Cooperating to Learn

On 2026-05-27

Cooperation has always been essential for human beings, both for learning and for protection. A child has so much to learn at birth that “it takes a whole village to raise one.” Yet the exponential accumulation of knowledge has led educational systems to favor traditional, lecture-based teaching directed at passive groups of recipients, rather than facilitating collective learning processes grounded in cooperation. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of ways to learn cooperatively, even if the voluntary effort to implement them is too often lacking. Still, we can all encourage their development.

At School

At school, we can support teamwork exercises involving group presentations, practical projects, and the organization of class activities related to safety, the environment, empathy, and more. We can help create clubs within the classroom or school devoted to reading, science, and various other activities. We can also view peer tutoring initiatives positively. Teachers’ efforts toward cooperative learning are often criticized by parents who are overly anxious or authoritarian.

From High School to University

Some middle and high school programs encourage collective learning through interdisciplinary collaborative projects aimed at producing exhibitions, films, murals, and more. Overly cautious and restrictive regulations complicate school exchanges, class trips, and international partnerships with other institutions working together despite differences. Academic competitions such as mathematics olympiads require students to form teams in order to compete, and so on.

In technology-oriented studies, collective and often highly innovative projects are common, as they are in higher education, where participation in seminars, research groups, or collaborative workshops is encouraged, if not always facilitated.

When cooperation is fully integrated, it fosters not only academic learning but also the development of social and professional skills. Yet too often, it seems easier to fill a lecture hall than to place trust in people.

In Everyday Life

Every day, we see more clearly the benefits of groups dedicated to exchanging and sharing experiences and knowledge. These are well known in the fields of health and addiction support, but they are also developing in areas as varied as gardening, DIY projects, mechanics, and even musical or language learning.

Projects aimed at protecting a monument, the environment, local culture, or an exceptional local product often lead participants to engage in learning and activities they would never have undertaken alone. Many village brass bands have inspired entire communities to embrace musical expression. In hackathons, teams collaborate to develop innovative solutions within a limited timeframe. Many other forms of “marathons” similarly encourage participants to surpass themselves. And many people realize that cooperation has brought them far more than competition ever did. May some of the world’s leaders come to understand this as well!

With AI

People are both amazed and alarmed by the rapid development of dialogues with so-called Artificial Intelligence tools. Yet, despite all the risks associated with these colossal data banks, it is clear that they constitute a powerful system of “cooperating to learn.” We ask questions and receive answers by sharing knowledge. Depending on the questions asked, the responses adapt, personalizing the learning experience. Dialogue generates a co-creation of ideas and concepts. We explore subjects more deeply and question them critically. Through the dynamic nature of these exchanges, active learning emerges, showing that we all learn from one another, much like the Peripatetics of Aristotle’s Lyceum once did.

Michel Seyrat

Issue 18 of Approches Coopératives, cooperating to learn, is dedicated to cooperative pedagogies in formal and non-formal education.

Cooperating to Learn Coopérer pour apprendre