Collaborative (Group) Learning Online

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Last revised 9/12/2024 by jap

Overview

Collaborative learning, also known as group learning, is an opportunity for students to develop higher-order cognitive skills, promote connections and community, and engage with different perspectives. To facilitate student collaboration online, it requires designing the activity as well as selecting the best technology to connect students.

Planning Collaborative Learning Online

Before incorporating collaborative learning into your online course, answer the following questions:

  1. What are the course’s learning objectives, and how will collaborative learning help students achieve them? This is the principle of alignment.
  2. How do professionals in the discipline collaborate? Can this be modeled in the design of the activities? This relates to authentic learning.
  3. What is the course’s modality, and will it restrict student collaboration? For example, if the course is designated as online asynchronous, it is not reasonable to require students to collaborate synchronously.
  4. Are there student limitations for engaging in synchronous activities? For example, if most students are full-time working adults or living in different time zones, you may need to design asynchronous collaborative learning.  Perform an audience analysis to inform your decisions.

Types of Online Collaborative Activities

Peer Reviews or Critiques

  • Students share an individual or group product with another student or peer group for feedback.
  • Tips: Give students a rubric, score sheet or framework to guide their feedback. Students may also need coaching on providing useful feedback to others. Consider demonstrating the feedback process with an example.

Group Projects and Presentations

  • Students work together to create a product, such as a paper, report, project or presentation. Group size can vary from pairs of students to 3-5 members or the entire class.
  • Tips: Scaffold group work:
    • Describe team member roles and responsibilities for completing the project.
    • Encourage regular meetings amongst team members or asynchronous check-in reports.
    • Create a space in HuskyCT including synchronous and asynchronous tools for student collaboration.
    • Have groups submit a mid-way progress report to instructor so issues can be addressed early.
    • Provide a grading rubric and information about group member’s evaluating each other’s contributions (if applicable).

Conversation (Second Language) Skills Practice

  • Students connect synchronously in small groups to practice speaking and listening in a second language.
  • Tips: Provide students with a specific subject (travel, work, hobbies), key vocabulary and guiding questions. Set a length of time, such as 10 minutes, for each subject. Consider recording, so the instructor and students can review and provide feedback. Provide grading criteria in advance.

Problem Solving

  • Students work together to address a problem or achieve a common goal.
  • Tips: Model the problem-solving process for students prior to having them do it in groups. Provide grading criteria (if applicable), so students understand how their participation in the process is assessed.

Case Studies

  • Students work together to analyze a case or scenario.
  • Tips: Model the case study analysis process for students prior to having them do it in groups. Provide grading criteria (if applicable), so students understand how their participation in the process is assessed.

Two-staged Exams

  • Students take an exam individually first and then complete the same or similar exam in a group. This allows for discussion and other cognitive processes to take place that are more powerful than the student taking the exam alone.
  • Tips: Explain to students why you are using this strategy. Shorten the individual part of exam to allow time for the second stage. Place most of the exam score on the individual part. Don’t lower a student’s score based on the stage two results.

Game-based Learning

  • Students work together within a game to achieve a common goal or solve a problem, rather than competing against one another. Examples include: Minecraft, Kahoot, SimCity, Escape Rooms, etc.
  • Tips: Make sure students understand how the game connects to the course’s learning objectives and grading. Clearly explain the rules and expected outcomes. Provide students with information on how to work collaboratively and have a plan to address technical issues.

Online Collaboration Tools

The following is a sample of UConn supported technologies that can be used for online student collaboration.

Technology

Synchronous or Asynchronous

Description
Discussions (HuskyCT) Asynchronous HuskyCT tool focused around a single topic or initial post made by the instructor. Students can then post replies to both the original post, but also to other students’ comments to the initial instructor post. Students can be assigned to groups for discussions.
Assignment with Peer Review (HuskyCT) Asynchronous As part of the HuskyCT Assignment tool, peer review is an option that allows student submissions to be assessed by their peers.
VoiceThread

 

 Asynchronous Cloud-based platform that allows instructors and students to post, comment, and share multimedia content. More about Group Projects using VoiceThread (Instructors).

 
Perusall

 

 Asynchronous Social annotation tool that helps students engage with course material in class groups.
Class Collaborate (HuskyCT) Synchronous HuskyCT tool for synchronous meeting.
WebEx Meeting Synchronous Video conference tool for synchronous sessions, meetings and interviews. Participants use microphone, camera, screen share and chat.
Microsoft Teams

 

 Asynchronous & Synchronous Students can chat with each other, hold video meetings, store and share files, and integrate with other applications.
Microsoft SharePoint Asynchronous & Synchronous Allows for multiple, simultaneous editors in Microsoft 365 files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).

Implementing Online Collaborative Learning

  1. Explain to students why (benefits) and how (procedures and group formation) collaborative learning will be used in the course. Introduce it on the syllabus and within your course orientation.
  2. Determine how many students will be in each group. (Resource: How can I compose groups?)
  3. Break down the collaborative process into easy-to-understand steps and provide instructional guidance about working in groups. Consider using group contracts for larger collaborative projects.
  4. Build in required technology practice at the beginning of the course. Be careful not to cognitively overload students with too many different technologies. Also, share each technology's accessibility statements and privacy policies with students on your syllabus.  (For example, HuskyCT/Blackboard Accessibility Statement, HuskyCT/ Blackboard Privacy Policy.)
  5. Integrate incremental instructor check-ins to provide formative feedback to groups and create a contingency plan for potential group issues, such as student add/drops, complaints, etc.
  6. Explain how group work will be graded.
  7. Evaluate the collaborative activities from both the student and instructor perspectives.  Consider including anonymous student surveys.

Additional Resources

Related Resources

Related Posts

References

  1. Barshay, J. (2020, September 28). Improving college exams during remote learning: A bicoastal experiment in administering collaborative two-stage exams via Zoom shows promise.  Hechinger Report.
  2. Brame, C.J. and Biel, R. (2015). Setting up and facilitating group work: Using cooperative learning groups effectively. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
  3. Chapter 2 – Concepts of Online Collaborative Learning in Chih-Hsiun Tu. (2004). Online Collaborative Learning Communities: Twenty-One Designs to Building an Online Collaborative Learning Community.
  4. Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation. Collaborative Learning.
  5. Hesterman, S. (2016).  The Digital Handshake: A Group Contract for Authentic eLearning in Higher Education, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 13(3).
  6. Liberman, M. (2018, April 25). Online Students Don’t Have to Work Solo. Inside Higher Ed.
  7. Mao, W., Cui, Y., Chiu, M. M., & Lei, H. (2022). Effects of Game-Based Learning on Students’ Critical Thinking: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 59(8), 1682-1708.
  8. Morrison, D. (2012, March 24). Why we need group work in Online Learning.  Online Learning Insights.
  9. Romaniuk, S. (2018, March 24). Collaborative and Active Learning In Higher Education Classrooms. eLearning Industry.
  10. Smith Budhai, Stephanie. (Jan. 29, 2016).  Designing Effective Team Projects in Online Courses.
  11. Two-Stage Exams. (October 2014). Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative.
  12. UNSW’s Teaching and Learning. Group Work.