Teamwork and cooperative learning in higher education

 

Teamwork and cooperative learning are vital strategies for enhancing higher education. Teamwork involves individuals working together towards a common goal, utilizing complementary skills and holding themselves mutually accountable. Cooperative learning (CL) is a specific instructional application of teamwork, where students collaborate to maximize their own and each other's learning. Unlike simply putting students into groups, CL is highly structured, fostering positive peer relationships, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

Effective CL hinges on several essential elements:

• Positive Interdependence: Students believe they "sink or swim together," necessitating mutual success. This can be structured via shared goals, rewards, resources, or roles.
• Individual Accountability: Each student is responsible for their share and assessed individually, preventing "hitch-hiking".
• Face-to-Face Promotive Interaction: Students actively assist and encourage one another.
• Teamwork Skills: Explicitly taught skills like communication, leadership, and conflict management are crucial.
• Group Processing: Teams reflect on their functioning to improve collaboration.

In higher education, instructors transition from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side," facilitating deep learning. Strategies like Jigsaw, where students become "experts" on a part of the material and teach it to their team, and Think-Pair-Share, involving individual thought, paired discussion, and group sharing, are frequently employed. Other techniques include Team Pair Solo and various writing-based activities like Write-Pair-Share/Square/Switch. These methods cultivate higher achievement, better content mastery, improved communication, and enhanced self-esteem, preparing students for future collaborative work environments. The approach often begins with simpler tasks and progresses to more complex ones as students gain mastery.