information-gap activities), modified from existing materials, or borrowed from other disciplines.
(Taken from Cooperative Language Learning in Richards & Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2001: 192-201, with some change)
Cooperative Learning does not merely imply collaboration. To be sure, in a cooperative classroom the students and teachers work together to pursue goals and objectives. But Cooperative Learning “is more structured, more prescriptive to teachers about classroom techniques, more directive to students about how to work together in groups [than Collaborative Learning]” (Oxford, 1997:443). In Cooperative Learning models, a group learning activity is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners. In Collaborative Learning, the learner engages “with more capable others (teachers, advanced peers, etc.), who provide assistance and guidance” (Oxford, 1997: 444). Collaborative Learning models have been developed within social constructivist (see Brown, 2000, Chapter 1) schools of thought to promote communities of learners that cut across the usual hierarchies of students and teachers.