As opiniões de professores sobre a aprendizagem cooperativa

• Main Authors: Eduardo Martins de Pinho, Carlos Alberto Ferreira, José Pinto Lopes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Editora Universitária Champagnat - PUCPRESS 2013-01-01
• Series: Revista Diálogo Educacional
• Online Access: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=189129169006

Cooperative learning is a method in which students work in small heterogeneous groups, with predefine droles, exchanging information and sharing materials, having each student the awareness that he/she will succeed only if all elements of the group also do. This method, although still not widely used in Portugal, has gradually been gaining strength. In this sense, we conducted an investigation to understand the teacher’s opinions on cooperative learning that used it in the process of teaching and learning. For this we’ve used a qualitative research methodology, by conducting semi-structured interviews with seven teachers of the Portuguese primary and secondary levels. Through it we could see that, for the interviewed teachers, cooperative learning is a method that has, as main advantages, the increase of academic achievement and self-esteem of students and the improvement of their social skills. Moreover, they identified some difficulties in its implementation in the classroom, particularly in terms of students, time available, resources and the extension of the programs.