During the courses I teach, within media and communication science, the students often work in groups. One reason for this is that people in the media industry often works in different project groups. In marketing, a project can consist of a number of different people with different skills that collaborate (for example, an art director, a copywriter and a graphic designer).
The main purpose and reason for working in a group is to take advantage of each individual’s special skills. When each person contributing with their knowledge and experience, it becomes possible for the group to create something that would have been impossible for each individual to create themselves (Roberts 2004).
There are many digital tools that is good when the collaboration is to take place online and the participants do not have the opportunity to IRL. Tools that I myself have encountered before and also tried out during the ONL course are for example miro.com and Slack. However, my experience tells me that it is not good if students only communicate via text when they have work and collaborate only online. When body language and voice do not become part of communication, the risk of misunderstandings increases, which in turn can lead to conflicts.
A factor that has been identified for a well-functioning group work is that each member of the group feels that their efforts are crucial for the group’s results to be successful. This is called positive interdependence (Scager et al. 2016)
There are benefits with working collaboratively online. It is easier to stay focused on the task, students that do not say so much may be more active, the online discussions can be retrieved later on and discussions may go on during a longer time and have a better chance of getting deeper. A problem a have identified is social loafing. That some students let other students do all the work. One way of avoiding this is to start the collaboration with making a group contract where all participants agree on the terms for working together.
Roberts, T. (2004). Online Collaborative Learning: Theory and Practice. Idea Group Inc (IGI).
Scager, K., Boonstra, J., Peeters, T., Vulperhorst, J., & Wiegant, F. (2016). Collaborative learning in higher education: Evoking positive interdependence. CBE Life Sciences Education, 15(4). https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.16-07-0219
Hi! I like the point on positive interdependence and also the suggestion about the group contract. However, it can still happen, that some group members do not contribute enough, even though they have signed the contract and are aware of positive interdependence. What can we do then as teachers?