I really enjoyed the videos and the article. Cooperative learning experiences offer ways for students to learn 21st Century skills because they are working with others and being truly dependent on their group to complete a task. This mimics the real world because employees will have to work with all kinds of people in different situations to achieve a goal, so developing the social skills necessary to make this happen is a life-long skill. In the video, the author encouraged random group selection to simulate what real jobs can be like. Sometimes people have to work in groups with others who are very different from them, and other times they work in homogenous groups. The random selection keeps things interesting. Groups creating their own norms is also a cooperative experience as they determine what is acceptable and achievable for them. The team member evaluations are tools that real businesses use to hold each other accountable in a group, and using these tools in the classroom prepares students to not only be responsible for their own part, but also prepares them for the kind of evaluation tools they may see in the future.
