ABSTRACT
Teamwork has made America great. Depending upon and nurturing individuals free to develop ideas and skills, teamwork and its necessary cooperation are the foundation of progress. The marketplace of ideas and free enterprise is replete with calls for team players and critical thinkers. Despite the ideological back and forth, cooperation and competition are not dichotomous. Rather, each depends upon the other. All this is to say that the classroom should be a setting where cooperation is encouraged along with critical thinking and individual achievement. Effective cooperative learning is facilitated by the following: 1
Being preceded by independent thought, often in writing.
Having engaging and relevant content as a focus of the cooperation.
Having clear-cut and shifting roles for each student in a team.
Having clear goals for teamwork.
Having a rationale for the selection of the pairings and larger teams.
Having several possible preset pairings into which students can easily shift.
102Making clear to students that they will be working in different teams.
Having a repertoire of structures for cooperative interaction.
Having a comprehensive organization.
Having self-evaluative strategies for pairs and larger teams.
Preparing for cooperation with team-building exercises.
Sharing with students the rationale for teaming and the positive results.
Identifying and practicing the social skills necessary for success.
Binding Together a Classroom
