Learning Together and Alone

Abstract

The origin of our approach to cooperative learning has two quite distinct roots. David’s commitment to cooperative learning came from his involvement in the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, while Roger’s interest in cooperative learning came from his involvement in the science education revolution of the early 1960s and his involvement in the development of the ESS Science Inquiry Curriculum. Our method of cooperative learning is known as the “Learning Together and Alone” method, based on the title of our first book and our belief that all three ways of structuring learning situations (cooperative, competitive, and individualistic) were appropriate under certain conditions. The development of our method consisted of four components. First, it was based on a well-formulated theory. We choose Deutsch’s theory of cooperation and competition as our theoretical base. Second, the theory was well validated by research. Our research efforts consisted of extensive reviews of the existing research literature and a systematic program of research to further validate and extend the theory. Social interdependence theory was the result. Third, our operational procedures for instructors and other educators were derived from the validated theory and spelled out as a conceptual structure that allowed instructors to plan any lesson in any curriculum for any age student to be cooperative. Our operational procedures included both the teacher’s role in our four types of cooperative learning (formal, informal, cooperative base groups, and constructive controversy) and the five basic elements that are required to make a learning situation cooperative (positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, social skills, group processing). Fourth, we implemented our method of cooperative learning throughout North America, Western and Eastern Europe, and much of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. This worldwide implementation was enhanced by our web site and our annual newsletter. We also helped found several Cooperative Learning Centers around the world based on and affiliated with our Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota.