Current studies on Malaysian graduate employability have shown that Malaysian graduates are still lacking in several higher-order skills such as teamwork, collaboration, problem-solving, critical and creative thinking skills, and communication skills, which make coping with the demands of the workplace in 21st century industries challenging and difficult. The Malaysian Education Blueprint (2015-2025) is calling for institutions of higher education to create more engaging learning environments that will enable students to cultivate more interactions and teamwork experiences with each other. The Blueprint proposed 10 shifts for educational change, one of which (Shift #1) called for the creation of balanced and holistic graduates with skills that can be transferable to their future workplace. As such, educators are tasked with designing learning environments that engage students’ interest in their learning materials, enhance their teamwork skills, and improve their communication and problem-solving abilities.

Cooperative learning has been shown to be an effective strategy to cultivate deeper collaboration skills among team members. Specifically, cooperative learning calls for students in groups to take full advantage of each other’s strengths and work together to fulfill their group's goal. It is an instructional strategy that is based on community and social interdependence. Cooperative learning consists of 5 essential elements for a group to be successful:
1. Positive interdependence.
2. Individual accountability.
3. Face-to-face promotive interaction.
4. Social skills.
5. Group processing.

In addition, AR has been shown to increase students’ learning by promoting immersive experiences and to assist in visualizing complex concepts. Therefore, in this study, an AR-supported cooperative learning environment was designed around, and mapped to, a project-based classroom where a cohort of 37 Project Management students worked in a group to design and implement a live event based on one United Nations’ SDG goals. This project was designed to enable students to cultivate the following:
1. Real-life relevance by working on a real-world issue.
2. Teamwork and deep cooperation through group interdependence.
3. Communication and problem-solving skills.
4. Critical and creative thinking.
5. Deeper understanding of the course content.

In this learning environment, the groups were responsible for the entire pre-production, production and post-production phases of the project, which culminated in the live events at the end of the trimester. Qualitative student data were gathered and triangulated from their website blogs, project reports and student comments culled throughout the trimester. Findings from the study showed that the AR-supported cooperative learning environment was successful in cultivating deep cooperation and collaboration among students, improving their teamwork and communication skills, and enhancing their ability to problem-solve and think creatively and critically. These findings provide positive support for the contributions of augmented reality technology and cooperative learning classrooms towards the fulfillment of the Malaysian Education Blueprint’s Shift 1 (Balanced and holistic graduates), and a learning framework is presented as a practical guide for educators seeking to create more collaborative and engaging learning environments for their students.

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Cooperative learning, Project Management, Malaysia, SDG.