Topic 3 became a real challenge for our group and what could have ended up as collaboration resulted in something vague. Even though no real collaborative learning took place, I started to think about group dynamics, how to improve teamwork, and tie groups together. Why do some groups work better together? Is it well-defined roles, similar levels of ambition, mutual responsibility? It also made me think of how I can facilitate my own students’ feeling of “togetherness”. I know I will continue to ponder about this …

A couple of years ago, I had a course in Literature and Psychology where the students read literary works with a psychological perspective in mind (based on several sources, among them Freud etc.). The student group consisted of about 10 – 15 students, all from different backgrounds, ages, experiences. I teamed them up in smaller groups and they had a discussion forum where they talked about their readings, discussed the works and read each other’s assignments (submissions). They gave each other peer response and supported each other. When I assigned them a new task, I also formed new groups. That helped them to stay alert and get to know everybody in the bigger group. The stronger inspired and encouraged the weaker ones and everyone broadened their knowledge to some extent through the course, including the educator. I have sometimes wondered why this course worked particularly well. Was it the small amount of students? Their motivation? Their previous experiences? Sometimes, you’re lucky and things work surprisingly well. All students don’t have to be full of enthusiasm but if some are, it is definitely contagious and some sense of togetherness is radiating.

For teachers as well as students/learners PLN (Personal Learning Networks) could be an important tool to develop and improve learning. I interpret this network as an enlarged area of knowledge; a learning community that has the mutual goal of improved learning. It could be a group of teachers using the same platforms and share and derive knowledge from each other. When Kay Oddone and Alastair Creelman initiated the tweet chat for this topic, I jumped into it and it was great fun and welcoming. Being a researcher could be a rather lonely existence, and being part of a PLN community may lead to less “loneliness” and sharing competencies could lead to new contacts and in the long run, future collaborations because when the network develops into a community the ties to the group becomes stronger as well. Kay Oddone means that a network is looser and flexible and it could consist of people sharing a common interest, and you join the network when you want. On the other hand, a community is less flexible but tighter since the members share a mutual goal.

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 Distance Learning, 10(3).PLNs

Theory and Practice by Kay Oddone 1 & 2, 2019.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8mJX5n3IEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqSBTr9DPH8