How can students cooperate in online classes?

The role of a teacher


Several scientific studies [1] have shown that group work in education can develop students’ communication skills and aid in the process of knowledge acquisition. I personally always enjoyed group work throughout my education. I saw it as a fun and creative experience as well as a way to get a break from the passive learning of listening to a teacher in a classroom.

However, I also remember that many colleagues disliked working in groups, and their concerns match well the disadvantages of group work stated by Beede and Masterson[2]:
  • Pressure from the group to conform to the majority opinion.
  • Discussions being dominated by an individual.
  • Members relying heavily on others to do the work.
  • Working in a group is more time-consuming than working alone.

Figure 1: Disadvantages of group work [3]

But in fact, people are changing, and a study made by in the UK [4] that collected students’ feedback on group work have shown that students recognize the benefits of group assignments and that students have developed a number of strategies for dealing with team members who did not cooperate as intended. 

As Alison Burke explained in her paper [5], merely working in group does not develop the students’ communication skills and critical thinking. The teacher has a very important role in the students’ outcome as a facilitator for group involvement and participation. The work of a teacher as a facilitator can be done by:

  • giving instructional advice and tools,
  • creating a positive environment, 
  • determining the roles of the group members and
  • making strategic decisions on the group size, material given to the group and time to complete the tasks.

Flower Darby [6] also highlighted the importance of the teacher’s role in helping students that suffer with anxiety, trauma or any other disorder to work well in groups. It was moving to read her concerns on particular students, that are many times misinterpreted as just uninterested in group work, and how she learned ways to equip them for success in their future endeavors [6].


As education is changing and adapting into more flexible ways of learning, such as online teaching, how can teachers continue to stimulate, coordinate and facilitate group work?


In my opinion, the same techniques used in face-to-face classes may be applied in online teaching. In addition, to incentivize group collaboration I would try to:

  • make an online inquiry to the students at the beginning of the course, to get a grasp of their expectations for the course as well as their social attitude to aid me in the creation of functional groups,
  • make compulsory webinars where I would formulate a couple of questions for the students to discuss in smaller groups (breakout rooms),
  • give the groups the task of deciding
    • how often they would meet and
    • on ways to better cooperate,
  • occasionally take part in their group meetings to understand the group dynamics and 
  • create practical and relevant project group works.
As the American football player Vince Lombardi said:
“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a civilization work.”

Figure 2: Cooperation in group work [7]

References:

[1] The Teaching Center 2016 Benefits of group work Washington University in St Louis. Available at: https://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/resources/active-learning/group-work-in-class/benefits-of-group-work/ Accessed on 16/11/2019

[2] Beebe, S. F., Cross, K. P. Major, C. H. (2005) Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

[3] Image from: siphesihlentombelamescs707.wordpress.com Available at: https://pages.vassar.edu/teachingtales/2015/09/15/changing-perspectives-on-group-work/ Accessed on 16/11/2019

[4] Yongmei Bentley and Shamim Warwick 2013 Students’ experience and perceptions of group assignments. The higher Education Academy STEM Available at: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/gen_176_0_1568037085.pdf Accessed at 11/16/2019 Accessed on 16/11/2019

[5] Alison Burke 2011 Group Work: How to Use Groups Effectively. The journal of Effective Teaching Vol. 11, No. 2, 87-95. Available at: https://uncw.edu/jet/articles/vol11_2/burke.pdf Accessed on 11/16/2019

[6] Flower Darby 2018 Why some students struggle with group work. Faculty focus Higher ed teaching strategies from Magna Publications. Available at: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/course-design-ideas/why-some-students-struggle-with-group-work/ Accessed at 11/16/2019

[7] Supritha 2016 Educorner: Sweden’s focus on groupwork. Available at: http://blogs.studyinsweden.se/2017/03/02/educorner-swedens-focus-groupwork/ Accessed on 16/11/2019

Comments

  1. Lotta FröjdfeldtNovember 18, 2019 at 4:22 AM

    You discuss advantages and disadvantages of group work in education. You also describe that this could be a skill to learn, but that it takes a good teacher and teaching situation to learn this. You also give example to what the teacher need to do, based on an article by Burke. You also describe what you want to do for your teaching to facilitate this. I wonder if this is what you are already doing or is this new based on experiences in this course? And do you find these conditions met in this ONL course…? What could be improved?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LaraNovember 22, 2019 at 4:38 AM

      Hi Lotta, thank you for your comment. I still do not have much experience in teaching, but I am preparing myself to become one. Until then, I am trying to get the feeling and understanding of the challenges of online teaching through (i) the shared experience of some of my colleagues, (ii) our ONL group meetings and webinars and (iii) literature on the subject in the preparation of the blogs. The points that I made to incentivize group collaboration in online courses were therefore ideas that I made based on these external outputs. And yes, I think ONL manages to do it well mainly because we have our facilitators that guides the group and helped a lot in making it functional.

      Delete
  2. Learning Blog for ONL192November 20, 2019 at 11:12 AM

    Hi Lara, I agree with you on the extremely important role of teachers in facilitating group work/collaborative learning! Thanks for the techniques/ways to incentivize group collaboration. I got caught by the compulsory webinars and was thinking, what could enhance active participation during the webinar and the breakout sessions and make it really attractive for students to show up .... May be the results of the webinar/breakout sessions could be an important part of the assignments/course grade or even the collaboration itself could be a reflective part (if enhancing collaboration skills is a course aim). Just some thoughts on this point 😊

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LaraNovember 22, 2019 at 4:44 AM

      Hi Inês, thank you for your comment. One reason to make the webinars compulsory is to make the students show up, otherwise they would not pass the course. After getting the students in I would do my best to make the seminars interesting and fun ;)

      Delete

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