David and Roger Johnson and Edythe Holubec. An overview of cooperative learning. The essential components of successful cooperative learning, the teacher's role, and the teaching of social skills to students are all covered. Cooperation among teachers is also discussed. An excellent introduction to cooperative learning. -- Publisher.

In this concise book, David and Roger Johnson and Edythe Johnson Holubec reinforce the cooperative learning theories found in Circles of Learning: Cooperation in the Classroom and expand those theories to include the school and school district. Offering a thorough description of cooperative learning and the research behind it, the authors explain how cooperative learning can be implemented in the classroom and why cooperation must pervade schooling at every level. They discuss not only formal cooperative learning but also informal cooperative learning, cooperative base groups, and cooperative structures. They emphasize that cooperation is more than a seating arrangement, that educators must attend to these essential components: * Positive interdependence * Individual accountability/personal responsibility * Face-to-face promotive interaction * Interpersonal and small-group skills * Group processing Conflict is inevitable in any environment, and the authors provide succinct advice on managing conflict to creative a cooperative environment, structuring academic controversies, teaching procedures and skills, structuring a peacemaking program, teaching negotiation/mediation procedures and skills, and arbitrating as a last resort. If you want a successful learning community where people support each other’s efforts and treat one another with respect, helping students develop their cooperative learning skills should be a key part of your strategy—and with this book you can start doing that.

Cooperative learning is widely endorsed as a pedagogical practice that promotes student learning. Recently, the research focus has moved to the role of teachers’ discourse during cooperative learning and its effects on the quality of group discussions and the learning achieved. However, although the benefits of cooperative learning are well documented, implementing this pedagogical practice in classrooms is a challenge that many teachers have difficulties accomplishing. Difficulties may occur because teachers often do not have a clear understanding of the basic tenets of cooperative learning and the research and theoretical perspectives that have informed this practice and how they translate into practical applications that can be used in their classrooms. In effect, what do teachers need to do to affect the benefits widely documented in research? A reluctance to embrace cooperative learning may also be due to the challenge it poses to teachers’ control of the learning process, the demands it places on classroom organisational changes, and the personal commitments teachers need to make to sustain their efforts. Moreover, a lack of understanding of the key role teachers need to play in embedding cooperative learning into the curricula to foster open communication and engagement among teachers and students, promote cooperative investigation and problem-solving, and provide students with emotionally and intellectually stimulating learning environments may be another contributing factor. The Teacher's Role in Implementing Cooperative Learning in the Classroom provides readers with a comprehensive overview of these issues with clear guidelines on how teachers can embed cooperative learning into their classroom curricula to obtain the benefits widely attributed to this pedagogical practice. It does so by using language that is appropriate for both novice and experienced educators. The volume provides: an overview of the major research and theoretical perspectives that underpin the development of cooperative learning pedagogy; outlines how specific small group experiences can promote thinking and learning; discusses the key role teachers play in promoting student discourse; and, demonstrates how interaction style among students and teachers is crucial in facilitating discussion and learning. The collection of chapters includes many practical illustrations, drawn from the contributors’ own research of how teachers can use cooperative learning pedagogy to facilitate thinking and learning among students across different educational settings.

This book is written primarily for teachers who are looking for ways to expand their classroom repertoire in a more cooperative direction. It is aimed at demonstrating the benefits of cooperative learning and showing teachers how they can easily adopt the jigsaw method and integrate it into their usual ways of teaching.

′What is cooperative learning? Why should teachers use it in the classroom? What are the benefits? In eight accessible chapters, Wendy Jolliffe, lecturer in primary education at Hull University, outlines the theory and practice of cooperative learning and shows how the "outcomes and aims of Every Child Matters (2004) can be clearly mapped to the advantages of cooperative learning."... A useful resource for teachers, headteachers, trainee teachers and support staff′ - Learning and Teaching Update Cooperative Learning is about structuring lesson activities to encourage pupils to work collaboratively in pairs or small groups to support each other to improve their learning. This inclusive approach to teaching is very much in tune with current initiatives such as Every Child Matters and Excellence and Enjoyment and the focus on learning styles. This book is an accessible guide to implementing cooperative learning in the classroom. It includes: " an explanation of the key factors that make cooperative learning work " a step-by-step approach to implementing cooperative learning in the classroom " advice on how to measure the effectiveness of cooperative learning " guidance for using cooperative learning to encourage effective talk " links to supporting children′s emotional intelligence " ideas for practical activities " an action plan and programme for whole school professional development The book is an invaluable resource for individual teachers using cooperative learning techniques in classrooms, this book will also be of interest to headteachers, trainee teachers and learning support staff.