I have worked as a teacher for over 20 years and I have as long worked on getting students collaborating. During the first 17 years it was collaboration in class but since 2020 it has been much more online focused. Online has not been a major learning platform for my university before the pandemic and when the pandemic hit we moved online over night and did not change our pedagogy that much.

Reading Brindley et al (2009) I realized that we have not assessed our online pedagogy that much. We have divided our students into breakout rooms but very much used the “old” tasks and not created a online group with collaboration rules and probably not the needed spaces. But I agree totally with the authors on the skills that we get from collaborative learning and this is something that we have stressed during my whole career. As we teach business students their work life will demand collaboration skills as a lot of work today is team based.

The challenges that Capdeferro et al (2012) mention as challenges in online collaboration can be vied in my opinion also in collaboration on site. The most common problems in collaborative learning that I have experienced from talking to my students is common goals, the perceived unequal workload, timetable, commitment and communication challenges. These are all mentioned in the article and therefor I assume that the same challenges arise both in class and online. The challenge with collaborative learning is to get the students to see the benefits.

The benefits of collaborative learning can be seen as gaining more perspectives, using different strengths mastered by different individuals in the group,  getting more motivated as you get inspired by others and forced to be more articulate and use more critical thinking. Further in divers group you will learn more then just the subject. These are reasons why I have during my 20 years as a teacher continued to develop the collaborative learning.

In the  webinar Oddone (2022) talked about the totally online program in Australia and how it gave a new opportunity for students from all over the country to participate and collaborate. I somehow can see that it works better there in that situation when the students are older and probably more motivated. And if the only way to get a qualification is online then you will motivate yourself to participate as there is no alternative.

I really hope that I will be able to create a better collaborative online experience after ONL. I have had some good ideas and I will try it out the following autumn when I design a new online course with my colleague.

Sources:

Brindley J, Blaschke L M and Walti C (2009) Creating effective collaborating learning groups in an online environment. “The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning; 10 (3)

Capdeferro N and Romero M (2012) Are online frustrated with collaborative learning experiences? “The International review of research in open and distance learning; 13(2); 26-44

Oddone Kay Webinar 19.4.2002