Education Week defines cooperative
learning as, “A method of instruction
that encourages students to work in
small groups, learning material, then
presenting what they have learned to
other small groups. In doing so, they
take responsibility for their own
learning as well as their
classmates’.”7 In other words,
cooperative learning is a system in
which students become both
motivated and motivators. By
shifting responsibility for learning
from teachers to students,
cooperative learning takes away the
“us vs. them” mentality that the
typical school organization naturally
tends to encourage and creates in its
place a new dynamic where students
feel empowered and eager to
succeed on their own terms and not
only to please their teacher.