“I used to take an online course at Dalarna University and the final exam for the course was two students to do group work for a final presentation. The student I was working with, divided the task into two parts and she took one part. After that, I have never heard from her or got her answer to my emails. My understanding about group work is that we need to work together, discuss… to the end produce a result together.”
This is my own experience came into my mind when I saw this topic. What is collaborative learning? How can we, as teachers, make students done networked collaborative learning in a communities. I am sure, I do not the situation of my terrible group work happen in my course.
According to Beindley, Walti and Blaschke (2009), In a collaborative learning environment, knowledge is shared or transmitted among learners as they work towards common learning goals. Learners are not passive receptacles but are active in their process of knowledge acquisition as they participate in discussions, search for information, and exchange opinions with their peers. I interpret this as instructors or teachers have to develop their skills in creating and managing interaction among students. Through the learning process, knowledge is shared and co-created, students’ thinking skills are developed.
How can we improve students’ collaborative learning, Beindley, Walti and Blaschke (2009) have proposed some instructional strategies based on their findings from MDE601 and MDE608:
1. Facilitate learner readiness for group work and provide scaffolding to build skills
2. Establish a healthy balance between structure (clarity of task) and learner autonomy (flexibility of task)
3. Nurture the establishment of learner relationships and sense of community
4. Monitor group activities actively and closely
5. Make the group task relevant for the learner
6. Choose tasks that are best performed by a group
7. Provide sufficient time
I think those strategies are quite useful. Take “nurture the establishment of learner relationships and sense of community” for example, this is important because it can help students to be open and sharing during their group work. Besides, ” monitor group activities actively and closely” can give students detailed feedback and enough support. Teachers can also book some online meetings for each group, so group members can update teachers with the process of their group work or the difficulties they have encountered.
Kearsley, G. (2000). Online education: Learning and teaching in cyberspace. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ847776.pdf
