Background: According to the constructivist and social learning theory, collaborative learning is one of the most effective ways to advance a learner’s understanding on a subject. However, many students, even some that excel individually, dislike group work or find it difficult.
Collaborating with groups to achieve project goals can be difficult for a number of reasons. The challenge increases even more when that group is communicating online and at a distance. The group can suffer from a lack of communication and coordination, or some groups, feeling a lack of leadership may feel that it is “the blind leading the blind.” Some members complain about the relative lack of participation of some of the learners within the group, and so on.
Prompt: Recall an experience you had with an online group activity, and consider the following questions:
• What was effective about the group and worked well?
• What tools and methods did you use to communicate, and how well did they work for the group?
• What were some of the challenges that you or the group encountered?
• What could the instructor or course designer have done to make improvements to the course or enhance the group experience?
• What could you or other members of your group have done to improve the group experience? What will you do differently in the future?
Post a response by Friday in response to the questions above, and cite one of the following resources below for your post.
Return Saturday to see if anyone has responded to your comments.
The rubric for this discussion post is located here:
[Link Coming Soon—will have to upload via Google Drive as Blogger.com does not have a file manager].
References/Resources:
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Assessing interaction and collaboration in online environments [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Oosterhof, A., Conrad, R.-M., & Ely, D. P. (2008). Assessing learners online. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
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