Thoughts on Successful Collaboration in an Online Environment

The nature and purpose of the collaborative task drive the success of the assignment/experience. Collaborative assignments should not be assigned simply because group work is popular in education today. As it was pointed out in our readings on online courses, more of an effort must be made to build relationships between students in this disembodied, technical environment. Collaborative work can be a vehicle for creating these relationships and thereby assisting students in having a more positive experience with the benefit of peer-to-peer support found in a traditional classroom setting. Differing personal strengths and weaknesses can work to produce the best possible products in a group environment as some people are more creative, others are stronger leaders and others may be more analytical, etc. These individual qualities can all be capitalized upon in a group environment to support each other in pursuit of a common goal. For this reason group work in a traditional classroom (and frankly I am thinking of a K-12 environment here) is often carefully assigned, with teachers working at balancing groups with members with different qualities and strengths to make a dynamic, supportive group.

In an online environment personalities are not as easily established and thus groups are often assigned randomly. In a less professional program than SLIS this can lead to a disparity in the work load, often leading to resentments of those shouldering much of the work and carelessness and shirking by those not as invested in the course or project. For this reason collaboration in an undergraduate environment should have an assessment component that allows group members to reflect upon the process, division of labor and group dynamics. Also the purpose of the assignment should be examined carefully. Is this merely to allow more student interaction? Then the grading scale and depth/quality of the outcome should reflect this purpose.

Often we depend upon discussion with others to deepen our understanding of a topic or assignment. Especially in the online environment it is easy to get hung up on small details of an assignment or simply miss the purpose of the experience while trying to work out the details. Being able to bounce ideas and concepts off of one another can often allow us to get “unstuck” and move forward in our thinking or brainstorming. In a traditional classroom environment this may occur naturally when the assignment is handed out. The teacher/professor usually passes out the assignment sheet, goes over the general details, and then allows for questions and comments from the students. The discussion unfolds naturally and student understanding increases through this discussion. This organically occurring understanding is not as readily available in an online environment, but can be assisted through a discussion thread dedicated to the assignment. Many assignments, such as our assignment for this class requiring the development of a rubric, can really benefit from an exchange of ideas between two or more group members. I know that the final product for that particular assignment was much stronger, as was my overall understanding of the assignment, due to the collaboration of my partner and myself than if that project would have been assigned individually.

One concern that I have about collaboration in an online course is the method of communication and sharing of the work. I have found the development of collaborative relationships to be stronger when group discussion threads are set up for each project. This allows students to easily sift through different ideas and suggestions as new threads are developed and group members weigh-in with their thoughts and ideas. Email can be effective but more difficult to parse through when coalescing ideas. I also have found that it is more expedient to use the built-in components of the course software to eliminate discussions centered on what method of communication to use, what blog or wiki or workgroup to set-up, etc. This takes up time and often necessitates the learning of a new platform, new passwords etc that can make managing the course overwhelming or weighty. I am not against learning new sites or software for collaboration, but often we are pressed for time and it would be beneficial to use the course software that we have already taken the time to learn to manage instead of adding another component to the mix. Time management and group organization are large considerations when taking online courses.

Online Learning Versus F2F: A Balancing Act

One of the key components to the online learning experience discussed by Moore, Downing & York in their study included in the text The Perfect Online Course is the differing organization in online courses versus face to face courses. As mentioned in the article, since there are no face to face instructions or introductions accompanying the distribution of the syllabus or class assignments in an online course, often many more questions are generated that necessitate email exchanges between the students and instructors. Furthermore, one of the more frustrating experiences for students lies in the need to unlock each instructor’s particular organizational schemas at the start of each new course to find necessary documents for the course. “Students are often required to decode dramatically different course content categorization schemes for each instructor’s Web site” (Orellana, Hudgins & Simonson, 2009, p.344). I couldn’t agree more! Even when using the Angel platform with a structured template the beginning of each course is like a treasure hunt only we are still learning to decode the map. However, over time one learns to be less anxious, more patient while delving into a new person’s system, and more intuitive from previous experiences.

As an online student I have found that every single course is structured differently, not just in the number or breadth of assignments, which is expected, but in the manner the documents are labeled and filed away online. Just this month I experienced frustration in a course that I am taking through another university when trying to discover when assignments are due. The professor announced at the beginning of our short four weeks together that she had not assigned any hard due dates, but rather had some suggested ones for the assignments. However, I was not able to find these due dates anywhere! They were not on the syllabus, in the announcements, or included on the assignment documents. Another classmate mentioned the suggested due dates on a discussion post and I became even more frustrated! Where could these elusive due dates be? I started my search all over again. Finally, I looked in the only place I hadn’t looked, the folder titled “DocSharing”. Most instructors in this particular program I am enrolled in use the folder for uploading previously completed example assignments to clarify assignment expectations. This folder is where I found the document the instructor created with the due dates for the assignments. Due to the quick turnaround in courses, a new one every four weeks, the syllabi and assignment documents are not updated with new due dates for each session, but usually the information is posted in each unit or week’s folders. This professor chose the last place I ever thought to look that made no sense to me intuitively and did not fit my previous experience with the program of study’s online courses. In this circumstance my previous knowledge worked against me in trying to ferret out the information I was seeking.

If this professor and I were in the study discussed by Moore, Downing & York, we would definitely not have categorized that document in the same way. According to the above mentioned article, Organizing Instructional Content for Web-Based Courses, “categorization is a vital component of navigation for online courses” (Orellana, Hudgins & Simonson, 2009, p. 343). This example is one of many that I could give to illustrate this point quite clearly. The professor created that document and wanted a place to post it to share.  I wanted the document categorized not by the action “DocSharing,” but by the contents of the document itself, which pertained to assignments and thus I felt should have been posted somewhere that discusses either all assignments or individual assignments. 

Although there are several other important issues that result in the removed environment of online learning, such as a disconnect between classmates, the need for quite a few email exchanges between instructors and students or between student and student to clarify simple items that might take a matter of seconds to iron out in a face to face environment, it is helpful to remember that online learning is here to fill a need. The flexibility for people to meet and share ideas that would never meet in an ordinary classroom setting due to how far apart they live from one another is just one positive aspect of online learning that I think helps to balance the scales in this relationship with technology (that and getting to type up this blog from my computer at home while wearing my pajamas and shouting out for my daughter to get ready for bed!).  :-)

References:

Orellana, A., Hudgins, M., & Simonson, M., eds. (2009). The perfect online course: best practices for designing and teaching. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

The role of assessment in learning

Assessment is a valuable part of the teaching process. Without some measure of assessment, be it formal or informal, it would be difficult to determine if students understood and were able to apply the desired material and/or concepts. Wiggins and McTighe provide a continuum of assessments which include informal checks for understanding, observations and dialogues, tests and quizzes, academic prompts, and performance tasks (2005, p. 152). Each type of evidence provides the teacher with varying degrees of detail on student understanding and requires a full range in student and teacher participation and effort from very little to quite a bit. A quick informal check for understanding can include teacher questions during a lesson, think-alouds, or even a quick walk through the classroom checking student work for task or concept comprehension. Deciding which type of assessment to use depends upon the situation, content, time constraints, and goals of the unit. Excellent teaching will use a variety of assessment pieces throughout the unit from daily informal check-ins, writing prompts to review previous concepts learned, to a final comprehensive project or exam at the end of the unit to synthesis and summarize.

An important note from Wiggins and McTighe is to use the assessment that best answers the question “What’s the evidence we need?” and not to simply rely on the same one or two types of assessment for every unit (2005, p. 168). A variety of assessments is necessary not only because some are more appropriate than others given the nature of the concepts learned, but also to allow students opportunities to learn and exhibit learning in a variety of ways. Some students perform better depending upon their personal learning strengths and styles. Some teachers are able to offer assessment choices to students that can capitalize on their learning styles and still allow them to meet the unit requirements. The goal is to demonstrate that the desired concepts have been learned and in many circumstances to apply these concepts to a project or problem simulating the use of the concepts in a “real world” way. These authentic tasks are realistic and are often more engaging for students as they allow them to do more than simply recite or regurgitate information (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pps. 153-154).

Self-assessment for students and adults alike is an important skill to teach. It is often difficult for young students to honestly evaluate their own work. Often they try to be too modest when asked how they think they performed on a task because they do not want to seem conceited about their talents. Conversely, some students, if asked to assign themselves a grade, will give themselves A’s whether or not they have earned them. True self-assessment should be a process of asking and answering questions about the tasks/content/ process as opposed to just asking “What grade do you think you deserve?” as many teachers do. The previous question does not require any critical thinking and poses problems for students who do not feel equipped to assign themselves grades. Discussing the challenges of a project, the continuing questions around a concept, and the process the student used for a project can provide insight for the teacher that is just as valuable as the test or other finished product. How did the student try to solve unanswered questions or address problems in the project? What challenges still persisted that the teacher may need to address for deeper understanding? What topics or concepts continue to interest the student and could lead to further self-discovery? All of these questions, if answered with thought, can assist both the teacher and the student in understanding what the student learned during the unit study as well as what concepts may need further teaching.

References:

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.