Their task is carefully designed to be suitable for group work. There is positive interdependence - cooperation is necessary for students to succeed.
Students are individually accountable for learning and participation.
The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her own right. Individual accountability is the key to ensuring that all group members are in fact strengthened by learning cooperatively. Through collaboration, the instructor can level the learners' collective knowledge to create a more equitable learning environment. Only in this environment can communities commence with collaborative learning. Teams Whereas collaborative or cooperative groups may work together for long periods of time, teams are often brought together to complete a project, dissolved, and then reformulated to address another project.