Finding ways to motivate our students while they participate in collaborative online tasks

Student-centred approaches to learning have become the norm, and there is good reason for this. We intuitively know that in order for higher learning to take place, our students need space to explore concepts, confront and overcome challenges, and learn from their shortcomings. The more support that we provide, the less likely it is that our students will be able to perform adequately in the future without our assistance.

We understand that education requires a light touch. While guidance and input is necessary, we have provide it in a way that allows our students to operate effectively without us in the future.

This dramatic shift to student-centred teaching has brought with it many new opportunities, and none holds more potential than the chance for student to student collaboration.

As social beings, we have always banded together to solve problems and overcome adversity. By working together, we can span gaps in each other’s abilities, strengthen social bonds, and ultimately learn from one another as these problems are solved. Since humans have always benefited from solving problems in groups, we can logically assume that collaboration promotes higher learning in education as well.

Apart from content knowledge, collaborative tasks can nurture additional skill-sets such as communication and leadership strategies. Through collaboration we can expose our students to each other’s strengths and differing perspectives. We can also help to prepare them for the real world. These skills are sought in virtually all occupations, and as such avoiding them in the classroom is a disservice to the future of our students.

The positive impact of collaborative learning is also supported by the literature (see, for example, Hammond, 2016 for an exhaustive literature review). Again and again, studies conclude that collaborative learning not only leads to statistically better learning outcomes, but also simulates professional environments (Hammond, 2016, pp. 1006-1007).

We have to be careful, however, when building collaborative tasks into our curricula. Collaboration brings a new level of complexity to our courses, and while it is worthwhile in the end, this complexity creates a host of new issues to be aware of. When we present our students with a collaborative task to complete, there are a variety of barriers to watch out for which can prevent them from reaching their full potential:

– Järvelä & Järvenoja, 2011, p. 359

It is important to be aware of these challenges, as they may indicate that steps can be taken to improve the learning environment for your students. Without intervention, however, there are actually several strategies that students adopt to overcome these barriers by themselves:

– Wolters, 2003

As course facilitators, it is important to recognize and nurture this positive behavior wherever possible, as it is bound to inspire heightened engagement among your collaborative groups. Beyond this, there are several other strategies that can be put into play which increase a student’s desire to collaborate. Engagement is vital in collaborative tasks, and simply ensuring that your students are collaborating is only a half measure. This is especially true when students are working online. In order to leverage the full potential of collaboration, teachers need to actively take steps to encourage student engagement.

In a study spanning three years and involving more than 300 students, Brindley et al. (2009) set out to uncover some of these strategies. In the study, students who had participated in two distance education modules were asked to identify which factors (apart from grading) motivated them to participate in online group tasks. Since the completion of collaborative tasks was the main driver of the course curriculum, their insights were extremely valuable. As a result, the researchers were able to compile a list of strategies which can be used to promote motivation during online collaborative tasks:

Group Collaborative Tasks and Language Teaching

In addition to the above recommendations, further consideration needs to made when setting up collaborative online activities for the language classroom. Like in other areas of study, motivation has a high impact on learning outcomes in the language classroom. When students are engaged in collaborative learning activities, it facilitates improved proficiency in the target language (Ibrahim & Al-Hoorie, 2018).

In a recent study conducted by Ibrahim and Al-Hoorie (2018), the researchers set out to determine which factors promoted sustained motivation in collaborative language tasks. The study differentiated between motivation and shared sustained motivation (referred to as shared sustained flow by the authors), with the latter being defined as follows:

A group of individuals working collaboratively share a special experience of total absorption in a series of tasks aimed at achieving a certain outcome (Ibrahim & Al-Hoorie, 2018, p. 51). 

In their study, students in pre-sessional tertiary language courses were asked to identify the conditions that facilitated shared sustained motivation over the semester. Subsequent analysis of these interviews revealed three common themes which improved the learning environment for the respondents.

Forming a group identity

When groups are initially formed, it can be difficult at first to find common ground and purpose.  The above mentioned barriers mitigate the cohesiveness of the group, preventing them from moving forward with a shared identity. This is, however, vital to the success of online collaboration in groups. Since group performance is judged by the final product, and not individual contributions, group participants with a shared identity feel a sense of responsibility for their peers.

In language courses, shared collaborative tasks should be presented so that they are “not perceived merely as a language task, but also a social opportunity for students to demonstrate their group identity (p. 58). Such team building can be established early on, and nurtured over the duration of the course.

Attaching personal value

In addition to sharing a group identity, tasks also need to be selected so that they are perceived as valuable to the learners. In the language classroom, this means that students should perceive the task, as well as the linguistic focus as congruent with their own motivation for participating in the course. In an ESP course, for example, tasks should emulate the productive and receptive skills that will be needed once the course has been completed. Tasks should be viewed as authentic and meaningful, and relevant to scenarios that the students can expect to encounter in their real lives. When groups believe in the value of a collaborative task, they can develop a sense of ownership for their work.

Providing partial autonomy

Finally, providing autonomy to our students over aspects of shared collaborative tasks can help groups to “embrace their project and foster a sense of belonging and group pride as they [draw] from each other’s resources and expertise” (p. 57).

Language teachers can choose to give students autonomy over a variety of aspects of a collaborative task, such as individual roles, the area of focus, the medium and look of the final product, submission deadlines, etc.). Teacher’s can set boundaries at the start of a task by clarifying its learning goals, milestones and timeline, and then autonomy can be provided to the students once they have understood their teacher’s expectations.

Final Thoughts

While collaboration is an extremely important aspect of online teaching, its success is dependent on the level of engagement of the learners. This needs to be actively monitored as well as nurtured throughout online collaborative tasks, and is the key role of the facilitator. These strategies can help you to get the most out of your students’ online work, and can help to achieve learning goals more effectively in the future.

References

Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M., & Walti, C. (2009). Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 10(3). doi: 10.19173/irrodl.v10i3.675

Ibrahim, Z., & Al-Hoorie, A. H. (2018). Shared, sustained flow: triggering motivation with collaborative projects. ELT Journal, 73(1), 51–60. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccy025

Järvelä, S., & Järvenoja, H. (2011). Socially Constructed Self-Regulated Learning and Motivation Regulation in Collaborative Learning Groups. Teachers College Record, 113(2), 350–374.

Wolters, C. A. (2003). Regulation of Motivation: Evaluating an Underemphasized Aspect of Self-Regulated Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(4), 189–205. doi: 10.1207/s15326985ep3804_1