There are many advantages in my eyes regarding Co-operative working; working as a team or a group to achieve a shared end goal or quite simply understand or engage with learning itself. Working alongside others acts as a great support system to build confidence either within your own ideas or for you to help other individuals develop and reassure them on their proposed ideas. I know for myself as an individual I tend to lack confidence when it comes to my own work. So this reassurance and support from group members whether it is a positive comment about what I am suggesting or someone coming up with a similar idea just allows me to know that I am on the right line of thought.

What is great about working in a group is you are surrounded by different individuals who bring different ideas and diverse ways of thinking. Therefore you are forced to think outside the box and see things from different angles which I never think is a bad thing. Especially in the profession that I am entering where there will be ongoing changes to the curriculum and the way lessons can be taught and the way in which you teach them to different individuals.

I also think that working together brings on your academic development as you are constantly hearing opinions being discussed and ideas being vocalised. You will be able to pick up on useful phrases that you can later use too enhance you own work or simply share research you have found or useful resources to bring more depth to your understanding and learning.

Alongside these positive points about working as a group there are many drawbacks also. An example of these could be every individual may not take responsibility and contribute as much as others which can become very frustrating and bring an ill feeling to the group dynamic. On the other hand you might get people who take too much control and become very dominating which will result in this feeling of everybody being equal in the group being lost. There needs to be shared respect amongst everyone however some people can become very ignorant in their way of thinking and not take on board the role of listening to everybody’s view and not remaining open minded that other’s views have value even if you do not agree with the individuals opinion.

In every group there needs to be set out rules and conditions in how you would like to work collaboratively. There are bound to be ups and downs but as a whole I think that if you are using the ups to your advantage and reflecting on the low points or barriers that you had to face and knowing how to overcome them in similar future situations then this practice can be successful and very effective.