Designing and Implementing a Sustainable Cooperative Learning in Physical Education: A Pre-Service Teachers’ Socialization Issue

The socialization of pre-service teachers (PSTs) depends on various actors. Researchers help them to build knowledge about variables that impact teaching models, including cooperative learning (CL). School teachers help them to efficiently implement teaching–learning environments, including CL configurations in real classrooms. However, these two tutors are insufficiently related to the aim of assisting novice physical education (PE) teachers to play a pivotal role in the transition to sustainable CL practices. Insufficient opportunities are provided for helping PE-PSTs to consider instructional precautions coming back on the theoretical foundations and practical barriers to CL implementation. Therefore, our purpose is to examine the conditions in which synergy between research and professional training may be strengthened to prepare PE-PSTs to durably establish CL in school curricula. The threefold aim of this paper is to examine whether PE-PSTs may be: (a) involved in research for opening new avenues in conducting their project under the researcher’s supervision in four main perspectives of CL, (b) trained in CL designs while experiencing instructional approaches and developing competencies to cope with constraints on information sharing, and (c) professionally socialized through the relevant connection between research and applied practice for progressively accessing a realistic and sustainable vision of CL.