Cooperative Learning in 21st Century

The 21st century brings four important challenges in which cooperation plays a central role: (1) a rapidly increasing global interdependence that will result in increasing local diversity as well as more frequent and intense conflicts, (2) the increasing number of democracies throughout the world, (3) the need for creative entrepreneurs, and (4) the growing importance of interpersonal relationships that affect the development of personal identity. The tools for meeting these challenges include cooperative learning. In this article the nature of cooperative learning will be reviewed, the underlying theory of social interdependence will be discussed, and the results of the research on cooperative learning will be briefly reviewed. The way in which cooperative learning contributes to meeting the four challenges will then be discussed.