Teaching prosocial skills through the Cooperative Learning

Abstract

In order to meet the challenge of complexity, a term that describes more
than any other the current epochal change, school is called to deeply revise
its own educational choices and to define methods and procedures that
aim to implement a comprehensive training of the individual, within a
prospective that simultaneously promotes cognitive, social and relational
skills. Prosociality is an integral part of that path, as it refers to a set of skills
that are based on reciprocity, and thus allow the individual, once acquired,
to establish positive relationships with others, by activating cognitive specific
processes while contributing to building a learning conducive environment
(Roche, 2002; Caprara, 2014). Based on these premises, the work describes
a path of prosocial teaching proposed to students belonging to two
secondary school classes and implemented according to the methodology
of cooperative learning, as indicated in Johnson’s Learning Together (1987;
1996) and in Kagan’s Structural Approach (2000).