For schools and classrooms to become places of achieving goals, educators and students must cooperate to further learning. Cooperative learning in education means overcoming the competition and individualism present in traditional educational models. This book is designed to help educators understand and implement cooperative learning. It includes five essential components that make cooperation work: clearly perceived positive interdependence; considerable face-to-face interaction; clearly perceived individual accountability and personal responsibility; frequent use of interpersonal and small-group skills; and frequent and regular group self-evaluation. Structures and plans for cooperative learning are included as well. There are 11 chapters: (1) "What Is Cooperative Learning?"; (2) "Research on Cooperative Learning"; (3) "Essential Components of Cooperative Learning"; (4) "Formal Cooperative Learning"; (5) "Informal Cooperative Learning"; (6) "Cooperative Base Groups"; (7) "Integrated Use of Cooperative Learning"; (8) "Teaching Students Cooperative Skills"; (9) "Cooperation and Conflict"; (10) "The Cooperative School"; and (11) "Final Thoughts: The Changing Paradigm of Teaching." (Contains 84 references.) (JPT)