In cooperative learning, you have a purposeful, meaningful, and authentic context in which children can sharpen their communicative skills.

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasisshould be place on appreciation--reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts.

Learning to deal with setbacks, and maintaining the persistence and optimism necessary for childhood's long road to mastery are the real foundations of lasting self-esteem.

We are doing earlier and earlier to children what we shouldn't do later.

Communicative skills develop when there's something meaningful for children to communicate about-when they are taking an active role.

When a teacher tries to teach something to the entire class at the same time, chances are, one-third of the kids already know it; one-third will get it; and the remaining third won’t. So two-thirds of the children are wasting their time.

In both cooperative learning and project work, the teacher encourages children to talk to one another. This helps them pay attention to each other's efforts and ideas. Children take to these kinds of exchanges very readily, but the teacher really needs to encourage this interaction.