This study investigated teachers' beliefs and practices of cooperative learning, and strove to determine whether their observed teaching practices reflected their stated beliefs. Findings of the study revealed that teachers understood cooperative learning to mean small groups of students working together to accomplish a particular assignment. The teachers' stated conceptions about cooperative learning were congruent to their observed practices. The studied teachers' observed practices differed from those of noted scholars regarding the importance of the interdependence element of cooperative learning. (Author)