This workshop was held on Friday, September 11, 2020 at noon.
Key takeaways
- Students will find a way to collaborate and self-organize remotely (here are some possible tools)
- Project artefacts that are well suited to the online medium are e-portfolios, multimedia-websites, infographics, and video/audio recorded presentations
- Project showcase, discussion and/or peer evaluation is very easy to facilitate asynchronously
“Students work together and are responsible for one another’s learning as well as their own” (Dumont, Istance, Benavides, & Groff, 2010)
“Student-led teams can lead to higher levels of cognitive, social and teaching presence” (Anderson, 2008)
Logistics of Online Group work
There are many apps and websites for collaboration from messaging to file sharing, co-authoring documents and multi-medias.
This outlines some of the options out there – Note: this website was developed by a group of students in the Master of Educational Technology course working collaboratively, remotely.
https://mobilecollab.weebly.com/tools.html
Gerry did a quick poll in Zoom and he found out that ~75% of students were comfortable with Zoom.
A majority of students are comfortable with navigating online technologies and will be able to self-organize and collaborate. For the rest of the students, clear instructions or linking the documentation and help lines will be necessary. We will work on a universal set of instructions for collaboration that can be attached to any group assignment instructions.
Group Annotations:

Team Composition
Some possible terms in which to form groups:
- Surrounding a shared topic of interest
- By diversity of or similarity of (there are pros and cons to each)
- content strength
- major of study
- technological skill
- personality type (ex. MBTI)
Dealing with Conflict
Group projects resemble the real world and working with others. Therefore, conflict is a necessary life skill.
Some ways to help navigate conflict:
- peer feedback system (see below)
- more rigidly structure the group work with regular meetings, check-ins, etc.
- offer group management tools, content, and advice
- see the team contract shared by Judy
Setting up the virtual space
see Logistics of Online Group Work above
Establishing a peer feedback system
A peer feedback system can lessen a teacher’s workload (Anderson, 2008)
Peer feedback can help coach or resolve conflict. (Mazur, 2013)
A self/peer review about how they believe the group work has gone is important.
Stories shared:
- Students hated their group partners and complained to the professor about it. At the end of the project, for a self/group evaluation, they all gave each other full marks
- Students hated their group partners so much that at the end of their project, for self/group evaluations, they all gave each other terrible marks thus reducing their final mark – mutually assured destruction
Possible solutions to the above stories:
- A set number of marks than must be distributed amongst all group members
For example:
Total marks: 100; I get 20, Mr. Blue gets 20, Mr. Pink gets 20, Mrs. Blue gets 20, and Ms. White gets 20 - Self/peer review can be compared to overall class participation
- Self/peer review can be ignored in certain cases
Communicating with teams
Establish communication channels, for example:
- Canvas e-mail
- Discussion posts
- Zoom
Establish communication schedules:
- Required check-ins
- Project progress reports
We didn’t have time to discuss this in detail, so please share your problems, thoughts, and ideas.
Project Artefacts
“One important context to do [develop higher-order cognitive skills] is through inquiry-based approaches in complex, meaningful projects that require sustained engagement, collaboration, research, management of resources, and development of an ambitious performance or product.” (Dumont, Istance, Benavides, & Groff, 2010)
“Online learning makes it easier to have assessments in the form of project-/workspace-based that are constructed collaboratively and benefit from peer and expert review that also allow for self-assessment” (Anderson, 2008)
Some examples from a brainstorm:
- Recorded presentation
- Create Infographic
- Design an activity for peers
- Have students lead discussions for their peers (See the rubric for assessment that Gerry shared)
- Student groups meet on a regular basis and share a one-page summary of all their meetings
Project Showcase
“Co-operative group work, appropriately organised and structured, has demonstrated very clear benefits for achievement as well as for behavioral and affective outcomes.” (Dumont, Istance, Benavides, & Groff, 2010)
Technology can “Enhance pedagogy and student interactions” (Kim, 2012)
“the real magic is when you let people talk to each other”(Khan, 2011)
Interaction and showcasing projects is a huge strength!
See the discussion surrounded the collaborative website shared above: https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec523/2020/06/21/a2-mobile-collaboration/
Projects can be shared in the form of asynchronous discussions, synchronous conferences, etc. The projects also have the potential to be shared publicly (easily done with a UBC course blog), establishing the students professional digital footprint and possibly the content shared could impact others around the world.
References
Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (pp. 45-74). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University.
Dumont, H., Istance, D., Benavides, F., & Groff, J. (2010). The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice. Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Retrieved June 1, 2019, from https://courses.library.ubc.ca/get/course/122769/hash/i.FxZbz8
Khan, S. (2011). Liberating the classroom for creativity. (Links to an external site.) [Edutopia, 10 mins.]
Kim, P. (2012). Designing a new learning environment. [YouTube, 8 mins.]