Building Bridges: Exploring Mathematics Teachers’ Journey Through Cooperative Learning

Aim: Cooperative learning is a teaching approach where students work together in small group groups to achieve learning goals.The main concern of this study is to investigate how teachers experience, implement, and adapt cooperative learning strategies in their classrooms.It sought to understand the challenges and growth opportunities they encounter, ultimately, contributing to more effective professional development and collaborative teaching approaches.Methodology: A qualitative research methodology was used in the study, specifically Husserl's transcendental phenomenological design.Eight mathematics teachers were engaged in focus group discussions, interviews, and class observations.They were chosen through a criterion-based purposive sampling.Results: Findings revealed twelve major themes regarding teachers' perceptions, practices, and challenges: Teacher lived experiences and affective reactions, group formation and lesson integration as contextual implementation practices, external contextual factors impacting implementation, diverse cooperative learning strategies and techniques, structured group organization, role assignment, and clear instructions, reflective practice and evolution of cooperative learning practices, beliefs about teaching and learning that shape cooperative practices, strategies to overcome implementation challenges, time management and scheduling challenges, classroom management, discipline, and noise, group dynamics and unequal participation, and communication and language challenges.Not all elements of cooperative learning are present in mathematics classes.Although there was a structure for cooperative learning, the challenges shared by the participants indicated that its implementation was inadequate. Conclusion:From the findings, it can be inferred that when teachers implement cooperative learning, students are also engaged and excited to learn math lessons.Teachers used different strategies to increase students' engagement, foster collaborative learning, and enhance achievement in mathematics.Despite these positive perceptions, teachers faced challenges that hinders the successful implementation of cooperative learning.Thus, it is recommended that school heads and supervisors consider the professional development of teachers, specifically in cooperative learning.Math teachers are also encouraged to create and use successful teaching methods since they can serve as role models for other educators seeking to enhance their teaching-learning methods.