I knew Bob and Nancy for over 40 years. His unwavering dedication to improving schools and society is well known, and what better way to remember his tireless efforts than to quote some of his own words, taken from a letter he wrote to me in December, 2020. 

"Your note reminded me of the wonderful time we’ve all had with cooperative learning, and are still having.  Do you realize that in 1979, Nancy and I were not quite 29 years old?  (That’s when Bob and Nancy attended the first IASCE conference, and stayed with Shlomo and me for a month. ys) That’s younger than our youngest kid today.  We spend a lot of time with the grandkids, who live close by, and that is a great pleasure.
 

We continue to be fine, and incredibly busy.  Nancy and our SFA staff managed in a short time to make all of our SFA services for children and for professional development work online, so we are riding out the COVID crisis, though it remains terrifying and limiting.
 

We are putting a lot of energy into tutoring, and proposing a national tutoring corps of 100,000 teaching assistant tutors to work with disadvantaged kids who have lost so much from long school closures.  We are talking to all the providers of proven tutoring models to assemble the capacity needed to provide this much tutoring.  Our tutoring initiative may or may not be enacted, but the effort to create it may have impacts anyway, because it is obvious to every educator and parent and even politician that something dramatic has to happen for these kids as soon as schools open." 

There’s no doubt that Nancy will carry on the efforts of their exemplary partnership, which is the best way of keeping Bob’s spirit and vision alive.

Yael Sharan

Dear CL scholars and practitioners,

Our cooperative learning team has lost one of its all-time greatest players! We were shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Robert Slavin. He was only 70 years old when he died of a heart attack.  He was the youngest member of our group of pioneers of cooperative learning.
I knew Bob for about 45 years.  In this tribute, I will share several personal memories of being with and working with Bob.  

I first met Bob in the mid 1970s, when he was leading a professional development workshop on Student Team Learning (STL).  He presented the STAD model, which made use of the motivational dynamics present in sports teams, transferred to academic learning.  Bob's presentations were clear, logically organized, and highly informative, enlivened by team practice on the clever task of Quibblean Spelling.  These same qualities emerged in a second presentation on TGT and throughout the many times I heard him speak over the years.

 
In one conference, where Bob and I were both plenary speakers, Bob showed me his "lesson plan" over lunch.  It consisted of four or fiveshort scrawled lines on an envelope.  With that bare-bones plan, he delivered a cogent, well-reasoned and well-documented address.

At the end of an international conference organized by Shlomo Sharan in 1979, the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education (IASCE)  was founded. Bob played an integral part in founding the Association and showed leadership in it for many years.

In 1985, the IASCE published a book with a wonderful title:  "Learning to Cooperate, Cooperating to Learn."  Bob was the lead editor for that book and he did a terrific job in pulling together all the contributions.  As editor, he was quite helpful to me in revising my chapter on CL research in math. 

Also in 1985, at our conference in Canada, the IASCE decided to form regional associations to engage large numbers of teachers and staff developers in CL.  Bob and I founded the Mid Atlantic Association for Cooperation in Education (MAACIE).  Together with Frank Lyman, we launched MAACIE, and it provided staff development for thousands of teachers for over 15 years.

Bob served effectively as the third President of the IASCE, following Richard Schmuck and Shlomo Sharan. Upon the completion of Bob's term, he gave me a gracious and encouraging welcome as his successor.

At an AERA conference, Bob received a well-deserved award as an Outstanding Young Researcher.  He always studied issues of major educational significance.  He showed genius in designing practical cooperative methods, designing rigorous experimental studies totest their effectiveness, and repeatedly obtaining significant positive results.  His program of experimental studies contributed a major part of the research base for CL, in conjunction with the work of Shlomo Sharan and David and Roger Johnson. 

Bob was a prolific author of numerous high-quality publications. Among these, my personal favorites are his educational psychology text, theoretical papers such as motivational frameworks for CL, his book on theory, research, and practice in CL, and his analysis of when CL increases student achievement.

Bob's intellectual brilliance was matched by his kindness and passionate concern for the success in learning of all students, especially those considered to be very disadvantaged.  Success For All became his motto, his program, and his mission, together with his wife and long term professional partner Nancy Madden and their collaborators.  Their multifaceted program addresses change for the entire school.

Bob and Nancy wrote a terrific retrospective chapter in our recent group project, the book on Pioneering perspectives in cooperative learning.When I sent out the publication announcement on March 13, Bob responded immediately as follows"This is wonderful news!  Thank you so much for doing this."

When Yael proposed  a Zoom celebration for all the authors, Bob quickly responded, " I would be happy to have a celebration on Zoom.  Tell me if we can help with this." 

That was in March, and Bob died unexpectedly in April.  We had to do our Zoom meeting without Bob, but his presence was certainly felt.  Many of us remember Bob  fondly  and with strong admiration - now together with our other great departed leaders Morton Deutsch and  Elizabeth Cohen.

I received dozens of comments about Bob's passing from well known leaders in CL.  Expressions of shock, dismay, and grief were prominent.  Perhaps Elliot Aronson spoke for us all by saying, "What a terrible jolt!  I will miss him both professionally and personally."

Our deep condolences go to Bob's family including his children and wife Nacy - his professional partner in cooperative learning and Success for All for so many years.

Spencer Kagan and I have corresponded and talked several times about  the tragic loss of Bob.  Please see the excellent article below about Bob's accomplishments, forwarded to me by Spencer.He described it as the "best article I have seen on Bob following his passing."

With sadness and great respect,

Neil