cooperative learning

Most of teachers still not familiar with the term of cooperative learning, awkwardly, in this way they deprive their students from the opportunity to interact and communicate their thought with their classmates during the instruction. The 5 basic elements of cooperative learning are: positive interdependence, individual accountability, face to face interaction, social skills, and processing (evaluating). First role of the teacher should be starting with team building through warm up activities or personal story telling, and other activities to introduce them to each other in order to know their colleagues better and therefore they function better together. The teacher has a wide range of cooperative activities starting from the easy to the hard one such as: think -pair-chair; say and switch; round table; three-step interview; corners; graffiti; learning together; teams-games-tournaments; jigsaw, and group investigation. The most important issue that should be learned before starting any group activity is teaching students social skills, such as taking turns equally, being responsible, disagreeing in an agreeable way, listening, accepting differences, using quiet voices and more others. When cooperative learning is implemented effectively we can expect: higher self-esteem, higher achievement, greater social support, greater use of higher level reasoning, and better attitudes toward schools and teachers.