What is cooperative education?

Cooperative Education is a type of learning in which students will divide their educational time between learning and learning in the classroom in the workplace. This can be done from one semester to another, with one semester spent in the classroom, another to work, then back to the classes until the student completes his program. Instead, some programs work by dividing the day of students between the classroom and the workplace. Cooperative education usually concerns the relationship between what they learn and how this knowledge can be used in the "real world" and is usually used in technical educational programs. Cooperative education often associates a student at secondary education often associated with experiential learning and similar educational pedagogicals, such as college or university with real working environment. For example, someone who is interested in computer science can complete one semester about microchips and design of the circuit board. In the next semester, he would then work on a company creating microchips and a circular plate.

In other forms of cooperative education, the student would learn in the previous example during one part of the day and worked in another part of the day. So he can learn about something in the morning and actually use this knowledge in the afternoon or evening at work. This allows the student to instantly link the material obtained in the classroom with how he applies to the real industry in which he wants to work. This connection is often helped by instructors who work primarily as facilitators, help students think about work and how it concerns class lessons.

Some critics of cooperative education see shortcomings in these programs, both in the fact that they often require a lot of time to complete and that the connection between the classroom and the workplace may not be properly created by the student. Since technology in many industries has become increasingly important, this type of education is often considered idealB, how to teach newcomers in the area and also facilitate continuous education for those who already work in the industry. Other pedagogical movements such as learning services and adventure education often use ideas from cooperative education and the future of American technological education can well include one of these models.