ABSTRACT

As teachers increase the amount of time devoted to cooperative procedures in their classrooms, their students learn to help each other, to share their ideas and their resources, and, at the same time, to develop self-direction and responsibility for their learning. Generally teachers initiate cooperative learning by introducing methods that require highly structured interaction among students. With time and practice, as students and teachers grow more confident, they adopt more diverse and complex cooperative procedures. Some of these methods expand the opportunities for genuine interaction among students and for an exchange of ideas and/or information about their learning.