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Lei Pak Nin, Will


Dr. Hoi Yan CHEUNG
EDUC380 (002)
09 December 2014

How Cooperative Learning can improve the motivation and learning of Macao students
Student motivation is a complex issue and is related to a wide range of factors including
the characteristics of individual students, teachers, and schools within their learning
environment. This paper aims to discuss the theory of cooperative learning, and argues how it
can be applied to students to improve their motivation and learning, with respect to Macaos
educational contexts. To address the topic, this paper will be divided into four sections: (1)
Macaos educational contexts; (2) Cooperative learning theories; (3) Classroom applications
and arguments; and lastly (4) Conclusion.
1. Macaos educational contexts
The Macaos educational contexts shall be examined in the following three aspects:
(1) Social climate: On a societal point of view, given that Macao has transformed into a
city for tourism and its economy largely relies on the gaming industry during the last decade,
the negative impacts it bought is becoming more obvious. One of which is the change of how
the general public perceive the value of education. The prosperity of the gaming industry
allows casino operators to offer gratifying salaries to employees without demand for a high
educational level (DSEC, 2012). The well-internalized notion: If I study hard, I would get
into a good university and thus a good (well-paid) job in the future seems no longer apply to
the case of Macao. Together, the abundant job vacancies, the low demands of job positions,
and the low unemployment rate have discouraged students to aim high in their own learning
at schools. Moreover, since the government passed the Fundamental Law of Non-Tertiary

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Education System in 2006, formal education has become free and compulsory for Macao
students. There is 15-year of free compulsory education for Macao students, covering from
kindergarten to high school. Under such a situation where educational opportunities are
guaranteed, it is rather hard for students to appreciate the learning opportunities they have.
(2) The educational system: The in-grade retention rates of Macao are one of the highest
among Organizations for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries: the
percentages of repeaters at primary and secondary levels are 6% and12% respectively for the
year of 2009 (UNESCO, 2011). Wong (2013) has pointed out, in her article Why In-grade
Retention are Rates so High in Macao? that, in-grade retention is a common experience for
Macao students, and that, the rates are so high mainly because its education system is a
system of private schools without effective state governance. Not only does the system play
a role in the high retention rates, it also casts doubts about the schools management and
accountability, teachers teaching quality and professionalism among different schools. With
more than 85% of the schools in Macao are private schools (DSEJ, 2014), issues such as
school-specific administration and management should be considered. Different schools
would have different academic calendar, hiring policies, choice of curriculum and pedagogy,
assessment and standards. The coexistence of multi-models or tracks in schools such as
models adapted from Portugal, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, resulted in a week horizontal
integration among school but strong vertical integration between primary and secondary
schools run by the same organizations. Wong (2013) has also argued another problem that, ingrade retention practice does not help to improve the quality of education it is rather a myth
that imposing in-grade retention can improve educational quality. Even worse, repeaters may
lose motivation for learning, and developed a low self-efficacy.
According to DSEJs report on dropout rates in the academic year 2012/2013 (DSEJ,
2014b), the number of dropouts is 1,2441, which yields to 1.8% of the total of Macao

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students. Although the rate was decreased as compared to the last academic year, high
dropout rates are recorded in junior and senior secondary levels. Among all the reasons to
quit, the top reason is being disinterested in learning, followed by poor academic
performance and dislike the school. This somehow shed lights into the argument that, if
student motivation can be improved, fewer students will dropout from schools. Moreover, we
shall see a close relationship between motivation and academic success in these numbers.
(3) Circumstances of families, schools and students
The ever-changing society has also resulted huge changes in the relationship between
the family, the school and the student. As the gaming industry dominating Macaos economy,
many parents are now working in the casinos, where they have to work the late swift. This
limits their time spent on the family and their children, leading to the lack of communication
and caring for the student. This can result in some behavior deviations in the students, such as
loss of directions and goals in life, poor academic performance, and laziness. A survey
(FOAM, 2012) has concluded that, even young students have to spend too much time at
school, doing homework and studying. Adding to that, the traditional mindset of academic
achievement as a definition of a good student brings huge amount of pressure to students. In
addition, Macao teachers prefer to use a traditional approach in their teaching. While such
approach to teaching is less demanding for the teacher, it is boring, stressful and ineffective
for students learning. Such approach has been highly criticized as lacking diversity, and most
importantly, learning by rote. The way of learning in school follows this pattern: students
listened to lectures passively, taking notes, doing dictations, tests and exams. All these affect
students perception on learning and education negatively, gradually reducing their interest
and motivation in learning and studying. For students whose academic performance is not
satisfactory, they are likely to be sent to charm schools by their parents, where they do extra
hours of studying resulting a dead-end loop.

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Based on the discussion above, it is easy for us to know how the educational contexts
have led to the low academic motivation in students. As teachers, while we cannot do much
about the education system, we can try to adopt different teaching approaches in the lessons
to improve students motivation towards learning. In the following section, we shall discuss
the theories of Cooperative learning, in which I seek to argue how it can help to improve
students motivation and learning.
2. Cooperative Learning theories
Cooperative Learning (CL) refers to instructional methods in which teachers organize
students into small groups, which then work together to help one another learn academic
content. (Slavin, 2011). CL is a student-centered approach where students learning is
emphasized over teachers teaching. CL, however, does not solely mean group work. There
is nothing magical about putting students in groups. Rather, the idea is to create an
atmosphere of achievement by grouping students together. CL believes that, instruction is
only cooperative if students success is dependent on the success of their classmates. That is,
in cooperative learning, students have to work together and ensure that their peers experience
success in order to be successful themselves. In order to create a cooperative learning
environment, the following five components should be included (Slavin, 2011): (1) positive
interdependence, which refers to the sense of sink or swim together; (2) individual
accountability, a concept that each of the members has to contribute to the group achieving its
goals; (3) face-to-face promotive interaction, the climate of the group where group members
encourage and facilitate each others efforts; (4) interpersonal and small-group skills:
important skills that students must demonstrate in CL, including communication, trust,
leadership, decision making, and conflict resolution skills; and (5) group processing, in which
students monitor group processes and relationships to make sure the group is working
effectively and to learn about the dynamics of groups.

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Researchers have put these ideas together and developed some strategies, or structures
for classroom applications. We shall discuss them in detail in the next section.
3. Classroom applications and arguments
The applications of CL are strategies or structures that Salvin (2011) and other
cooperative learning researchers have designed. The motivational perspective in cooperative
learning points that task motivation is the most important part of the process. From a
motivational perspective, cooperative incentive structures create a situation in which the only
way group members can only attain their own personal goals is if the group is successful.
Therefore, to meet their own personal goals, group members must help their groupmates to
exert maximum efforts (Salvin, 2011). To make things clear, a step-by-step description for
each structure will be provided. It should be noted that, the following list is selective, by
taking into account the general settings and contexts of the Macao schools.
(1) Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) is probably the most popular
structure employed. STAD can be applied in all subjects, including math, geography and
science. Macao teachers can incorporate STAD in their class regularly to provide some sort of
diversity in their instruction and teaching. This should be able to arouse students interests
and increase their motivation. The steps of carrying out STAD is as follows.
1. Teacher forms heterogeneous groups of four to five: divide and group students with
mixed ability, meaning groups should include low, average, and high achievers
(according to their academic performance);
2. Teacher teaches the lesson: explain concepts, discuss or worked out examples;
3. Teams study the material together: students help each other to learn (master) the
material;
4. Students take individual quizzes, where the personal progress is recorded and
contributed to a team score;

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5. The teams with the best score or showing the biggest improvements are recognized
and rewarded.
STAD is workable because the elements of positive interdependence and individual
accountability are taken into account. For instance, the heterogeneous nature of groups fosters
cooperation of students because high achievers would like to keep going while low
achievers, on the other hand, faced some stress from other members. They are therefore
motivated to satisfy peer norms cultivating positive interdependence. According to Gillies
(2008), positive interdependence is posited to create responsibility forces that increase
group members feeling of responsibility and accountability for completing one's share of the
work and fascinating the work of others group members. It is therefore, STAD could result
in higher achievement and greater productivity, and improve students learning. Since the
outstanding groups, which will be rewarded, are not solely determined by achieving the
highest score, but also by demonstrating most progress, high achievers are motivated to help
others to succeed, echoing the philosophy of positive interdependence. Extrinsic motivators
like material rewards, encouraging feedback, praises or even bonus points for tests are some
practical means that teacher could employ. Another possibility is to establish a ranking
system for a long-term practice, so to build up a sense of competition to engage these class
activities.
(2) Another strategy that teachers can try is Teams-Games-Tournaments (TGT). It is
very similar to STAD, but students play academic games instead of taking quizzes. The aim
of this strategy is to motivate student to be responsible for their own learning, and cooperate
with their groupmates to achieve a common goal winning the game. Teacher can
implement TGT in all classes. Subjects which require a lot of memorization are excellent for
TGT to work, because it turns these boring subjects interesting. Below are the detailed
procedures to implement TGT:

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1.

Form heterogeneous groups;

2.

Teach the lesson (same as in STAD);

3.

Give instructions or rules for the game

4.

Members discuss and practice together the exercise given by the teacher, until
everyone in the group has mastered it;

5.

Students on a similar academic level complete with each other: eg, high achievers vs.
high achievers in one table; low achievers vs. low achievers in another table;

6.

Teacher prepares question/answer cards for students (work best if questions are
factual and objective);

7.

For each table, students take turns to ask or answer questions, and earn points
(personal score) accordingly: eg, the one most correct answers got 60 points, the
second got 40 points etc.;

8.

Personal scores are contributed to a team score, in which determines the winner
group;

9.

Rewards are presented to the winner group.

In TGT, we shall also observe elements of individual accountability in step 4. Since


students are only competing with their peers according to their own academic levels or
performance, everyone in the group can help their teams to get the highest score. As a result,
this is an effective strategy to engage the class and motivate all the students to work
cooperatively when they were asked to discuss and practice together.
(3) There is also a strategy named Jigsaw in CL, originally designed by Elliot Aronson
and his colleagues (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, & Snapp, 1978). Slavin developed a
modification of Jigsaw, called Jigsaw II, sharing the features of STAD (Salvin, 2011).
Teachers can use Jigsaw II for lessons involving a lot of reading. A very good example would
be an English reading lesson. The procedures for Jigsaw II are as follows.

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1.

Form heterogeneous groups;

2.

Divide the reading material into parts: eg. story divided into sections of setting,
rising action, and climax etc.;

3.

Teacher teaches the reading, alternatively, let students to finish the text on their own;

4.

Teacher assigns a section to each student in the group (depending on the length,
sometimes two students can team up and share one section);

5.

Students who are responsible for a specific section gather together in the expert
group and discuss or study again, in detail, with others;

6.

Experts come back to their original groups and teach their part to other teammates;

7.

Quizzes are given to individual student to test their understanding;

8.

Team score is calculated by accounting individual improvement, as in STAD

9.

Recognition to outstanding groups or students

Jigsaw II is generally a good approach for reading lessons, however, has some potential
problems should be noted. For example, it is hard to determine whether the expert group
had actually comprehended and interpreted correctly about the material. Consequently, their
teammates scores and learning would also be affected. Nonetheless, in the contexts of
Macao, Jigsaw II is an unconventional approach that teachers can try out.
(4) Group Investigation (GI) is also a common CL structure employed in classrooms. In
GI, small groups conduct research and discussion to explore an academic topic. GI is more
complex and demanding, requiring students to accept greater responsibility for deciding what
they will learn, how they will organize themselves to master the material, and how they will
communicate what they have learned to their classmates. Hence, GI is more suitable for
students in higher forms. Teachers can apply GI in subjects like history and science. It
follows the following procedure:
1. Teacher introduces and explains some discussion topics relevant to the main unit;

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2. According to the students interests, students select a topic for group discussion;
3. Teams are required to plan how they are going to finish their project;
4. Teams research and work cooperatively on their preferred topic;
5. Teams do presentation for the class and submit reports;
6. Teacher evaluates students work and gives constructive feedback to students.
The drawback of GI is that, it can be a challenging task for students. Doing research is
likely to be perceived as a piece of homework for students, which increased the workload
for students. The success of GI also varied there are chances where students are still
unmotivated to finish the project, for example.
One thing that teacher should be aware of is that, to apply the theories of cooperative
learning, it is essential for teacher to express the learning objectives explicitly to the students
first. Teacher may start by outlining in order what are the things that we need to accomplish
in the lesson as the lesson commences. This can draw the attention of the students and depict
a big picture for them to be aware of what they should be doing in the class. Before putting
students into groups, teacher should also prepare students to learn cooperatively by teaching
them the essential interpersonal and small-group skills to students, such as listening
attentively instead of just hearing; be responsible, polite and active in discussion etc.
All in all, STAD, TGT, Jigsaw II and GI are some of the applications of the CL theories.
Since the class size for most of the primary and secondary schools is about 30 students
(DSEJ, 2014c), it is actually practical for teachers to adapt them in their classrooms. This
diversity that these CL strategies offer seems to be perfect for the case of Macao where a
boring traditional approach is still in mainstream. The strategies and techniques derived
from cooperative learning can surely help teachers to deliver better and more interesting
lessons, and hopefully can help improve Macao students motivation and learning.
4. Conclusion

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In conclusion, this paper has discussed the theories of cooperative learning and its
applications as a way of improving student motivation and learning, with respect to the
Macao contexts. We have first explored the Macao educational contexts in three aspects: the
social climate, the educational system, and the circumstances of families, schools and
students. Then, we discussed the theories of CL, which leads to the argument that CL is a
more effective student-centered approach that would help improve the student motivation and
learning. The main argument is that CL strategies/structures are well-designed for students
to develop positive interdependence among the groups. Moreover, individuals are
accountable for their contribution. The teachers role is thus to facilitate students in the class
such that they would have promotive interaction with one another. Our discussion circulates
around some of the major strategies including STAD, TGT, Jigsaw II and GI. While the
effectiveness of CL is not guaranteed, it would surely bring diversity in classroom instruction,
and make lessons more interesting and fun, which in turn, improving students motivation
and learning.

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Works Cited
Aronson, E., Blaney, N., Stephan, C., Sikes, J., & Snapp, M. (1978). The jigsaw
classroom. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
DSEC. (2012) Survey on manpower needs and wages: Gaming sector (4th
quarter/2012). Macao: DSEC.
DSEJ. (2013). General Survey of Education in Figures, 12/13 Education in Figures,
11/12 Gist of Education. Online documents at URL http://www.dsej.gov.mo/ [accessed 8
December 2014].
DSEJ. (2014) Educational Statistics. Retrieved December 5, 2014, from
http://portal.dsej.gov.mo/webdsejspace/internet/category/teach/Inter_main_page.jsp?id=8525
DSEJ. (2014b) 2012/2013
. Online documents at URL http://www.dsej.gov.mo/ [accessed 8 December 2014].
FOAM. (2012) . Retrieved December 8, 2014, from
http://www.faom.org.mo/article-8352-1.html
Gillies, R. (2007). Social Interdependence Theory and Cooperative Learning: The
Teacher's Role. In The Teacher's Role in Implementing Cooperative Learning in the
Classroom. (pp. 22-29) New York: Springer.
Slavin, R. (2011). Instruction Based on Cooperative Learning. In Handbook of Research
on Learning and Instruction. (pp. 344-357).New York: Routledge.
UNESCO. (2011). Global education digest 2011: Comparing education statistics across
the world UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Wong, Yi-Lee (2013) Why are In-grade Retention Rates so High in Macao? Current
Issues in Education,16(3). http://cie.asu.edu/ojs/index.php/cieatasu/article/view/1240/537

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