Students’ learning goals may be structured to promote cooperative, competitive, or individualistic efforts. In every classroom, instructional activities are aimed at accomplishing goals and are conducted under a goal structure. A learning goal is a desired future state of demonstrating competence or mastery in the subject area being studied. The goal structure specifies the ways in which students will interact with each other and the teacher during the instructional session. Each goal structure has its place (Johnson Johnson, 1989, 1999). In the ideal classroom, all students would learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own. The teacher decides which goal structure to implement within each lesson. The most important goal structure, and the one that should be used the majority of the time in learning situations, is cooperation
Will cooperative learning help students learn? Research has shown that students who work in cooperative groups do better on tests, especially with regard to reasoning and critical thinking skills than those that do not (Johnson and Johnson, 1989).
- "In extensive meta-analyses across hundreds of studies, cooperative arrangements were found superior to either competitive or individualistic structures on a variety of outcome measures, generally showing higher achievement, higher-level reasoning, more frequent generation of new ideas and solutions, and greater transfer of what is learned from one situation to another
- In Slavin, 1991's review of 67 studies, 61% of the cooperative-learning classes achieved significantly higher test scores than the traditional classes. He notes that the difference between the more and less effective cooperative-learning classes was that the effective ones stressed group goals and individual accountability.
- Slavin (1996) further argues that "cooperative learning has its greatest effects on student learning when groups are recognized or rewarded based on the individual learning of their group members.
- Students in mixed groups tend to have a deeper understanding of the material and remember more than those in homogeneous groups (Wenzel, 2000).
- Williamson and Rowe, 2002 observed that students in cooperative-learning sections were more willing to ask the instructor questions (in class or through office visits) than those in traditionally taught sections.
- Develop Arabic language skills among students, especially the skill of conversation
| Country | The beneficiary and Organization | No. of participants |
| Philippines | Knowledge Institute | 24 |
| Cambodia | Islamic Center | 52 |
| Cambodia | light of faith schools | 42 |
| China | Institute of Languages in Ningxia | 40 |
| Sri Lanka | World Cultural Center | 53 |
| Indonesia | The Islamic Call Society | 25 |
| Malaysia | Libyan school in Kuala Lumpur | 37 |
| China | Academy of knowledge in Lingo | 16 |
| Philippine | Human institution building and Mercy Center for Preaching and media | 37 |
| The number of beneficiaries | 326 |
