Learning Together to Get Success Together

It was the first meeting in Principles of Effective Teaching and Assessment (PETA) class, after we were mid examination. We divided into some groups to do jigsaw. We learned about effective learning and effective teacher, lesson plan, cooperative learning, and what the differentiation is. My group got material about cooperative learning and we discussed about it.

Based on our discussion cooperative learning is a teaching strategy that uses variety of learning activities with small teams which have students in different levels of their ability. There is teamwork in cooperative learning, because each member has responsibility to care each other’s such as helping teammates learn.

Based on research in material paper that has been given by Miss Ine, cooperative learning can help students to develop their skills in oral communication, can promote students’ self-esteem, can increase student’s retention, etc. There are five elements of cooperative learning, positive interdependence (sink or swim together), face to face interaction (promote each other’s success), individual and group accountability (no hitchhiking! No social loafing), interpersonal and small group skills and group processing.

 In cooperative learning there are class activities such as jigsaw, think-pair-share, three-step interview, round robin brainstorming, three-minute review, numbered heads together, team pair solo, circle the sage, and partners. I found some activities that I didn’t know before. I think it is the unique activities. In my opinion all of the activities in cooperative learning can help students to build good teamwork. Reflect to my experience in Sampoerna of Education (SSE), almost all of my lectures gave me cooperative learning activities, such as jigsaw. It was very helpful for me, because if I didn’t understand about the material I can ask and shared with my friends. So, we can complement each other.

 As teacher candidate, I must know all of class activities that can help students to improve their learning. I think students will easier to understand the material if they solve the problem together. It is because did it together can make them share each other, so they can exchange knowledge and they can help each other. I think it is will be better if they success together. I will apply cooperative learning for my students in the future. I hope it will be interested, but of course it will depend with the situation at that time and the goal of lesson.