To do this third topic justice would require several thousand words. Group work, collaboration, networks and communities are enormous topics, and the first two are often taken as core elements or experiences of university studies but the form that they take is rarely discussed in depth. Moreover, the experiences made available to students are often largely unstructured opportunities, especially when group work is added ad hoc to courses rather than embedded in the design. A lack of structuring is quite possibly the underlying cause of many ‘problematic’ courses and course elements that require students to take initiative or responsibility. Misunderstanding the need for and presence of structuring in various contexts seems to lead to vitriolic defences of traditional exposition lecturing and instructed activities as the best (and only valid) approaches to university educational provision.
Despite the course literature, discussions, reflection on common learning experiences, and accounts of both successful and problematic experiences and opportunities from other members of my PBL group, I still do not know the answer to a simple, but central question: What does collaboration look like?
We’ve discussed the problems of group work, and ways in which they can sometimes be mitigated, but, between the ticking clock and the freedom with which the group can determine exactly how it reacts to each topic and the scenario, my question of definition has been skirted. Not that this very skirting of the topic hasn’t been useful and interesting; the exposure to new perspectives and new ideas from the other members of my PBL group, and the webinar breakout room where the idea of T-shaped people [1], and possibility of flat, single year group, student groups ‘asking up the hierarchy’ by asking beyond their group, is a great advantage and the discussions are generally as useful as creating some sort of summary for sharing beyond the PBL group.
On the other hand, our discussions did end up posing some other fundamental questions about the rôle of universities, teachers and researchers. It has become clear that the ONL course is aligned to ‘students’ who at least hold a master’s degree, and less experienced students would require significant structuring [2]. The lack of structuring is challenging even for us; it forces us to be self-directed and draw on levels of maturity to let peers talk, rant even, interrupt them and, on the receiving end, accept that an interruption was reasonable. With strong, conflicting views and even many bad experiences, this topic is more emotionally charged than earlier topics and as such is perhaps strengthening what have so far seemed relatively weak ties within our PBL group.
[1] Why T-Shaped Teams Are The Future Of Work; Lisa Bodell, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisabodell/2020/08/28/futurethink-forecasts-t-shaped-teams-are-the-future-of-work/ (2020, accessed 9th November 2021)
[2] Creating Effective Collaborative Learning Groups in an Online Environment; Jane E. Brindley, Christine Walti and Lisa M. Blaschke; International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Volume 10, Number 3 (2009)
