Cooperative Learning: Encouraging Pro-Social Behavior - Essay Example

?Cooperative Learning: Encouraging Pro-Social Behavior Introduction Children learn from the environment they dwell in. The modern society emphasizes more and more on competition regardless of the field of life, age group or any other factor affecting it. People uphold a positive attitude towards competition and believe it to be a positive force in terms of improving performances. The sporting events, classroom environment, home setting and social circle are all embedded with the concept of competition in one way or the other. Children, as a result, perceive the competitors as their rivals. They tend to build negative behaviors and attitudes towards others in their aim to compete and win. The aggression, antisocial behavior and competition are contrasted with the concept of prosocial behavior. This concept focuses on the positivity and effectiveness of working in collaboration, maintaining a positive level of interdependence, stronger social relationships and better interacting opportunities for children. Prosocial behavior is accustomed with harmony, peace, generosity and cooperation (Lovat et al., 2010). Children with prosocial behavior are selfless and focus on others’ needs and feelings. People exercising or adopting prosocial behavior are considered as altruists who have stronger commitment towards others and others’ wellbeing. If children are directed towards attaining a prosocial behavior, there is a possibility that aggression might be controlled in the adulthood of those children. In order to eliminate the anti-social behavior, cooperative learning was developed with an aim to promote prosocial behaviors among the children, which may further extend its roots to their adult life. Importance of Cooperative Learning in Developing Prosocial Behavior Millis & Rehem (2010) reveal that cooperative learning is a mechanism which is structured in order to work in groups carefully constructed leading to insightful learning, improving the critical thinking abilities and moving the thinking of students’ from one perspective to the other. This type of learning has certain distinguishing factors working behind this model which differ it from collaborative learning. The two factors are positive interdependence and individual accountability (Millis & Rehem 2010). This type of learning does not provide a chance to forego any accountability on individual basis but rather requires the teachers to evaluate every individual’s performance using strategies. It rejects taking an ignorant approach and marking all students as per the group’s collaborative results. On the other hand, positive interdependence is the reliance of each student in the group on the work of others usually due to the nature and scope of the tasks assigned to them. This way, students tend to work with each other and cooperate which further enhances their socialization, collaboration and interaction (Gillies & Ashman, 2003). Cooperative learning is an important technique to improve the prosocial behavior. It enables the students to engage in collaborative efforts to achieve certain goals. The level of communication in and interaction increases and they tend to have an emotional and sensitive attitude towards their peers (Dowling, 2000). In order to develop these feelings, collaborative learning provides a way to integration of children in different smaller groups. Wandberg & Rohwer (2009) conclude that students’ achievement level is higher in collaborative learning environment due to their interaction which leads to better performance in vocabulary, reading, language skills, mathematical results and other educational performances. The reason of improved language performance may be the regular interaction and higher level of communication which allows them to share their thoughts, language differences, diversity and differences in the use of vocabulary which is then shared within the group members. Their collaboration leads them to work out mathematical and other complex questions together combining the knowledge which is shared across the group through cooperative learning. Cooperative learning motivates students to work together, interact and have a positive attitude towards each other. This leads to their struggles being motivated towards a common goal of achieving a particular aim without compromising their individual responsibilities. The cooperative learning environment builds such emotional realm which motivates the students on working hard not only for improving their own performance but also to avoid their failure affect others work. In this struggle they ask creative questions and seek answers from each other leading to a better social environment where communication leads to enhanced personal relationships (Snowman & McCrown, 2011). Barriers in Cooperative Learning Environment The students and teachers work together in order to form a cooperative learning environment. The learning pace is hindered if any of these is not putting the best efforts or is not guided on the right path. The results of cooperative learning depend on the collaborative efforts accompanied by a social attitude to help, encourage, motivate, aid and resolve the disputes or problems of other members in the group. The antisocial attitude of one or more members within the group may hinder the prosocial behavior of the whole group. The dominant attitude, similarly, affects the prosocial behavior being learned by one or more of the participants within the group. The group should be given proper guidance on the importance of sitting, communicating and resolving issues together (Graff, 2009). An inexperienced group may also hinder the achievement of a cooperative learning environment in terms of prosocial attitude. The student or students who have a dominant attitude and are unable to adapt to the group environment are more likely to weaken the relationships and restricting the social interaction within the group. The possible barrier in the prosocial learning through cooperative strategies may be the lack of multiple strategies used to attract the group on collaboration. The use of one type of interdependence and individual accountability technique under the cooperative learning environment may not work well and as a result more backup techniques are to be present in such circumstances. Lack of monitoring is another barrier which, if not identified, may affect the learning process. The teachers may be in breach of their duty if they provide guidelines, grading criteria, procedures and written instruction but do not monitor if the group is working as a whole to achieve them. The isolation of one or more members from the group or individual efforts to achieve individualistic goals may eliminate the purpose behind using cooperative learning. This attitude of teachers may directly affect the achievement of prosocial attitude of the students. Strategies to Resolve Barriers and Encourage Prosocial Behaviors There are a number of strategies which teachers and students may adopt in order to be successful in achieving targets, prosocial attitude and individual goals. The teachers need to choose different activities which may uphold the performance of the group as a whole in terms of generating good relationships, academic achievement and affirming an enhancement of communication. Think-pair-share, roundtable, jigsaw, and numbered heads are some of the cooperative learning activities which teachers may choose to aid the learning process as well as encouraging social attitude. In order to avoid barriers following the inexperience of the team members, teachers are required to provide written and verbal instruction on cooperative learning environment, its aims, importance, work plan, individual goals, collaborative goals and so on. The Team Jigsaw, for instance, is a good approach to enable students to interact by sharing knowledge with the team members on the content they are assigned to read. In order to increase prosocial attitude, students may be graded on the understanding of their own topic as well as the understanding they developed among other peers as per the assessment of the whole group on each topic. The dominance of one or more members within a group may hinder the learning pace of others. In order to avoid this situation, teachers are required to monitor the communication, group meetings and take feedbacks from each member on a regular basis (Katz & McLennon 1997). Although, this approach or strategy is time-consuming it is one of the best approaches to curb most of the issues prevailing within the cooperative learning environment. Observing a child since his birth till the age of 8 is helpful in finding out any unnecessary mood, behavior or attitude changes which should be dealt with (Bentzen, 2005). The cooperative learning environment within the schools helps in diminishing these negative or antisocial attitudes to be transformed in prosocial behaviors. Social interactions and prosocial behaviors are developed through attachment and involvement of elders and other peers. Hence, the cooperation and involvement of teacher is of great importance in developing prosoical attitude along with the members’ attachment with each other ( Dowling, 2000). In conclusion, we can say that cooperative learning provides a better opportunity to get a group involved in communication with each other. This approach leads to a prosocial attitude and provides ways to students on collaborative working. This kind of learning environment increases the chances of success in academic, social and collaborative goals of students. The hurdles which negatively affect the cooperative learning process may be curbed by using various strategies. A number of cooperative learning techniques should be used in order to provide a backup support in case of failure of one structure. The teachers should be involved personally in the group’s performance and issues to guide them and their behaviors. Bibliography Bentzen, W.R. (2005). Seeing young children: A guide to observing and recording behaviour. Melbourne: Delmar Publishers. Dowling, M. (2000). Young children’s personal, social and emotional development. London: Sage Publishers. Gillies, R. M., & Ashman, A. F. (2003). Co-operative learning. London: Routledge Falmer. Graff, N. (2009). Classroom talk: Co-constructing a difficult student. Educational Research, 51 (4), 439-454. Katz, L.G. & McLennan, D.E. (1997). Fostering Children’s Social Competence: The Teacher’s Role. Washington, D.C.: NAEYC. Lovat, T., Toomey, R., & Clement, N. (2010). International research handbook on values education and student wellbeing. Dordrecht: Springer. Millis, B. J. (2010). Cooperative learning in higher education: Across the disciplines, across the academy. Sterling, Va: Stylus. Snowman, J., & McCown, R. R. (2011). Psychology applied to teaching. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Publishing. Wandberg, R., & Rohwer, J. (2010). Teaching health education in language diverse classrooms. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Read More