To implement cooperative learning successfully in practice, teachers require knowledge
of cooperative learning, its features and terms, and how it functions in classrooms. This
qualitative study examined 12 Australian generalist primary teachers', understandings of
cooperative learning and perceived factors affecting its implementation. Using Johnson
and Johnson’s (1994) features of cooperative learning and Bain, Lancaster and Zundans’
(2009) list of cooperative learning terms as a framework for analysis, we found that
teachers’ level of cooperative learning knowledge shaped their perceptions of the factors
affecting its implementation in the classroom. The study supports the need for a deep
embedding of cooperative learning pattern language in teacher training and professional
development courses, and highlights the ongoing challenge of translating educational
theory into effective practice on a larger scale in schools.