members. There are some basic principles that should be noticed for successful cooperative learning. Those are:
a. Positive Interdependence
Students are encouraged to think of positive interdependence. It means
that the students are not thinking competitively and
individualistically in terms of the group. It occurs when group members feel that what helps one member helps all and what hurts one member
hurts all. It is also a sense of working together for a common goal and caring about each other in learning. It is all created by the structure of
cooperative learning tasks and by building a spirit of mutual support within the group.
b. Individual accountability
Individual accountability is encouraged through the assignment of specific role or tasks, and individuals are held accountable for the success
of each of the other members. Each member of a group has to make a significant contribution to achieving the group’s goal. A primary way to
ensure accountability is through testing by calling on a student at random to share with the whole class or with group members.
c. Face to face interaction
Students are encouraged to explain, argue, elaborate and link current material with what they have learned previously. So students can
express the lesson by themselves in meaningful tasks and students have authentic reasons for listening to one another, asking questions, clarifying
issues and restating points of view.
d. Appropriate use of collaborative skills
Determine the way students interact with each other as teammates. In this factor, students can learn leadership, decision making, trust
building, clear communication, and conflict management so that their team can function effectively.
e. Group processing
The teams periodically assess what they have learned, how well they are working together, and how they might do better as a learning
team. Therefore, the learner needs to be both an actor and an observer of his or her own learning.
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From all explanations above, the writer briefly explaining that in order to cooperative learning more effective, teachers must understand the nature of
cooperation and essential components of cooperative learning. Teachers also have to understand the process of five elements of cooperative learning as
mentioned. Those components are important for the teacher in order to make the teaching and learning process in cooperative learning work effectively.
3. The Techniques of Cooperative Learning
Various cooperative learning methods have been developed over the years and put into practice in the classroom. Some of the most extensively
researched and widely applied methods include Student Teams-Achievement Divisions
STAD, Teams-Games-Tournament
TGT, Jigsaw,
and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition CIRC.
a. Students Teams-Achievement Divisions STAD In cooperative learning method, STAD is one of the simplest methods.
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Therefore, it can be a good model for the new teachers who will use the cooperative approach. STAD is developed by Robert Slavin and his
colleagues at the John Hopkins University. Students’ are divided into four or five member learning teams that are mixed in performance level,
gender, and ethnicity. The nature goal of STAD is to speed-up the students’ achievement.
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Richard M. Felder, and Rebecca Brent, Cooperative Learning, Department of Chemical Engineering, N.C. State University: Educational Design, Inc.,, p. 2.
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Richard I. Arends, Learning to Teach, Seventh Edition, Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007, p.352.
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Shlomo Sharan, eds, Handbook of Cooperative Learning Methods, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 5.
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