Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

Cooperative Learning Groups
Cooperative learning was perhaps the most common practice that we observed
teachers using to deal with individual differences in ability. Most elementary
school teachers and a number of junior high school teachers in the three cities
we visited practiced some form of cooperative learning in their classrooms. In co-
operative learning the class is divided into groups of four or five students of vary-
ing ability, who sit together, apart from other groups.

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Teachers with whom we talked explained how they believed that these coopera-
tive learning groups facilitate the interaction of students and allow for peer tutor-
ing during classroom time. Teachers typically reported grouping high-achieving
students with low-achieving ones. High-achieving students were expected to help
slower students, and teachers often assigned projects that required cooperation
among the small groups of students.
A teacher at West Middle School explained her support for cooperative learning
groups:
I really believe in the hands on approach. I believe that all students do not
arrive to me with the same level of readiness. That is why I think group learn-
ing is really good for them. Peer coaching goes on within a group. And stu-
dents, if you make them comfortable with a new group, they will help each
other out.
The support for cooperative learning extended across research sites. A parent of
a student at a middle school in East City explained the cooperative learning ap-
proach of teachers at the school:
It’s strictly intermixed, because their philosophy is that the slower students
can learn from the faster students. And the faster students enjoy helping the
kids that do not have as strong a background as they do. Sometimes that can
encourage a mediocre student to do better—when their peers help them as
opposed to an adult.
In assigning students to groups, teachers reported considering the personalities of
students as well as the academic level. One teacher emphasized the importance
of grouping students who are leaders with those who are more likely to be fol-
lowers to avoid the organization of groups that have no leaders.
Some teachers also created situations in which these cooperative groups would
be competing with other groups. For example, after assigning the same tasks to
the five groups in her classroom, one elementary school teacher announced to
the class which groups had gotten the correct answers and which had not.
While teachers were typically favorable toward cooperative learning groups, sev-
eral parents were opposed to the practice, because they believed it might hinder
the progress of high-ability students. Referring to cooperative learning, a mother
at Midtown Elementary, a school in a lower-middle and working class community
in Metro City, said, ‘‘Public schools are inferior, because they lump kids together
rather than separating them by ability or tracking them.’’ In unequivocal terms,
she indicated that she was opposed to cooperative learning and resented the fact

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that her two children were expected to teach other children to read and that her
children received grades for work that was done with other children.
Likewise, two parents at King Junior High School in Metro City insisted that peer
tutoring and cooperative learning were detrimental to the academic development
of their high-achieving children. One parent referred to a study demonstrating that
‘‘bright kids do not benefit from teaching slower learners.’’ Continuing her criti-
cism of cooperative learning, she referred to a joint project for which her daugh-
ter received the grade of a C. The mother claimed that the poor grade was the
fault of the less capable child, whom the mother described as a poor speller and
worker. ‘‘Why should my daughter get a poor grade because of this other stu-
dent?’’ asked the mother.