I would like to share some of my conversation from our leadership team meeting . We are reading " Embedded  Formative Assessment" text. We talked about peer tutoring instruction  and how it could be more effective than one-on-one tutorial instruction from teachers. From a interview with some boys who said that they pretended that they understood something when in fact they didn't, typically not our of concern for the teacher's time but because they did not appear foolish in front of the teacher. When working with peers, a student would ask the peers to slow down or to go over something again until it was understood.

1. Two elements of effective coopertive learning there must be group goals, so that students are working as a group not merely working in a group
2. There must be individual accountability, so that individual students cannot be carried along by the work of others. 

These two seem straightforward , they cut  across some widely held assumptions about fairness for groups and individuals.