Cooperative learning is based on constructivism incorporating the idea that the best learning occurs when student are actively engaged in learning and working in collaboration with their peers to reach a goal. Cooperative learning utilizes not only the student’s own experience to solidify knowledge, but also uses the experience of others. This approach focuses the importance of interactivity with respect to the implementation of lesson plans. 

The advantage of this learning approach is that the focus moves from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction in that this approach recognizes the importance of the student’s current knowledge and connects that knowledge to work. In the cooperative learning, a teacher guides students to the source of the knowledge they are expected to acquire rather than provides instruction directly. In addition, students solve problems, answer questions, formulate questions of their own, discuss, explain, debate, write, or brainstorm during class. These students continue to analyze, puzzle over significance, search for explanations, and speculate about relations between the new experience and what they already know. Lastly, it offers a breadth and depth of interactivity that are unavailable in the classroom due to the limitation of resources. 

The limitation of cooperative learning is cooperative learning is that a burden makes the students responsible for each other’s learning apart from themselves. Also, acquiring knowledge depends on an individual’s motivation and interest on a particular subject that will determine how well they would learn. There is high stakes that create increased chances for conflict and therefore students need for conflict resolution skills. Lastly, high-performing students may not experience the stimulation or challenge that they would with other high-performing students while low-performing students may feel consistently in need of help rather than experience the role of expert.