Essential Components of Cooperative Learning

24 their result will be added to the group score for the recognition of the groups. When the group meets certain criteria, they will be given rewards. According to Slavin 1990, the main idea behind Students Team- Achievement Division is to motivate students to encourage and help each other to master skill presented by the teacher p. 6. In this context, each student definitely has to take part in the learning process. Their friends act as the supporter and also their observer, because besides giving encouragement to other group mates, group member also has the role as the supervisor of their friends learning. As described by Slavin 1990, the students must encourage their teammates to do their best, expressing norm that learning is important, valuable, and fun p. 6. Even though teamwork is essential in STAD method, when the students do their individual quizzes, they cannot help each other. This is when the students use their own understanding of the material which they learn in group activities with their group mates before. Since there is an urge for every member to master the material and help each other, from five essential elements of cooperative learning, the individual accountability of each student is mostly needed. Slavin 1990, states that “this individual accountability motivates students to do a good job in explaining to each other, as the only way for the team to succeed is for all team members to master the in formation or skill being taught”. As stated by Richards and Rodgers 2001, 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. 25 According to Slavin 1990, STAD consists of five major activities. They are class presentation, group discussion, individual quiz, individual scores, and team recognition. 1. Class Presentation. In class presentation the teacher presents the materials to be learned and the explanations about the materials to the students. The students should pay careful attention during the class presentation because the knowledge acquired will help the students to do well on their quizzes. 2. Teams or Study Group In this activity, the students will gather in group with their group members and do tasks given by the teacher. In group work, the students should encourage, teach and help each other to master the material learned. In group work, the other students who have less knowledge can learn from their friends. 3. Individual quiz In this activity, each student will have to do quiz provided by the teacher based on the materials which have been learned during class presentations and study group. The students must do their quiz individually without any help from their other members. 4. Individual Improvement Score According to Slavin 1990, the idea behind the individual improvement score is to give each student a performance goal that can be attained if he or she works harder and performs better than in the past.