Cooperative Learning: An Innovative Strategy to Classroom Instruction

Innovation and reform are the two key factors in the development and progress of any education system and its practices and processes. New strategies of teaching and learning are being thought and practiced as most important inputs to bring about qualitative improvement in the education. Cooperative learning is one such approach which makes the students to learn as group to maximize their own and each others ’learning. The focus of this strategy is on inter-personal exchange of opinions, intellectual challenge, critical thinking, higher level reasoning-the skills which are highly valued in the age of globalization. It is being increasingly felt that thinking process of students is being suppressed by competitive learning environment prevalent in schools. The cut throat competition encourages negative interdependence. The school curriculum has to aim at not only enabling learners to acquire knowledge. The development of intrinsic values and emotional intelligence of learners are equally important. The cooperative learning helps in all round development of personality if applied systematically.

The paper focuses on the benefts of cooperative learning, provides insights into various cooperative learning strategies, their use in classroom situations and highlights a number of essential elements that must be met for deriving success from cooperative learning strategy.