35.6 What is and is not a cooperative group

It is the potential for such outcomes that make cooperative groups the key to successful education. The truly committed cooperative learning group is probably the most productive instructional tool educators have. Creating and maintaining truly committed cooperative learning groups, however, require an understanding of the differences between cooperative learning groups and other forms of classroom 90uPing, the fmes hindering group performance, and the basic elements thatmake cooperative work.

35.6. 1 Making Potential Group Perforniance a Reality

Not all groups are cooperative groups. Placing people in the same room and calling them a cooperative group does not make them one. Having a number of people work together does not make them a cooperative group. Study groups, project groups, lab groups, committees, task forces, departments, and councils are groups, but they are not necessarily cooperative. Groups do not become cooperative groups simply because that is what someone labels them.

The authors have studied cooperative learning groups for 30 years. We have interviewed thousands of students and teachers in a wide variety of school districts in a number of different countries over three different decades to discover how groups are used in the classroom and where and how cooperative groups work best. On the basis of our findings and the findings of other researchers such as Katzenbach and Smith (1993), a learning group performance curve has been developed to clarify the difference between various types of learning groups (Fig. 35-2).

The learning group performance curve illustrates that how well any small group performs depends on how it is structured. On the performance curve, four types of learning groups are described. It begins with the individual members of the group and illustrates the relative performance of these students to pseudo groups, traditional classroom groups, cooperative learning groups, and highperformance cooperative learning groups.

A pseudo-learning group is a group whose members have been assigned to work together, but they have no interest in doing so. They meet but do not want to work together or help each other succeed. Members often block or interfere with each other's learning, communicate and coordinate poorly, mislead and confuse each other, loaf, and seek a "free ride." The interaction among group members detracts from individual learning without delivering any benefit. The result is that the sum of the whole is less than the potential of the individual members. The group does not mature, because members have no interest in or commitment to each other or the group's future.

A traditional classroom learning group is a group whose members have accepted that they are to work together but see little benefit from doing so. Interdependence is low. The assignments are structured so that very little if any joint work is required. Members do not take responsibility for anyone's learning other than their own. Members interact primarily to share information and, clarify how the assignments are to be done. Then they each do the work on their own. And their achievements are individually recognized and rewarded. Students are accountable as separate individuals, not as members of a team. Students do not receive training in social skills, and a group leader is appointed who is in charge of directing members' participation. There is no processing of the quality of the group's efforts.

A cooperative learning group is more than a sum of its parts. It is a group whose members are committed to the common purpose of maximizing each other's learning. A high-performance cooperative learning group is a group that meets all the criteria for being a cooperative learning group and outperforms all reasonable expectations, given its membership. What differentiates the high-performance group from the cooperative learning group is the level of commitment members have to each other and the group's success. Jennifer Futernick, who is part of a high-performing, rapid-response team at McKinsey & Company, calls the emotion binding her teammates together a form of love (Katzenbach & Smith, 1993). Ken Hoepner of the Burlington Northern Intermodal Team (also described by Katzenbach & Smith, 1993) stated: "Not only did we trust each other, not only did we respect each other, but we gave a damn about the rest of the people on this team. If we saw somebody vulnerable, we were there to help. " Members' mutual concern for each other's personal growth enables high-performance cooperative groups to perform far above expectations, and also to have lots of fun. The bad news about high-performance cooperative groups is that they are rare. Most groups never achieve this level of development.

35.6.2 Forces Hindering Group Performance

Performance and small groups go hand in hand. Although cooperative groups outperform individuals working alone, there is nothing magical about groups. There are conditions

Figure 35-2. Making cooperative groups work. Reprinted by permission from Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. & Holubec, E. (1993). Circles of Leaming, 4th ed. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

under which groups function effectively, and conditions under which groups function ineffectively. Potential barriers to group effectiveness (Johnson & F. Johnson, 1994) are:

1. Lack of group maturity. Group members need time and experience working together to develop into an effective group. Temporary, ad-hoc groups usually do not develop enough maturity to function with full effectiveness.
2. Uncritically giving one ~ dominant response. A central barrier to higher-level reasoning and deeper-level understanding is the uncritical giving of members' dominant response to academic problems and assignments. Instead, members should generate a number of potential answers and choose the best one.
3. Social loafing-hiding in the crowd. When a group is working on an additive task (group product is determined by summing together individual group members' efforts), and individual members can reduce their effort without other members realizing that they are doing so, many people tend to work less hard. Such social loafing has been demonstrated on a variety of additive tasks such as rope pulling, shouting, and clapping.
4. Free riding-getting something for nothing. On disjunctive tasks (if one member does it, all members receive the benefit), there is the possibility of a free ride. When group members realize that their efforts are dispensable (group success or failure depends very little on whether or not they exert effort), and when their efforts are costly, group members are less likely to exert themselves on the group's behalf,
5. Motivation losses due to perceived inequity-not being a sucker When other group members are free riding, there is a tendency for the members who are working to reduce their efforts to avoid being a "sucker."
6. Groupthink. Groups can be overconfident in their ability and resist any challenge or threat to their sense of invulnerability by avoiding any disagreements and seeking concurrence among members.
7. Lack of sufficient.heterogeneity. The more homogeneous the group members, the less each member adds to the group's resources. Groups must develop the right mix of taskwork and teamwork skills necessary to do their work. Heterogeneity ensures that a wide variety of resources are available for the group's work.
8. Lack of teamwork skills. Groups with members who lack the small-group and interpersonal skills required to work effectively with others often underperform their most academically able members.
9. Inappropriate group size. The larger the group, the fewer the members who can participate, the less essential each member views his or her personal contribution, the more teamwork skills required, and the more complex the group structure.

Not every group is effective. Most everyone has been Part of a group that wasted time, was inefficient, and generally produced poor work. But there are groups that accomplish wondrous things. Educators must be able to spot the above characteristics of ineffective groups and take action to eliminate them. The hindering factors are eliminated by the basics of cooperation.