The effects of learning based on cooperation academical success and the students' rememberance of knowledge in social studies in fifth grade in primary school (Bilecik-Bozüyük)

Key words: Constructive theory, Learning based on cooperation, Social Studies, Curriculum As it is known, the rapid improvements in science and technology, have made changes social and individual needs, and reconstructions in education are a current issue. Consequently, the expectations of the society from education have also been changed. What the societies of today expect from educational institutions is not only individuals equipped with some kind of knowledge, but also active individuals who are able to cooperate and with other people who have some other social abilities such as problem solving. Social studies is the most important subject which can achieve these aims. Social studies is aimed to be train students as socialized citizens by teaching them earn important social abilities and democratic rules. In primary schools, social studies is usually carried out by group work method. Group work method causes active students stay active and passive students stay passive as it forms a competitive medium. Consequently, students with low success stay unsuccessful. But according to our new educational approach, every opportunity should be supplied to every student so that they can improve themselves at highest degree. Therefore, some researches which test the effectiveness of the methods and approaches aiming to increase perceptive, social and academical success of the students, should be done. Such researches makes important contributions to improvement of teaching as they test the effectiveness of diffrent approaches. One of these didactic approaches is constructive theory. Another approach which makes constructive theory appliable in class is the learning based on cooperation. This research, which aims to determine the effects of learning based on cooperation on the academical success and the students' rememberance of knowledge in social studies in fifth grade in primary school for social studies. The study is designed and executed according to "pre-test, final-test model with control grup" which is one of the trial methods. The application related to the research was realized in the second term of the educational year 2003-2004 at Çitosan primary school in Bozüyük- Bilecik in classes 5-A and 5-B which were determined as control groups. To collect data, a questionaire which would be used in balancing students, an achievement test which would be used in measuring the academical success and the rememberance of knowledge of the students, and yearly and daily lesson plans for social studies were studied. According to the learning based on cooperation, work sheets, quizes and class materials were prepared. The standart deviations of the awerage points and point distribution of the groups were calculated in comparisons within and between the groups, t test was used and.05 trust level were adopted as meaningfulness level. After evaluating data the following results were obtained. There is a remarkable difference between the experiment group's academical success on learning approach based on cooperation and the experimental group's learning approach which based on traditional educational methods. There is also substantial difference between the experiment group's the level of rememberance of social studies knowledge and that of the experiment group's based on traditional methods.