I do think that humans have a natural affinity for social learning yet, being a middle school teacher I do see some resistance to group work at times. I feel much of this resistance derives from negative social/group experiences had by the student. However, prior to that negative schema occurring, I do feel humans naturally progress in social structures and are highly inclined to group work. The difficulty an educator has is to to help these students get passed those prior negative emotions relating to group work and to begin to build positive experiences thus creating new schema.
Technology seems to help students bypass some of the negative feelings they may have with group work, especially if that technology is current. The allure of using relevant technology often supersedes any negative feelings of the group work concept and I find that technology lends itself greatly to cooperative learning techniques. Delivering a lesson using constructivist approaches promotes the benefits of the technology by making the learning experience more student centered. Also, students can be eager to help those who may struggle with the technology creating opportunities for collaboration where some may not have existed if the technology was not being used. In a study evaluating the usage of mobile technology in a middle school math class one of the observations found were the surprising willingness of students to help those who were struggling with the technology. This excitement to use and help those less familiar with the technology not only promote cooperative learning but also can help to create a stronger bond between the classmates and educator within the class.
Resources:
Franklin, T., & Li-Wei Peng. (2008). Mobile math: Math educators and students engage in mobile learning. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 20(2), 69-80. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12528-008-9005-0
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