The Technique of Cooperative Learning

STAD expects students learn together with other team mates in a small team to study the subject that is presented. Shlomo Sharan states, ―These techniques are based on the idea of having students work in cooperative learning teams to learn academic objectives.‖ 30 The smartest students are expected to teach the lowest students until they understand and master the subject that is presented. They not only study to answer the task correctly but also study how to make all the group members understand and master the subject so all the group members can answer the task correctly. The students‘ task are not to do something as a team, but to learn something as a team, where the team‘s work isn‘t done until all team members have mastered the material being studied. 31 This is done because they are not allowed helping each other in answering quizzes although they study together as a team. In STAD, students are assigned to four-member learning teams that are mixed in performance level, sex and ethnicity. 32 Students are divided into small groups consist of four to five members. The groups must be totally heterogeneous. The groups are mixed in high, average, and low levels, boys and girls, different ethnicity, and different religion. Do not allow students choose their own teams, because they will prefer to choose others like themselves. There are three concepts in Student Teams-Achievement Divisions STAD technique; a. Team Rewards Team rewards means that teams are not in competition with one another for limited rewards. All of the teams, some of them, or none of them may earn whatever rewards are made available depending on how well the team‗s performance matches a predetermined standard. b. Individual accountability Individual accountability means that students have their own responsibility, because their team success is depended on individual score when they get quizzes. 30 Ibid., p. 1. 31 Ibid., p. 3. 32 Ibid., p. 4. c. Equal opportunities for success It means that what students contribute to their teams is based on their improvement over their own past performance. 33 It is the important steps to ensure that all students have an opportunity to contribute to their team. In addition, there are five major components in Student Teams-Achievement Divisions STAD technique; 34 a. Class Presentations In a class presentation is initially introduced material in STAD. It is directly conducted by the teacher or a kind of lecture-discussion, but could include audiovisual presentations. Actually, class presentation in STAD is the same as usual teaching, the only differences is that the teacher must be clearly focused on the STAD unit. As a result, students realize they must to pay attention during the class presentation, because it will help them to do well while discussing in the team and on the quizzes, and teams score is determined by their quiz scores. b. Teams In team normally consists of four or five students who represent a cross- section of the class in terms of academic performance, sex, and race or ethnicity. As a team, each student has responsibility to make sure that all team members are learning, and, more specifically, to prepare its member to do well on the quizzes. The team meets and starts to study the worksheet after the teacher delivered the material. Most often, the study involves students discussing problem together, comparing answers, and correcting any misconceptions if teammates make mistakes. In fact, in STAD technique team become the most important one. It is because at every point emphasis is placed on team members doing their best 33 Ibid., p. 4. 34 S lavin, op. cit., 71 —73.