One of the major pedagogical strategies used in schools is the didactic approach in which the teacher delivers the content for the students to learn. Yet, didactic strategies have raised more questions than the benefits of this direct teaching model. Instead, over the past 20 years this old model of teaching has been replaced by cognitive theories of teaching and learning, and at the center of these pedagogies is constructivism. And at the heart of constructivism is idea that learning, in classrooms, benefits greatly from an arrangement in which the teacher encourages and supports social interaction among students. We call this cooperative learning.
It may be that there is an evolutionary basis for why cooperative learning should be a natural pedagogical strategy in science (any any other subject) learning.
Time Magazine featured an article by Sharon Begley entitled Beyond Stones and Bones. Begley says that “by analyzing the DNA of today’s humans as well as chimps and other species, scientists are zeroing in on major turning points in evolution, suggesting there may have been several more lines in the human family tree than the one that moved from monkey to man.”
The article is based on a new exhibit at the new Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, in which DNA is as important as the fossils that we have about human origins. You can read the article, and go to the Museum website to explore human origins.
One of the pieces in the article that struck me was the revelation that early humans were not hunters, in the sense that we have viewed them. Rather they were the hunted—by saber tooth tigers, and other huge predators roaming the earth 7 million years ago, when the human origins story begins. Humans were prey, and as such had to figure out ways not to be lunch for a big predator. Thus being the hunted lead to the evolutionary leap to cooperate and live in groups.
In the article, Begley points out that there is a hormone in the brain called oxytocin, according to scientists promotes trust during interactions with other people, and thus to cooperative behavior. As Begley suggest, this means that people live together for the common good.
So deep into our evolutionary background is an underlying basis for humans working together in groups. Although I am not going to talk here about specific strategies that teachers might use in the classroom to promote cooperative behavior, I am suggesting that cooperative learning in the classroom should not be relegated as something to add or to do from time to time, but rather might form the basis for one’s approach in classroom learning. What do you think?