How to Create a Successful Collaboration Experience
By: Lana Kempton, M.Ed.
USG eCampus
Embedded Files
What Students Want
What Students Want
A study by Watson (2017) found that the Top Ten Instructional Strategies students wanted to see from their instructors ranked from highest to lowest are as follows. Students want instructors to:
Be available and responsive to students
Engage/interact with students
Provide prompt feedback
Foster interaction/communication among students and instructor
Provide clear expectations
Provide learning guidance
Provide an organized course
Provide meaningful coursework
Provide synchronous sessions
Use various instructional methods
Creating a Successful Collaboration Experience
Creating a Successful Collaboration Experience
Morrison (2012) outlines some essential steps for a successful collaboration experience:
Create a student introductory forum in the first week
Have learners upload profile pictures of themselves
Announce groups early in the session
Encourage group members to make contact early on
Create clear instructions for the group initiatives
Highlight the purpose
Limit group size
Encourage teams to collaborate with online applications & web 2.0 tools
Be available for concerns and questions
Be culturally sensitive
Additionally, there are more Group Work Best Practices from (optional):
When designing collaborative online projects, keep the Quality Matters Rubric in mind. Click here to view the rubric standards.
Another practice to ensure quality is to review the Online Learning Consortium’s Five Pillars of Quality Online Education.
Web 2.0 Tools
Web 2.0 Tools
There is a plethora of web 2.0 tools out there! Do a quick search to see for yourself or view this list of 101 Web 2.0 Teaching Tools. When choosing a web 2.0 tool, be sure to do your research on it and practice using it before implementation.
Keep in mind that you also have tools already available inside the Learning Management System (LMS) such as:
Discussion Groups are a key method of collaboration in the online classroom
Virtual Classroom
Chat
Integrations
All-inclusive cloud-based collaborative tools:
Google Drive: Requires Gmail account but is a free, all-inclusive collaborative workspace including Google Hangouts for communication, Forms for data collection, as well as Docs, Slides, etc. for collaborative writing and presentation
OneDrive: All-inclusive collaborative workspace that integrates with Microsoft Office so users can access Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in OneDrive. Users can simultaneously edit Office 365 documents and create and share folders
References
References
Bart, M. (2010, September 20). How to Design Effective Online Group Work Activities. Retrieved October 15, 2018, from https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/how-to-design-effective-online-group-work-activities/
Morrison, D. (2014, August 11). Strategies for effective group work in the Online Class. Retrieved from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/strategies-for-effective-group-work-in-the-online-class/
Watson, F., Castano Bishop, M., & Ferdinand-James, D. (2017). Instructional Strategies to Help Online Students Learn: Feedback from Online Students. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 61(5), 420–427. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-017-0216-y
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