Cooperative Learning and Object-Orientated Development Methods

Thomas, T.

Cooperative learning has been shown to promote higher achievement, enhance critical thinking, improve motivation, deepen students' understanding, foster interpersonal relationship skills and improve students' self esteem (Phipps, Phipps, Kask and Higgins 2001). These skills are obviously ones that we would like to develop in our students at whatever level in order to prepare them for the workforce of the future. The use of Object Orientation and component-based software is on the increase. Object-Orientated techniques are said to improve productivity, allow reuse of components or objects, improve reliability, make for easier maintenance and offer a disciplined method of design (Johnson 2002). Major players in the software development environment field are moving to a more Object-Orientated / component-based approach. Aschbacher (2001) states that 'You would have to be the programming equivalent of a cave dweller to believe components will not become a dominant technology in the very near future.' Our teaching in the future will need to encompass these technologies and design methods. This paper will briefly describe some of the principles of cooperative learning and object orientation and will then show the synergy between these principles. It will close by showing how a particular type of cooperative learning technique could be used to enhance the learning of object orientation while showing how the object orientation applies the principles of cooperative learning.

Cite as: Thomas, T. (2003). Cooperative Learning and Object-Orientated Development Methods. In Proc. ICT and the Teacher of the Future - Selected Papers from the International Federation for Information Processing Working Groups 3.1 and 3.3 Working Conference, Melbourne, Australia. CRPIT, 23. McDougall, A., Murnane, J. S., Stacey, C. and Dowling, C., Eds. ACS. 115-117.

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