EFFECTIVENESS OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN A GRADE 6 SCIENCE CLASS

IN INOCENCIO INTEGRATED SCHOOL

Some students learn by themselves but some are being proficient on what theyre doing if
they are team up with their colleagues because they believe that two heads are better than one.
That learning technique is called cooperative learning. Cooperative learning enables the students
to work together to finish a certain task, to learn something and to strengthen the weaknesses of
each other. There is evidence that cooperative learning really works. Based on the study of David
Johnson, Roger Johnson, and Karl Smith performed a meta-analysis comparing cooperative
learning to competitive learning and individualistic learning in college students (Johnson et al.,
2006). They found that cooperative learning produced greater academic achievement than both
competitive learning and individualistic learning across the studies, exhibiting a mean weighted
effect size of 0.54 when comparing cooperation and competition and 0.51 when comparing
cooperation and individualistic learning. In essence, these results indicate that cooperative
learning increases student academic performance by approximately one-half of a standard
deviation when compared to non-cooperative learning models, an effect that is considered
moderate. Importantly, the academic achievement measures were defined in each study, and
ranged from lower-level cognitive tasks (e.g., knowledge acquisition and retention) to higher
level cognitive activity (e.g., creative problem solving), and from verbal tasks to mathematical
tasks to procedural tasks. The meta-analysis also showed substantial effects on other metrics,
including self-esteem and positive attitudes about learning.
The aim of this study is to measure the efficacious of cooperative learning in Grade Six
students of Inocencio Integrated School. The cooperative learning class will use different
activities such as Think-Pair-Share, Jigsaw, Numbered Heads, Round Robin, Round Table, Write

around and Tea Party. The academic performance of the class that used cooperative learning will
compare to the academic performance of the other class that is not used cooperative learning.
The criteria to measure the efficacious of the cooperative learning at the end of the study are the
following: Scores on their daily quizzes and seatwork, Daily Recitation, Quarter examination and
the scores on their Performances and projects.
Why do I come up to this study? For almost one year of teaching experience I observed
that my students are having a hard time to understand the lessons by their own. We are now in a
k to 12 curriculums wherein it is in a spiral approach, chemistry for the first quarter then you will
encounter the latter chemistry on the third quarter next grade level. Most of my students in the
next level forgot what they had study last quarter about chemistry because there is no mastery
about the topic. So I want to find out what technique is appropriate to use to have a better
retention.
This action research will provide innovations to the teaching and learning procedures
high schools especially in science subjects that requires the full participation of students to carry
out its purpose.