The other day in class we talked about cooperative learning, but how cooperative are we? The way we started the class by doing the experiment about the objects I would take with me if I was in the dessert proved that working in groups not only makes you get better results, but also it gives you different points of view.
Why is working in groups so important? Because we can achieve better objectives when being helped. Cooperative learning is not only good for individual reasons, but also for social ones because you can develop social skills that otherwise you would not get. Moreover, it is also necessary for the workplace because many companies, more each day, demand people who can work in groups and that are also versatile.
That is why it is also important that the members of the group are heterogeneous, so everyone can help each other in different competences with each other's unique abilities. This first part of the master we had to do so many different projects in groups and it was quite an experience. How is it working in groups with people you don't really know? In my experience I must say it went perfectly. I must confess that when we started the master and the teachers told us we had to do so many projects in groups I was a bit scared because, sometimes, not everyone does their part and because you might not agree or like the way your colleagues say or how they work. If I'm honest, I must say that even though I am organized and I do my part of the work, I tend to procrastinate a lot, but working in a group made me do my part earlier because if I don't do my part it affects my group. So cooperative learning not only made me better at doing things on time, but also it helped to achieve better results, besides it was more fun that working by yourself.
But how do the ICTs can help in cooperative learning? Easy. During this semester, my group and I were able to work together via Google Drive and Google Meet. We could have meetings all together without having to actually be together, and we could work on the project anytime we were able to without having to wait for the other members to do their part, we could just upload it later on. Not everyone could meet up in person to work on the project, but thanks to the ICTs we have been able to carry out everything perfectly.
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