Competitive Vs Cooperative Learning Research Paper

Neil Armstrong, one of the greatest astronauts of all time, was the first man to go to the moon because of the Space Race. The competitive race between the Soviet Union and the United States to get to the moon resulted in not only this feat, but many other advancements in the exploration of space. Competition is the drive that inspires people to push past their weaknesses and do better. Without it, the world would not be nearly as advanced and sophisticated. This engagement has always naturally been present in schools. Despite efforts to change competitive tendencies of schools, it is still present and proving better than cooperative learning in many areas. Competitive learning is the most beneficial for students because it encourages full …show more content…
Others argue that having children work against each other results in negativity and anxiety; meanwhile, successful collaboration between students is completely dependent on a positive classroom dynamic. Randomly put together groups often include students who have polar opposite opinions, thus eliminating that essential alacrity and making the activity just as futile as they claim competition would be. To begin with, life is competition. There is no way to escape it outside of the classroom. Whether it is preferred or not, other people will be striving to achieve the same things: a spot on the school sports team, valedictorian, acceptance into colleges, getting a job. Most modern technology has been developed through criticism and changes to old ideas. Specifically, competition gives kids a chance to lose. While this may not sound beneficial, it is due to the fact that there will be many moments of loss throughout their lives. Not learning how to gracefully handle loss can result in embarrassment or an even larger cost. There will be times when people do not get their way, and having the level of maturity to deal will be useful. Even at a young age, children have an intuition to compete and excel. Competition in schools is not a new idea. Evidence clearly shows competition was used to motivate students in the Ancient Greek city-state of …show more content…
While it may be true that some schools put more emphasis on grades instead of learning, this is not a characteristic limited to the competitive teaching style. In fact, the grades of competitive-style assignments are more accurate. Group work makes individual grading impossible. Having to spend time differentiating the work based on who completed it is time consuming and often inaccurate. The entire group gets the same grade, regardless of the effort any individual may have put in. This proves how difficult and unreliable it would be to assess the knowledge of students when they work in a group. Teacher supervision, or lack thereof, is a major problem in classes where projects or labs are done in groups. Very often, there are multiple groups of, on average, three to four students, but only one teacher. No matter how experienced and professional a teacher may be, it is physically impossible for them to have their eyes and ears on every single one of those groups. This results in an increased amount of off topic discussion. Besides, even when the body of students is focused, excessive noise is still a distraction. Then, more discipline is necessary, subsequently taking away from the experience of learning. Another aspect of competitive learning that makes it better for teachers is that it is more efficient when pertaining to both time and space.