Students usually sign up for an online course assuming that assignments will be done individually. There is an expectation that online environments will favor asynchronous interaction between the student and the instructor. So, some students groan when they find out there will be group assignments and resist this team-based approach to distance learning. To be honest, I would be no exception. So, what is it about this group work that is so unappealing to students? Some common complaints revolve around lack of time to collaborate effectively, dependency on others, compensating for the underachiever on the team, lack of cooperation and individual accountability. Ironically, this is exactly why group work is important for learning. Isn’t one of the aims of group work to transform the class into supportive learning teams?

Speaking from experience on both sides (as a teacher and a student), I am aware of the challenges of performing within and facilitating collaborative activities, particularly group work. I have to first mention the two distinct concepts frequently used when discussing group work, namely “cooperation” and “collaboration.” When online groups cooperate, there is a “division of labor” approach, where each member tends to complete his/her own “section.” From this perspective, the work is accomplished individually and a team member at the end puts all the sections together for the sake of accomplishing a shared goal and consistency. When virtual groups collaborate, they build relationships by fostering peer interactions (give and receive feedback) and orient to each other’s potential in the course of task accomplishment. In other words, there is not a “divide and conquer” approach. So, while cooperation costs $100 an hour, collaboration costs $300 an hour:).

In our PBL group, we wanted to truly experience this distinction, in a way we went for “doing being collaborative and cooperative.” We were separated into three groups, while G1 prepared a task (a crossword puzzle) from scratch, G2 would perform it in a collaborative way (three members meeting on Zoom to solve the puzzle together), and G3 (three members on their own pace) would engage in the task individually (divide the task and then put all the separate efforts together). And there was also one group who prepared a questionnaire (that would be administered to G2 & G3 at the end of the task) on task accomplishment, consisting of self-reflection questions related to during task performances. I was lucky to be in the collaborative group, enjoying the learning happening in dialogue. The task was so real as we could easily relate to our own students. For instance, there was a lack of context around the task (I think it was purposefully designed in that way to see how we would function as a group to overcome this ambiguity). We did not struggle with solving this problem as there was positive interdependence (we believed that our success was linked to the success of each member of the group) and individual accountability (none of us anticipated doing less work than when we think we were working alone) within the group. As such, there was no self-declared frustration at the end of the task and all questions were answered in a non-competitive way. Yeah, we nailed it! (I am sure G3 will share their own experiences in their blogs, I don’t wanna steal their thunder:))

In short, there is no single formula for creating effective group learning environments in online classes, but there are shared experiences from real people that provide a starting point as shown in this post.