Initially, I was hard pressed to think of a personal (non ONL) occasion of collaborative learning that moved my own thinking forward. Perhaps because I was hung up on the “learning” aspect and was therefore considering only occasions where I am wearing a “student” hat, which is inevitably more restrictive. If I take a more liberal view of “collaborative learning” of me as an individual, I can think of a few more occasions, all of which involve the use of the humble Google docs to brainstorm and come up with material, be it for preparing material to teach a class on pedagogy to adult learners or writing an article (and brainstorming for the same) or preparing material to teach a legal skills class with both student research assistants and colleagues alike.
I like Google docs because it is easy to use. All who have access to the document and who are contributing to it can access it at their own time. Everyone can think about the material in their own time as well and edit accordingly.
For all these occasions, Google docs was not the sole means of interaction and collaboration between the persons in question. This was interspersed with in person discussions because face to face (in person or via Zoom) communication is still the best means of ensuring everyone is on the same page and each person’s underlying assumptions are clear.
How it has brought my own thinking forward? Well if I had to do the work by myself, I would not be privy to the diverse perspectives from the different parties involved. One example is when planning material with my colleague to teach a legal skills class. The colleague that I discuss this with has a completely different perspective and life experience from me and is creative in ways that I am not (and vice versa). Purely by posing a few questions, the trajectory of our discussions and the material we discuss can be transformed to something much more complex and exciting. It has happened on every occasion year on year that we have collaborated together.
Wearing my “educator” hat, I also see how my student have benefited from such collaborative learning, also using the humble Google docs. For one particular legal skills tutorial focusing on legal writing, I divided my students into small groups and created separate google documents of writing materials for them to edit. I also ensured that I had access to each of these google docs so that I could observe in real time how the students were working together to change the document, and more importantly comment in real time, which allowed me to understand their thought process as it unfolded.
A class design which involves collaborative learning particularly when the educator can observe how each student is contributing to this collaboration, in my experience as a legal skills instructor, can be extremely effective. Small groups, clear instructions, clear learning objectives and clear correlation between task and objective is key to ensuring the effectiveness of collaborative learning. I am considering how or if this model can be replicated in a much larger class (eg with more than 100 students) in an online setting and where the educator may not always be able to observe who is doing what.
Some articles which I’ve discovered along the way while thinking about this topic and discussing it with PBL Group 1 have been instructive. For example, the article “When Group Work Doesn’t Work: Insights from Students” (https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-09-0199), which highlights some factors to look out for and consider as to whether group work can work, such as role instruction and the ability for student supervision. Also, the article https://hbr.org/2015/04/what-harvard-business-school-has-learned-about-online-collaboration-from-hbx which has provided some useful, practical insight on how one might frame instructions for collaborative learning, such as setting ground rules, creating incentives for collaboration etc.
