Unit 3 Being an Online Instructor
A. Learning through Collaborative and Cooperative Learning
Collaborative learning (also called cooperative learning and team-based learning) specifically refers to instructional strategies that require students to work together in small groups towards a shared goal or deliverable. Working together towards the completion of the shared goal or deliverable is at the core of cooperative and collaborative learning activities.
Group and team-based activities grow social presence in the online course and foster the sharing of skills and the co-construction of knowledge. By having a shared goal, students have a tangible purpose for collaborating with peers. They are motivated to engage with others in a constructive activity, making cooperative and collaborative activities high contributors to student engagement with an online course.
Common examples of cooperative and collaborative learning activities are project-based learning and case-based learning, among others. The key is that students work in groups and groups are working towards a common goal, based on learning tasks and, often, a deliverable.
Your instructional role changes over the course of the activity. Your main roles are:
- Planning & Preparation before the course
- Explaining tasks and giving directions at the beginning of the activity
- Monitoring and Intervening during the activity
- Evaluating both during and after the activity
As students progress through a team-based activity, they learn and develop confidence in the course environment, understand the nature of participation expected and required, and, hopefully, take leadership roles in team activities. With appropriate facilitator support, they will also develop their skills at working together to accomplish targeted goals. When you design team-based and collaborative activities for the online environment, you should also ensure that you include:
- The timeframe for completion: as for face-to-face classes, collaborative learning takes place over time. Determine much time would your activity require, and then add more time to account for the synchronicity of the online environment.
- Where will teams meet: will you require teams to meet in digital spaces that are part of the your course, such as in discussion forums and/or breakout rooms in the web conferencing tool? Or will you suggest that student teams determine that themselves?
- What you will be assessing: online discussion forums make group work visible in the online environment and you will be able to see how groups are functioning. If the process of completing the deliverable/goal is as important as the deliverable/goal itself, consider having groups work in discussion forums.
Determining the degree of your instructional presence is an ongoing challenge as the needs of online teams change as they move through both an activity as well as a course. Facilitator interventions may include monitoring and responding to the direction of online groupwork and discussion and modelling positive ways of posing challenging, thought-provoking questions.
Team learning or online group projects present challenges just as they do in the face-to-face environment. In an online course, group dynamics, communication, and conflict can be difficult to discern. Generally, people are quite polite in online teamwork; however, there can be sub-currents that can inhibit the group’s effectiveness to work cohesively. Letting students know that you are ready to listen and to intervene as needed maintains your presence in student-centred activities.
The key to successful group work is to ensure:
- The project and deliverables are clearly defined.
- Team rules are agreed to and maintained
- Planning: Careful planning and alignment with learning outcomes can ensure successful group work.
- Criteria for success: Provide explicit criteria for success – check that students understand the goals of the project and how you intend them to be achieved.
- Teamwork skills: Allocate time for the development and management of teamwork skills – ask students to create a team contract right from the start, make this one of the project outcomes.
- Interdependence: Create interdependence – make sure the group project goals necessitate the sharing of knowledge, skills, resources and goals.
- Recognize individual contributions: Ensure individual contributions are recognised. Have an individual as well as a group grade or create a related assignment that captures an individual’s learning from the project.”
(Quoted from Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Ní Shé, C., Costello, E., (2021). #Openteach: Professional Development for Open Online Educators. Dublin: #Openteach Project. 10.5281/zenodo.4599620)
