THE FORMATIVE DIMENSIONS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Cooperative learning is a pedagogical approach that involves pupils and students working together to achieve common goals or accomplish group tasks. The efficacy of cooperative learning as a pedagogical practice is widely acknowledged, with evidence indicating its capacity to facilitate socialisation and learning among students at all levels, from kindergarten to university, and across diverse subject areas. The approach emphasises the importance of pupils and students working together as a unifiedteam in a collaborative and supportive environment. This enables them to provide constructive feedback, enhance their existing knowledge, engage in active and creative thinking, and negotiate solutions collectively. When teachers structure activities in small groups, pupils/ students are more interactive, using more equitable communication so that ideas are shared between group members and they develop more ideas to explain the problem at hand. The fact that pupils and students interact and work together not only enables them to learn from each other, but also allows them to accept more autonomy over the tasks they have to accomplish and the decisions they have to make. Research also shows that students have a lot to learn when they have opportunities to interact with each other, listen to what others have to say, share ideas and information, ask questions, critique others' ideas, and use the information to reason and solve problems together.