DOE Home

Office of Equity & Access

Cooperative Learning and Educational Equity:
A Promising Partnership Revised: February 1996

Cooperative learning is a group learning process based on the understanding that people learn better when they learn together. Cooperative learning provides an alternative to the traditional classroom in which the teacher is up front teaching the class as a whole or supervising individualized seat work. It also provides an alternative to competition among students for attention, approval and achievement. In addition, researchers such as Robert Slavin and Jeannie Oakes have identified cooperative learning as a successful alternative to ability grouping, and as a method for closing the achievement gap between minority students and their white classmates. There are numerous models in place and a body of research literature at both the elementary and secondary levels.

In the cooperative model the focus is shifted from teaching to learning, from the individual relationship between teacher and student to the relationship of the student to the class as a community of learners. The teacher is no longer the focus of interaction. Students work in small groups and are interdependent upon each other for answers to their questions and for achieving their goals, with the teacher as facilitator and resource person.

Proponents of cooperative learning feel that the model provides higher academic achievement, increases high level problem solving, promotes better peer relationships and relationships between students and their schools and teachers. Research on cooperative learning at all grade levels consistently finds positive effects of these methods if they incorporate two major elements: group goals and individual accountability. That is, cooperating groups must be rewarded based on the sum or average of individual learning performances. (Slavin, 1990).

David and Roger Johnson of the Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota have conducted 26 controlled studies matching cooperative learning against competitive and individualized instruction models. Of these, 21 found that cooperation led to higher achievement. They found that the discussion that takes place in the cooperative groups encourages higher-level cognitive strategies than the individual thought processes used in competitive and individual learning situations. Even those students who are already high achievers flourish, because teaching or explaining to others is an excellent way to sharpen or deepen knowledge of a subject. Recent research also shows that children learn best when they can talk and interact with others, something the cooperative model allows for while the traditional models do not.

There is substantial evidence that cooperative learning promotes equity in two significant ways. Slavin and Madden found that assigning students of different races to work together was consistently related to positive racial attitudes and behaviors. In addition, the academic achievement gap between minority and majority students lessens when cooperative learning is the instructional method.

As Slavin points out, all of the cooperative learning models are designed to be true changes in classroom organization rather than limited treatments. As such, they provide daily opportunities for intense interpersonal contact between students of different races. (Slavin, 1981).

Researchers at The Cooperative Learning Center at the University of Minnesota, at the Johns Hopkins Center for Social Organization of Schools, and at the Mid-Atlantic Center for Sex Equity have found that cooperative education enhances equity in education. Students in cooperative settings have higher regard for themselves, their peers, their schools and their studies. The Johnsons conducted 37 studies on interpersonal results of cooperative learning and found that in 35 studies students liked each other better when they worked cooperatively. More importantly, this attraction seemed to cross boundaries of race, gender, disability and ethnicity. (Kohn, 1987).

In addition, the Johnsons found that students who work cooperatively have higher regard for their schools and teachers as well as their classmates. They also have higher regard for the subject they are studying and for themselves, two factors which are promising for non-traditional student / subject matches ( e.g. girls / science) as well as for low achieving and at-risk students. (Kohn, 1987).

In Cooperative Learning and Desegregation, Slavin reports that in three of four studies of cooperative learning, both white and black students in cooperative settings showed higher gains than students in control groups. However, the gains for minority students were far greater in the cooperative learning groups than in the control groups. The result was that minority students significantly narrowed the gap in achievement between themselves and their majority group classmates. Slavin suggests that for Black and Latino students the peer group is of greater importance than it is for white students. When given an opportunity to compete or cooperate, minority students are more likely to choose cooperation. When each person's academic performance benefits the group and the group's efforts benefit the individual, academic achievement becomes supported by the peer group. Cooperative learning strategies reduce the conflict between peer approval and academic performance that many minority students face. (Slavin, 1981).

Pilot programs in Team Assisted Individualized Learning and earlier research on Student Team Learning established that both the academic and social aspects of equity concerns are served through cooperative learning. Students in the cooperative learning models gained more than twice the grade equivalents of students in traditional classrooms. Students had more positive attitudes toward math, higher self-esteem in math as well as more positive attitudes towards students of different ethnic backgrounds, more accepting attitudes toward mainstreamed students, and more appropriate behavior.

In Mathematics and Science: Critical Filters for the Future of Minority Students, DeAnna Beanne lists cooperative learning as one of the suggested models for intervention strategies which will break the cycle of low expectations, poor performance, remediation and low self-concept which restrict the academic upward mobility of minority students. (Beanne, 1985).

Developed by Slavin, 1978. The teacher presents a lesson to the students who then meet in four to five person groups for the purpose of helping each other master worksheets on the material presented. Each student takes a quiz and team scores are determined by the degree of individual improvement over previous scores. High scoring teams are recognized in a weekly newsletter. Research indicates that this model has the most consistently successful results.

Developed by De Vries and Slavin, 1978. After a lesson is presented by the teacher, students meet in four to five person groups to help each other learn the material. Students do not take individual quizzes. Instead, they compete with students on other teams who have similar achievement in order to earn points for their own teams. This model has also shown a high rate of success.

Developed by Johnson and Johnson, 1975. Students work in small teams to produce a team project. Teachers encourage positive interdependence, face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, social skills and group process. For example, students who ask the teacher a question will be referred to their group to find the answer. Scores are based on both individual performance and the success of their group, but individuals and teams do not compete against one another. This model has shown a high level of success.

Developed by Sharon and Sharon, 1976. Students are divided into teams. Each group is given a unique project or task and makes major decisions about how to approach the information, organization and presentation. Higher level learning (applications, synthesis and inferences) is emphasized. This method has had moderately high success.

Developed by Aronsen, 1978. Each student belongs to a group of four to six students. Each student in the group is given information that makes the student the group expert on that topic. The "experts" from each group read their material and then meet to discuss and synthesize their information. Then they return to their groups and teach what they know to their teammates. (There is a variation called Jigsaw II in which groups begin with a base of common information.) Students are quizzed individually and earn team scores which are published in a class newsletter. This model was one of the least successful.

Developed by Stevens, Madden, Slavin and Farnish, 1987. Like Team-Assisted Individualized Learning, this method is designed to accommodate a wide range of student performance levels in one classroom using both heterogeneous and homogeneous with-in class grouping. Both have been successfully researched in grades 3-6, but are often used through the eighth grade.

• Requiring a single product guarantees that group members share a goal.
• Giving a group grade makes everyone responsible for each other.
• Dividing a lesson into segments and having each student specialize in a part creates a situation in which each group member has something everyone else needs.
• Assigning interconnected roles makes the group function together smoothly.
• Oral review for the group and individual peer tutoring reinforce knowledge.
• The process requires individual accountability as well as group interdependence.
• No one is finished until everyone has mastered the lesson.

Beanne, DeAnna Banks. (1985). Mathematics and Science: Critical Filters for the Future of Minority Students. The Mid-Atlantic Center for Race Equity, The American University.

CSOS Report, Vol. 1, No. 1., (May 1983). Center for Social Organization of Schools, The Johns Hopkins University.

Kohn, Alfie.(1987). "It's Hard to Get Left Out of a Pair." Psychology Today. October, 1987.

Newmann, Fred M., and Thompson, Judith A. (1987). Effects of Cooperative Learning on Achievement in Secondary Schools: A Summary of Research. Madison, Wisconsin: National Center on Effective Secondary Schools, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Slavin, R.E., "Ability grouping, Cooperative Learning, and the Gifted." Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 14, 3-8.

Stevens, R.J., Madden, N.A., Slavin, R.E., and Farnish, A. M. (1987). Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition: Two field experiments. Reading Research Quarterly, 22 433-454.

Warrington, Steven. (1988). "Cooperative Learning and the Socialization of Youth." in Education and Society. Vol I. No. 2.

Aronsen, E. (1978). The Jigsaw Classroom. Beverly Hills, California: Sage.

Glazer, William, M.D., (1986). Control Theory in the Classroom. N.Y.: Harper and Row.

Graves, N. and Graves, T. (1987). Cooperative Learning: A Resource Guide. Santa Cruz, California: International Association for the Study of Cooperative Education.

Johnson, D. and Johnson, R. (1975). Learning Together and Alone: Cooperation, Competition and Individualization. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Johnson, D. and Johnson, R. (1984). Circles of Learning. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Sharon, S., Kussel, P., Hertz-Lazarowitz, R., Bejarano, Y. Raviv, S. and Sharan, Y. (1984). Cooperative Learning in the Classroom: Research in Desegregated Schools. Hillsdale, New Jersey: L. Erlbaum.

Sharon Y., and Sharon S. (1992). Group Investigation: Expanding Cooperative Learning. New York: Teacher's College Press.

Slavin, R.E., (1991). Are Cooperative learning and untracking harmful to the gifted? Educational Leadership , 48 (6), 68-71.

Slavin, R.E. (1990) Cooperative Learning: Theory, research, and practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Slavin, R.E. (1986). Using Student Team Learning, 3rd edition. Baltimore MD: Center for Research on Elementary and Middle Schools, The Johns Hopkins University.

Slavin, R.E. ed. (1985). Learning to Cooperate, Cooperating to Learn. N.Y.: Plenum.

Slavin, R.E. (1983). Cooperative Learning. New York: Longman.

Slavin, R.E. (1982). TAI Mathematics Teachers Manual. The Johns Hopkins Center for Social Organization of Schools.

For questions & comments regarding education issues: | For questions & comments regarding this Web site: E-mail Webmaster
Accessibility | Copyright Florida Department of Education ©2005 | Privacy Statement | Public Records
Free Downloads: Acrobat Reader | Excel Viewer 2003 | Word Viewer 97/2000 | PowerPoint Viewer 2003
Under Florida law, e-mail addresses are public records. If you do not want your e-mail address released in response to a public-records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.