35.12 Summary

Media technologies can have pervasive and powerful effects on the nature of society and the thinking and communicating of its members. There can be little doubt that technology will increasingly be utilized in instructional situations. In the past, however, teachers and schools have been very slow in adopting new technologies and very quick in discontinuing its use. The failure of schools to adopt available instructional technologies and to maintain (let alone continuously improve) their use may be at least in part due to two barriers: (a) the individual assumption underlying most hardware and software development and (b) the failure to utilize cooperation learning as an inherent part of using instructional technologies.

A recurrent problem is that most technologies traditionally have carried an individualisiic bias. Individualized instruction is difficult, as meaningful individual differences are hard to identify, let alone translate into instructional practice. As long as hardware and software designers are fixated on individuals, the potential for technology in education is limited.

The alternative to individual use of technologies is their use by cooperative learning groups. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning. There are four basic types of cooperative learning: formal cooperative learning, informal cooperative learning, base groups, and academic controversies. Technologyassisted cooperative learning exists when the instructional use of technology is combined with the use of cooperative learning groups. What underlies cooperative learning's popularity is that it is based on a well-formulated theory that has been validated by numerous research studies and translated into practical procedures that can be used at any level of education. The three theoretical perspectives that have contributed to cooperative learning are cognitivedevelopmental theory, behavioral learning theory, and social interdependence theory. It is the latter perspective that has had the most profound influences on the development of cooperative learning. Between 1898 and 1989, over 550 experimental and 100 correlational studies were conducted comparing the relative effectiveness of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts. Their findings verify that positive interdependence results in promotive interaction among students; negative interdependence results in oppositional interaction; and no interdependence results in the absence of interaction. The multiple outcomes resulting from promotive interaction (compared with oppositional and no interaction) may be classified into three categories: effort to achieve, positive interpersonal relationships, and psychological health. Generally, cooperative efforts result in higher achievement, more positive relationships, and greater psychological health than do competitive or individualistic efforts.

Not all groups, however, are cooperative groups. Teachers may assign students to pseudo-leaming groups, traditional-leaming groups, or cooperative-leaming groups. Pseudo- and traditional-leaming groups are characterized by lack of group maturity, uncritically giving one's dominant response, social loafing, free riding, motivational losses, and group think. To be a cooperative learning group, five basic elements must be structured within the learning situatiow positive interdependence, face-to-face promotive

interaction, individual accountability, social skills, and group processing. It is these five elements that give cooperation its power. In order for schools to adopt technology and maintain its use over time, the school organizational structure must change from a mass-manufacturing structure to a team-based, high-performance structure (known as the cooperative school).

From the research on technology-assisted cooperative teaming, a number of conclusions may be made:

1. Cooperative learning is more cost effective in using technology-assisted instruction than is competitive or individualistic learning.
2. When students are taught to use technology, cooperative-learning groups produce higher achievement than do competitive or individualistic learning.
3. There is a great deal of evidence that when technologyassisted learning is to be used, cooperative learning (compared with competitive and individualistic learning) will result in higher achievement, higher-level reasoning, and long-term retention. There can be little doubt that when technology is involved, individuals should work in teams rather than individualistically or competitively.
4. Cooperative-learning groups provide more productive use of learner control during technology-assisted instruction than do competitive or individualistic learning.
5. Learners will have more positive attitudes toward technology-based instruction and cooperative learning when they participate in cooperative rather than competitive or individualistic learning.
6. Cooperative-learning experiences promote greater cognitive development during technology-assisted instruction than do competitive or individualistic learning.
7. Cooperative-learning experiences promote higher achievement on technology-assisted learning tasks when social skills are taught and emphasized.
8. Learners tend to prefer to work cooperatively at the computer.
9. While technology-assisted cooperative learning may be used with either homogeneous or heterogeneous groups, learners will often achieve more in heterogeneous groups.
10. Females will achieve equally to males and have more positive attitudes toward technology and technology-assisted instruction when they learn in cooperative groups than when they learn competitively or individualistically.
11. Technology creates the possibility of cooperative groups in which members from widely different locations are electronically networked to achieve common goals.

There are a number of questions that must be asked about technology-assisted instruction. Does technology affect achievement or is it only a means for delivering instruction? Current evidence indicates that computers deliver instruction, but they do not affect achievement in and of themselves. Is a dialogue with the computer as effective as a dialogue with another person in promoting achievement and higher-level reasoning? The answer seems to be No. Can the computer pass as a person? The answer seems to be No. Cooperators are people, not machines. Is the effectiveness of a message separate from the medium? The answer seems to be Yes; messages from other people are more powerful and influential than are messages from machines. Is technology an amplifier or a transformer of the mind? The answer seems to be an amplifier. Technology amplifies communication, but it takes other people to transform each other's minds.

The dearth of research on technology-assisted instruction and the absence of theoretically relevant, well-controlled studies on technology-assisted cooperative learning are major barriers for implementation. The interdependence between the use of technology-assisted instruction and cooperative learning is relatively unexplored. Technologies can either facilitate or obstruct cooperation. The future of technology-assisted cooperative learning depends on the development of software written for cooperative groups and the development of hardware that both requires and facilitates cooperative efforts within the group, among groups in the classroom, and among groups throughout the world.