**3.1. Formal cooperative learning**

Ref. [1] define *formal cooperative learning* as students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve mutual learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments. Instructors can structure any course requirement or assignment in any curriculum or subject area for any age student cooperatively. To structure formal cooperative learning the instructor:

**1.** Makes a series of decisions about how to structure the learning groups (what size groups, how students are assigned to groups, what roles to assign, how to arrange materials, and how to arrange the room). The instructor also specifies the objectives for the lesson (one academic and one social skills).

**2.** Teaches the academic content students are expected to master and apply. The instructor then explains the (a) academic task to be completed, (b) the criteria used to determine the degree of students' success, (c) positive interdependence, (d) individual accountability, and (e) expected student behaviors.

involves the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of proposed actions aimed at synthesizing novel and creative solutions. It also involves dissent and argumentation [20]. *Dissent* may be defined as differing in opinion or conclusion, especially from the majority. *Argumentation* is a social process in which two or more individuals engage in a dialog where arguments are constructed, presented, and critiqued. The theory underlying constructive controversy states that the way conflict is structured within situations determines how individuals interact with each other, which in turn determines the quality of the outcomes [12, 19]. Intellectual conflict maybe structured along a continuum, with concurrence seeking at one end and constructive controversy at the other. The process of concurrence seeking involves avoiding open disagreement to conform to the majority opinion and reach a public consensus. The process of controversy involves utilizing the conflict among positions to achieve a synthesis or a creative integration of the various positions. The outcomes generated by the process of controversy tend to include higher quality decision making and achievement, greater creativity, higher cognitive and moral reasoning, greater motivation to improve understanding, more positive relationships and social support, and more democratic values. The conditions mediating the effects of the controversy process include a cooperative context, heterogeneity

Cooperative Learning: The Foundation for Active Learning

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When used in combination, cooperative formal, informal, base groups, and constructive con-

Cooperative efforts result in numerous outcomes that may be subsumed into three broad categories: effort to achieve, positive interpersonal relationships, and psychological adjustment. The social interdependence research has considerable generalizability as (a) research participants have varied as to economic class, age, gender, and culture, (b) research tasks and measures of the dependent variables have varied widely, and (c) many different researchers with markedly different orientations working in different settings and in different decades have conducted the studies. We now have over 1200 studies on cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts from which we can derive effect sizes. This is far more evidence than

Cooperating to achieve a common goal results in higher achievement and greater productivity compared to competitive or individualistic efforts [10, 13, 19]. There is so much research that confirms this finding that it stands as one of the strongest principles of social and organizational psychology. Cooperation also resulted in more frequent generation of new ideas and solutions (i.e., *process gain*), more higher-level reasoning, and greater transfer of what is learned (i.e., *group to individual transfer*) than competitive or individualistic efforts. The superiority of cooperative efforts (as compared to competitive and individualistic efforts) increased as the task became more conceptual, the more higher-level reasoning and critical thinking was required, the more desired was problem solving, the more creativity was desired, the more long-term retention was required, and the greater the need for application

among members, skilled disagreement, and rational argument.

troversy provide an overall structure for school learning.

**4. Outcomes of cooperative learning**

exists for most other aspects of human interaction.

of what was learned.

