Regardless of our teaching delivery mode, I believe that most if not all instructors must have run group assignments in our classes at some point. Most universities where I have taught usually set a policy that allocates up to 30% group assignment. This rule has both positive and negative implications. On the bright side, it shows that most academic institutions value group work and offer students to develop socialization skills when working with other people. At the same time, the policy could be read in such a way that “no more than 30%” could be assigned to group work in case things go wrong and we all know too well that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. So, as this ONL202 module focuses on collaborative learning online, I start to reflect upon the challenges and benefits of this instructional method.

Educational literature has distinguished the approaches to group work as collaborative and cooperative learning (Dillenbourg, 1999). While both approaches focus on students working together to create shared learning experiences and enhance students social learning skills, students in cooperative learning will focus on individual goals within group goals while students in collaborative learning will focus on the entire group goals. Therefore, the roles and responsibilities in groups are pretty much pre-defined in cooperative learning while the collaborative learning approach will allow students to negotiate their roles and responsibilities in a more fluid way.

While collaborative learning is an ideal approach to students learning in groups, realistically there are several factors that may hinder this instructional strategy. In my experience, I encountered at least two issues in particular. First, group formation is very often a challenge to create successful collaboration. From the very beginning, there is no perfect way to allow students to form groups. Ideally if we want to let authentic collaboration to happen, students should have the freedom to formulate their own groups. In reality, we know that there might be several problems arising from this approach that may result in having free riders in the groups. Second, the assessment of group collaboration often poses so many questions for us to consider. How are we going to account for individual contributions the group project? What implications does peer evaluation pose to group collaboration and how can we manage this fairly? Shall we focus on the process and product of collaboration equally (Macdonald, 2003)?

Despite those challenges, I still see the value of collaborative learning and social skills that students can develop from group interactions. With advanced technologies in online teaching, it became easier for us to set up tasks for students to collaborate. Some technological platforms also allow us to trace students collaboration. Wiki writing is one example that help promote “collaborative learning, organic discussions, and independent thinking (Rathnasiri Hewege & Chamilla Roshani Perera, 2013, p. 51). The following video shows how I ran my Wiki assignment in my class. Hope you enjoy it.

References

Dillenbourg, P. (1999). What do you mean by ‘collaborative learning’? In P. Dillenbourg (Ed.), Collaborative learning (pp. 1-19). Oxford, England: Elsevier.

Macdonald, J. (2003). Assessing online collaborative learning: Process and product. Computers & Education, 40, 377-391. doi: 10.1016/S0360-1315(02)00168-9

Rathnasiri Hewege, C., & Chamilla Roshani Perera, L. (2013). Pedagogical significance of wikis: Towards gaining effective learning outcomes. Journal of International Education in Business, 6, 51-70. doi: 10.1108/18363261311314953