Among several methods, STAD is one of the simplest ways to apply a cooperative
lesson to any grade level and subject matter (Slavin, 2009). The teacher starts to put
STAD into practice by presenting the content of activities and quizzes to form adequate
knowledge base in the mind of learners. Afterwards, students meet with their
teammates and work on assigned activities to prepare each other to quiz. Once
learned together, members take the relevant quiz alone to realize whether every
member of the group has mastered the knowledge, which is actually the underlying
purpose of CL. Slavin (1996) suggested individual improvement scores for computing
team scores that is a remarkable way for monitoring students’ excellence as it makes
students compete solely with their own past performances. This scoring system ensures
a feeling of justice since any student has a chance to exceed their own past performances
through studying hard and be announced as the person who contributed
maximum to group goal. It is crucial to make team scores public by means of a bulletin
board right after the lesson at which students took the quiz because it “makes the
connection between doing well and receiving recognition clear to students, increasing
their motivation to do their best” (Slavin, 2009, p. 245).