ISSN: 2456–5474 RNI No.  UPBIL/2016/68367 VOL.- VIII , ISSUE- IV May  - 2023
Innovation The Research Concept
Cooperative Learning Strategies Best Tool for Inclusion
Paper Id :  17572   Submission Date :  2023-05-05   Acceptance Date :  2023-05-16   Publication Date :  2023-05-22
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Aparna Singh
Research Scholar
Faculty Of Education
Dayalbagh Educational Institute
Agra,Uttar Pradesh, India
D. Vasanta
Associate Professor
Faculty Of Education
Dayalbagh Educational Institute
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
Abstract
In Inclusion set up each students get equal opportunity for learning. Inclusion is the best way for learning as it fulfills the need of learner. For adapting inclusion in classroom it is necessary to identify the best strategy that promotes the learning in inclusion. It creates the opportunity for learning with cooperation and group effort Cooperative Learning Strategies create learning environment where all students get opportunity to participate in classroom activities. Any disability does not stop to participate in group task. Cooperative learning structure benefits students who suffer with disabilities,it creats opportunity to learn actively with peers. In Cooperative Strtegy structure Classroom students freely express their thoughts, ideas etc. According to Stevens and Slavin (1995) students likely to be at instructional level and have positive learning outcomes when explanation and models are provided by peers.
Keywords Inclusion, Cooperative Strategies, Classroom, Skills, Tool.
Introduction
“Children who learn together Learn to live together.” Inclusive Education is a way of teaching that reduces exclusion and increase the participation of learner that fulfills the diverse needs of different learner without any discrimination by developing a feeling of cooperation and togetherness. Inclusive education means that all students attend and are welcomed by their neighborhood schools in age-appropriate, regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the school. An inclusive classroom climate refers to an environment where all students feel supported intellectually and academically, and are extended a sense of belonging in the classroom regardless of identity, learning preferences, or education Inclusion is a belief that ALL students, regardless of labels, should be members of the general education community. The philosophy of inclusion encourages the elimination of the dual special and general education systems, and the creation of a merged system that is responsive to the needs of all students. “The act of learning how to positively understand, accept and support both multiculturalism and individual differences working together.” Ty Howard
Objective of study
1. To discuss the importance of inclusion. 2. To explain how Cooperative Strategies best tool for Inclusion. 3. To discuss the benefits of Cooperative Learning Strategies for learner, teacher and Parents.
Review of Literature

Successful learning with thinking and knowledge is our late president A.P.J KALAM Sahab. Successful learning is not only the effect of good teaching with skills but also the learning of students applying those skills. Cognitive modeling and behavioral change are definitely expected when a human mind interact with another human mind in the process of learning

Cooperative strategies are these strategies which has small and heterogeneous group of students who work together for a given period to accomplish shared learning goals   (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith (2014)

Woo, Lee and Kim (2009) suggested that cooperative learning depends on not only group members’ capability but also quantity and quality of interaction enhancing creativity within these cooperative strategies potentially affect the achievement, knowledge, social skills, motivation etc.

Main Text

Benefits of Inclusive Education

1. Develop individual strengths with high and appropriate expectations for each child.

2. Work on individual goals while participating in the life of the classroom with other students their own age.

3. Involve their parents in their education and in the activities of their local schools.

4. Foster a school culture of respect and belonging. Inclusive education provides opportunities to learn   and accept individual differences.

5. Children respect individuality and also respect others.

6. Emotional Quotient of Students enhances.

7. Students learn to help peers and a strong bond of trust ,understanding, support develops with their peers

8. It promotes Unity in Diversity in the classroom as in the nation. to know about strength and weakness

9. Students get opportunity to know about strength and weakness.

10. Children learn team work and collaboration.

11. Positively affect both their school and community to appreciate diversity and inclusion on a broader level

Cooperative learning strategies are the best tool for inclusion. It benefits the disable students who are suffering with varied kind of disability or disorder like ADHD, Learning Disability, and Autism etc. With Cooperative strategies students are engaged actively in the classrooms with the peers. Students freely express their thought ,views, imagination etc. Students feels free to express because cooperative learning strategies develop a trustworthy Cooperative environment in the classroom.

Cooperative Learning Strategies develop a sense of community feelings among students. After applying the Cooperative Learning Strategies students receive constructive feedback that improves their learning. There are so many forms of Cooperative Learning Strategies like Think Pair Share, Number Heads Together, and jigsaw etc. The basic consideration for applying a Cooperative Learning Strategy in the classroom is (a) Group Size (b) Clear Learning Goal (c) Direct Instruction for Group Procedure (d) Mixed ability Grouping (e) Individual and Group Accountability.

A learner enters the school, a miniature society from his family to engage himself or herself into the voyage of learning. Learner cannot achieve his goal/objectives without support and encouragement of teachers, administrative, classmates, family and society. In this way by comprehensive efforts of teaching and learning, students not only focus on the syllabi or examination but also attentively involves in teaching and learning process. By the application of some instructional strategies for achieving the objective of that curriculum, among many instructional strategies cooperative learning strategies play a vital role in effective learning as involves the principle of group along with transfer of learning learnt from one another in applying those cooperative strategies.

In the Cooperative learning approach, children work in small group structured to enhance the learning of all group members (Slavin 2014, Gillies 2016)

Benefits for learners learning through cooperation

Learner in each class may be of various category like first generation learner, Inclusive learner, gifted learning disadvantage Multi-cultural having much dissimilarity but even then they have one similarity of their belongings to one class, one teacher, one curricula etc. Which makes them integrated even having some any variations and in term they all fit for a collective group effort with best results. Cooperative learning promotes 21st century skills

Firstly we discuss the importance for learner when we study through the cooperation A pattern of teaching that enhance the learning and empower the students with positive attitudes towards their peers. When students learn through cooperation in the umbrella of cooperative strategies, Cooperative strategies help the learner in developing positive relationship among the fellow members of groups. Cooperative strategies develop team building skills among the students. When a student learns in a prepared cooperative learning strategies background they become sensitive how to prepare a well structure team to fulfill a goal. They observe how teacher create group and also observe which team perform best. Then they can learn or enhance their team building skills which help in their future life.

As there is diversity in a classroom As we know a good learning take place when students support and cooperate each other it is done when students learn in cooperative atmosphere. When students learn by cooperative strategies positive relationship among students are develop. It develops the feeling of unity in diversity. As cooperative strategies provide opportunity in learning in a social group then it enhances the social skills of the students that promote good learning skills.

Secondly it enhances their retention power as the students learn by learning by doing in a cooperative group. When students learn something actively then is easy to keep it for long time. Hence retention power of students enhances.

Thirdly it improves the intrinsic motivation by the cooperative strategies learner motivated intrinsically. For example if students learn through cooperation they have feeling of doing best as they are working in a group for fulfilling a goal. Their learning is goal oriented, need of fulfilling the goal motivate them intrinsically.

Fourthly it enhance the self esteem as they work in a group situation they have responsibility of a group. They present themselves in a group situation so it will increase their self esteem.

In a cooperative learning group individual within group learns leadership skills. By the cooperative strategies students develop and enhance their leadership skills. Leadership skills like delegating, organizing, work, support others etc are develop. Hence cooperative strategies provide opportunity for practicing leadership skills.

Effective teamwork requires good communication skills. Success of a group goal depends on the communication. All member groups have to learn speak clearly. By cooperative strategy students develop the habit of sharing their view confidentially.

Conflict management skills also develop by cooperative learning strategies.  If any issue arises in a group they try to settle down the issue among the group. So it will enhance or develop the conflict management skills

In this way we can say that there are so many skills which helps the learner in learning process are develop or enhance through cooperative learning.

With executive functions, theoretical social awareness, interactive skills results learner as effective participants problem solvers and lifelong learner in a conducive environment of learning. Cooperative learning strategies develop as intensive motivation with more self esteem during the process of learning when they implement these in a family atmosphere with social support so as to enable themselves to appreciate diversities or differences among themselves.

Application of cooperative strategies with positive attitude towards teacher and the process of learning leads to good practice transfer of learning increasing the skills of learning, communication, technology language and numeracy along with social and interactive skills .These strategy give weightage to group as a whole but not in part /individuals.

This phase of group processing done with face to face interaction between the students of a small groups not only result in better achievement and Knowledge Retention skills but also helps them in developing conflict Resolution skills on their own.

Benefits of Cooperative learning Strategies to Teachers

Benefits for teacher learning strategies are an irrelevance pedagogical practice applied by teacher to create a strong bond between the teaching and learning process facilitating assessment for learning. Cooperative strategy are implemented in groups 3 to 5 students and teachers acts as a guide teacher and facilitator. In democratic conducive environments applies these strategies to enhance various skills through cooperative experience.

Cooperative learning is well known pedagogy practice that promotes the learning various skills of students. It is most influential approach for learning various skills of students. As it benefits the learner as well as teaching through cooperation also benefits the teacher. Here teacher teach as facilitator. By utilizing these strategy teacher teaching created real life atmosphere in classroom situation. It feels so alive. It touches the real life skills and real life experience.

Cooperative teaching evokes teacher thinking skills. It creates opportunity for making their teaching democratic .It less the burden of preparing teaching material. It provides the opportunity for utilizing higher order thinking skills during the planning activities. When students learn cooperation it increase the satisfaction level of teacher. As teacher become more satisfied with the active participation of the students. Teacher becomes more satisfied due to he or she get new opportunity to show or improve their various skills. It increases their interest in teaching. It increases their efficiency and output. Hence it increases their satisfaction level due to get success to make student engagement purposefully.

Cooperative learning is one of the most common research practice in education “Research on cooperative learning has moved beyond the questioning of whether cooperative learning is effective in accelerating student achievement to focus on the condition under which is optimally effective.(Stain 1995)

Leo semyonovich Vygotscky first expressed his view about this method he considered the role of culture, society, language in social considered in social constructivist theory. He tried to utilize the approach within the group for cooperation and culture. He focused on creating group goal & individually accountability.

Teacher using cooperative learning involves active participants of all group members with a group and individual accountability with a well developed communication and meta-cognitive skills.

Mutual sharing of knowledge among students make teacher less stressed and more interactive. Through these strategy   teachers can promote learning to do, learning to be, learning to we concept among all the students irrespective of their individual differences. Teacher becomes caring imaginative and enthusiastic to involve students participate actively with zeal and spirit in the process of learning.

 Benefits of cooperative strategies to parents

The application of cooperative strategies not only promotes group learning but also reduce pre existing negativity with successful group cohesiveness and specific feedback to students. This develop positive attitude for learning with intensive motivation releasing risk and stress among students, these act as positive reinforce to parents and develop an indicate connectivity between parents and their words, creating more opportunities to learning and achieving goals of learning with success, development and growth mindset by realizing the strength of their children and inculcating observational feedback with competence to face challenge of life.

Cooperation inculcate various value  among students that are beneficial for parents as their children learn various social skills like helping each other life skills sharing, coordinating etc they are happy to see that their child inculcate moral and social values through their learning. Secondly they want their child learn actively it will fulfill by learning through cooperation. Third benefit on the part of parents as they are satisfied with school progress of child.

As a parent they want their child get opportunity for all round development. Their inner desire that child should prepare for their future life. Their child becomes goal oriented, confident, hard working, and cooperative. This can be achieve through cooperation learn during applying cooperative strategies. Hence it is beneficial for parents.

Conclusion
While educational policies around the world have become more inclusive (Romberg and Watkins 2020) the social inclusion is still the area of concern in our society. Cooperative Learning Strategies a approach that has gained popularity in recent years is learning together(Johnson & et.al 1993,2009) Cooperative learning strategies can be applied well in the classroom by the teacher for catering the different needs of learner as per their individual differences and when these learner learn as per their individual differences and when these learner return to their failure gain positive attitude of their parents due to better understanding, adjustment and interest in learning as various situation/conditions. These cooperative strategies act as boon to rejuvenate curiosity, imagination, critical attitude, logic and reasoning with creativity irrespective of their individual differences of gender, age, intelligence, achievement, interest etc. Thus cooperative strategies are mainly based on the principle of inclusion that is children who learn together learn to live together to build up a strong well developed nation which is intellectually ,socially, morally and spiritually strength to face the challenges of future with imaginative mind Cooperative Learning Straegies embedded classroom teaching more Active and Living and enhance disable student’s participation and achievement with normal student’s support and Cooperation. Concept of Inclusion with Cooperative Learning Strategies not only confine to classroom but it brings changes in the attitudes of adults and child towards life goal. It develops feeling of cooperation, unity and diversity, Positive mindset towards disable and differently able children that brings change in Society and Nation. Hence the Cooperative Strategies are the best tool for Inclusion.
References
1. Catarino Paula, Vasco Paulo & et.al (2018) Cooperative learning on promoting creative thinking and mathematical creativity in Higher Education Sanikan wattanwongoon, Kimberley (2021) Cooperative learning strategies for building relationship skills in students with emotional and behaviour disorder. 2. Yasin Bashar, Rasool Shafqat (2021) Effect of Cooperative learning strategies on student’s learning 3. Garry Hornby and James .M.Kauffman (2021)Special and Inclusive Education Perspective ,challenges and Prospects 4. James McLeskey, Larry Maheady, Bonnie Bollingsley,Marry Brownell(2018)High Leverage Practices for inclusive education 5. Fabio Dovigo (2017) Special Education needs and Inclusive Practises 6. Kate Scorgie,Chris Forlin(2019) Promoting Social Inclusion 7. https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/inclusive-education/ 8. https://inclusiveeducation.ca/about/what-is-ie/ 9. https://www.gov.nl.ca/education/k12/inclusion/ 10. https://bangalore.globalindianschool.org/blog-details/what-is-the-purpose-of-inclusive-education 11. https://indiadidac.org/2018/06/inclusion-in-education/