What is cooperative learning?

What is cooperative learning?

Thank you Vicky for pointing out that cooperation is a desirable value in education.

What is cooperative learning? I think it is helpful to consider the term cooperation for a few moments. Indeed, cooperation can mean different things to different people, depending their background and levels of interpretation. For many people cooperative learning is a method, a means to acquire other things. For some, it is also a philosophy or view of the world.

Cooperation, like ecology, is about relationships. The word ‘cooperation’ itself is neither good nor bad, like a knife. It has been used in political contexts e.g. Cooperate or else or ‘He is very cooperative’.

Many educators, Dr Jacobs for example, would suggest that cooperation should be viewed as ‘a possible theme in education’, in addition to being regarded as a term within the literature of teaching methodology. In this sense, in addition to student-student collaboration, teachers work together and let their students know about their collaboration. As we know, research, like textbook writing, can be carried out collaboratively, which brings benefits for all parties involved.

Cooperation also implies the relationships among different fields. Teachers from different fields can work a long side with one another on an equal footing, e.g., science and English. In general education, this line of thinking is not new either. In science education, Yager (1990) suggests that learning science should be an interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary enterprise. Many socio/applied linguists, e.g. Kramsch (2002), have been calling for a more collaborative approach to language learning and teaching. Haugen (1971) was probably the first socio-linguist who coined the term “language ecology.” For Haugen, language ecology is “the study of interactions between any given language and its environment (society that uses a language as one of its codes)” (p. 325).

For some people, cooperation has another notion, that is, the cooperation between man and nature or the environment, a new man-nature (animals, plants, and water, soil, and etc) relationship as being equal i.e. as “ a partner to be cherished rather than as a captive to be raped” (Passmore, 1974, p. 4). Some refer to this movement new ethics, an ethic of conservation (Leopold, 1966, quoted in Passmore, 1974). This perspective may be translated into an educational term as an ecological approach to education. Within this view, life, rather than humans, may be placed at the center of the biosphere. Following Leopold, Paul Taylor (1986) argued that humans should give Nature more respect. We have moral obligations to preserve endangered species and to avoid environmental pollution, for example.

The ecological approach to learning and teaching requires multiple perspectives, an interdisciplinary approach. Ecology, like mathematics or cooperation, is about relationships. In recent years, the term ecology has been referred to in language education. van Lier (2002) conceptualized ecology as “the study of the relationships between all the various organisms and their physical environment (p. 144).

Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Haugen, E. (1971). The ecology of language. In A. S. Dil (Ed.), The Ecology of Language–Essays by Einar Haugen (pp. 325-339). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Kramsch, C. (2002). Language Acquisition and Language Socialization. New York: Continuum.

Passmore, J. (1974). Man’s Responsibility for Nature. London: Duckworth.

Rappaport, J. (2000). Research methods and the empowerment social agenda. In P. Tolan, C. Keys, F. Chertok & L. Jason (Eds.), Research Community Psychology: Issues of Theory and Methods. Washington: American Psychological Association.

Taylor, P. W. (1986). Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

van Lier, L. (2002). An ecological-semiotic perspective on language and linguistics. In C. Kramsch (Ed.), Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives. New York: Continum.

Yager, R. E. (1990). The science/technology/society movement in the United states: Its origin, evolution, and rationale. Social Education, 54(4), 198-200.