This paper says that cooperative learning is increasingly present in teaching practise as one of the modern ways of learning and teaching. In quality schools, increasing importance is given to teamwork and cooperation, and less and less to independent work and competition. Cooperative learning is the foundation on which many active learning processes are based that require students to work together in small groups to achieve common learning goals. The more active a lesson is, the more students tend to engage intellectually and emotionally in active learning. Cooperative learning is one of the most important activities needed for future and success in the 21st century and needs to be applied from an early age to learn to communicate and work with peers, to express their thoughts, to defend their views, but also to accept other people's criticism. Cooperative forms of work are suitable for use in all forms of classes, but the role of the leader-teacher is very important in them. The teacher guides the students to reach the desired result, ie goal, through cooperation and group work. He/She lets students organize themselves into groups and come to a common result without its interference. It has a lot of positive effects on students, such as: developing social skills, strengthening self-esteem, communication skills, responsibility, sense of belonging, and many others. There are much less disadvantages of this type of learning than the advantages, and most of the disadvantages include the disorganization of teachers for cooperative learning, lack of time and material resources as well as the possibility of disagreements among students, boycott of group tasks or unfair distribution of roles in the group. The aim of this paper is to show what collaborative learning is and what its importance is for student development.