Group 1
Lailatul M, M Khoirul Wafa, M Chikal M

Cooperative learning is an educational approach which aims to organize classroom activities into academic and social learning experiences. There is much more to Cooperative Learning than merely arranging students into groups, and it has been described as "structuring positive interdependence." Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. Unlike individual learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning cooperatively can capitalize on one another’s resources and skills (asking one another for information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring one another’s work, etc.). Furthermore, the teacher's role changes from giving information to facilitating students' learning.Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds. Ross and Smyth (1995) describe successful cooperative learning tasks as intellectually demanding, creative, open-ended, and involve higher order thinking tasks. Five essential elements are identified for the successful incorporation of cooperative learning in the classroom.The first and most important element is Positive Interdependence. The second element is individual and group accountability. The third element is (face to face) promotive interaction. The fourth element is teaching the students the required interpersonal and small group skills. The fifth element is group processing. According to Johnson and Johnson's meta-analysis, students in cooperative learning settings compared to those in individualistic or competitive learning settings, achieve more, reason better, gain higher self-esteem, like classmates and the learning tasks more and have more perceived social support.

Elements

Johnson and Johnson (2009) posited five variables that mediate the effectiveness of cooperation. Brown & Ciuffetelli Parker (2009) and Siltala (2010) discuss the 5 basic and essential elements to cooperative learning:

1. Positive interdependence
   1. Students must fully participate and put forth effort within their group
   2. Each group member has a task/role/responsibility therefore must believe that they are responsible for their learning and that of their group
2. Face-to-face promotive interaction
   1. Members promote each other's success
   2. Students explain to one another what they have or are learning and assist one another with understanding and completion of assignments
3. Individual and group accountability
   1. Each student must demonstrate mastery of the content being studied
   2. Each student is accountable for their learning and work, therefore eliminating “social loafing”
4. Social skills
   1. Social skills that must be taught in order for successful cooperative learning to occur
   2. Skills include effective communication, interpersonal and group skills
      1. Leadership
      2. Decision-making
      3. Trust-building
      4. Friendship- development
      5. Communication
      6. Conflict-management skills
5. Group processing
   1. Group processing occurs when group members (a) reflect on which member actions were helpful and (b) make decision about which actions to continue or change.
   2. The purpose of group processing is to clarify and improve the effectiveness with which members carry out the processes necessary to achieve the group's goals.

In order for student achievement to improve considerably, two characteristics must be present:

1. When designing cooperative learning tasks and reward structures, individual responsibility and accountability must be identified. Individuals must know exactly what their responsibilities are and that they are accountable to the group in order to reach their goal.
2. All group members must be involved in order for the group to complete the task. In order for this to occur each member must have a task that they are responsible for which cannot be completed by any other group member.