From Research to Practice: The Instructional Design of Online Collaborative Learning

From Research to Practice:The Instructional Design of

Online Collaborative LearningLaurie Posey, EdD

Director of Instructional Technology for the Health Sciences ProgramsThe George Washington University

[email protected] International Conference on Online Learning

October 28-30, 2009

Definitions

Online Collaborative Learning refers to activities that challenge learners in distributed locations to work interdependently to achieve a shared learning goal.

• Goes beyond cooperative learning by emphasizing cognitive diversity, critical dialogue & joint knowledge construction.

• A subset of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (Koschmann, 2002).

• A type of Community of Inquiry (Archer, Garrison, Anderson & Rourke, 2001).

Sound Familiar?• Working collaboratively online is very difficult due to travel

and personal schedules.

• Most of us are professionals who work in a team setting. I find these assignments to be completely ineffective learning tools.

• One of our team members was unresponsive, difficult to reach and generally had no contribution to the project.

• The timeframe was too short to sort out personalities, strengths, and weaknesses in addition to understanding, prioritizing and focusing issues.

• I felt like I was helping others get an A on the assignment.

Common Challenges

• Student apathy and hostility toward group work

• Difficulties with group selection

• Lack of essential group-work skills

• The free-rider

• Inequalities in student abilities

• Appropriate assessment of individuals within a group

Roberts, T. S. & McInnerney, J. M. (2007). Seven problems of online group learning (and their solutions). Educational Technology & Society, 10(4), 257-268.

Why Bother?

• Dialog and dissonance during OCL foster transformative learning.

• Collaboration competency can be learned through experience and practice.

• The world needs good collaborators.

Design ConsiderationsTechnology Selection

Group Formation

Team Building

Scaffolding & Facilitation

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign

Design Considerations

• Utility is key. Provide the functions learners need. (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns & Beers, 2004)

• Lack of verbal cues can inhibit relationship building.(Hishina, Okada & Suzuki, 2005)

• Synchronous communications enhance social presence and facilitate trust-building, information seeking, and conflict resolution. (Havard, Du, & Xu, 2008).

• Asynchronous communication facilitates reflection and independent research.(Clark & Mayer, 2008)

• Learners have the capacity to choose communication vehicles wisely.(Thomas & MacGregor, 2005; Cawthon & Harris, 2007)

• Social technologies can provide for more natural conversation and community building than traditional LMSs.(Rollett, Lux, Strohmaier & Dosinger, 2007)

KEY FINDINGSTechnology Selection

Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


Provide multiple synchronous and asynchronous communication technology options.

Match the technology to the desired learning outcome.

Provide education and support to ensure that students (a) know how to use available technologies; and (b) recognize the unique benefits of each as it relates to OCL.

Allow and encourage students to choose the best technology for the task at hand.

Take advantage of evolving Web 2.0 technologies to support collaboration (e.g., blogs, wikis, instant messaging, social networking, video chat, virtual worlds, etc.).

RECOMMENDATIONSTechnology Selection

Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• OCL around ill-structured problems promotes critical thinking, evaluation of alternatives, recognition of uncertainties, correction of misconceptions, and information seeking to resolve conflicts (Ge and Land, 2004; Reiser, 2002; Jonassen and Remidez, 2002).

• Designers of OCL must consider the interactions among educational, social, and technology processes, including task ownership, task character, and task control (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns & Beers, 2004)

• Providing advance instructions to prepare students for OCL can contribute to a more successful collaborative process (Ge, Yamashiro, & Lee, 2000).

• Structured assignments including clear instructions and role assignments maximize the benefits of collaborative work and influence learning outcomes(Clark and Mayer, 2008).


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


Provide clear, unambiguous goals and guidelines for success.

Make the process of collaboration an explicit learning goal.

Use complex, inquiry or problem-based activities to promote interdependence.

Carefully structure activities to facilitate the collaborative process and keep learners moving productively toward a successful outcome.


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• When given a choice, students are likely to team with friends from similar backgrounds (Roberts & McInnerney, 2007)

• Mixed groups of active and reflective learners engaged in more critical discourse than homogenous groups (Lee, 2008).

• Heterogenous groups of introverted an extroverted learners exhibited higher conflict and lower task sharing than homogenous groups, with no notable difference in team performance (Hsu, Chou, Hwang & Chou, 2008).

• Diversity within teams creates a tension that can either support or inhibit the collaborative process (Posey, 2007).

• Small teams of 3-5 students are more cohesive and most productive (Williams, Duray & Reddy, 2006; Colwell & Jenks, 2004; Clark and Mayer, 2008).


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


Promote natural heterogeneity, motivation, and cohesion within groups by allowing choice of topics or projects, rather than choice of teammates.

Encourage learners to become aware of, and reflect on, the personality and/or learning style make-up of group members and its influence on group process.

Use small group sizes (3-4 students per group).


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• Regular interaction among team members contributes to trust, community building and team performance (Bulu & Yildirim, 2008, Orvis & Lassiter, 2007; Thomas & MacGregor, 2005).

• Diversity of both personality and abilities can have a positive impact on group creativity and judgment; personality differences can cause conflict and cohesion problems (Levi, 2001).

• Perceived inequities in ability and level of trust negatively impacts trust and team cohesion (Posey, 2007; Cawthon & Harris, 2007); can be overcome when teams share a mutual definition of collaboration and common sense of purpose (Havard et al, 2008).

• Providing team members with pre-defined, functional roles can contribute to individual accountability and positive interdependence within collaborative teams (Kirschner et al., 2004).

KEY FINDINGS

Technology Selection

Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


Build time and a process for team socialization into the collaborative activity.

Provide education and guidance related to team process and role development.

Emphasize the importance of frequent, regular interaction among team members.

Specify a process for mediation and resolution of interpersonal/teamwork problems (e.g., personality conflicts, lack of participation).

Require evidence of participation and specify consequences for non-participation.


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• Instructors can play an important role in moving students beyond socialization and resource sharing by facilitating critical discourse, co-construction of meaning, and ill-structured problem solving (Murphy, 2004; Littleton and Whitelock, 2005, Ge and Land, 2004).

• New online learners may need guidance in the development of group process skills (Resta & Lafierriére, 2007, Brooke 2007); and using communication technologies effectively (Bulu & Yildirim, 2008).

• Up front observation of effective communication skills and examples of effective collaboration can improve OCL outcomes (Cawthon & Harris, 2007; Rummel & Spada 2005).

• Structured technology-based systems that making the process of collaboration explicit can improve collaboration (Lee & Kim, 2005; Kirschner et al, 2004).

• Requiring students to categorize their posts did not impact knowledge gains and reduced the number of challenges to arguments (Jeong & Juong, 2007).


Group Formation

Team Building


Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


Understand the collaborative process and make it explicit to students.

Provide teams with a structured set of prompts and questions designed to stimulate elaboration and critical thinking and guide collaborative problem-solving.

Provide opportunities for students to learn about and practice collaboration in advance of more formal OCL.

Be a guide on the side; monitor team processes and intercede only when input is needed to help move students toward deeper levels of collaboration.

Integrate structured checkpoints and feedback into the OCL process.

Be an advocate for collaboration; emphasize its educational benefits.


Group Formation

Team Building


Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• Requiring students to submit their contributions for individual evaluation promoted greater levels of participation.(Macdonald, 2003) .

• “Collaborative assignments should be assessed collaboratively” integrating self, peer and instructor evaluations (Palloff, Pratt & Palloff , 2007).

• Peer grading can help to motivate all participants to complete their share of the work; students need guidance in providing appropriate, valuable feedback (Colwell & Jenks, 2004).

• Collaborative exams can increase interaction among students and positively impact perceived learning (Shen, Hiltz & Bieber, 2006)

• Formative assessment of collaboration in the form of group portfolios can support student reflection and improve learning outcomes (Van Aalst & Chan, 2007)


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign


• Use formative assessment to reveal opportunities for facilitation and scaffolding.

• Take a 360 degree approach to collaborative learning assessment, integrating individual, peer and instructor evaluations.

• Consider using collaborative assessments as a teaching and learning activity, rather than just for evaluation.

• Use tiered rubrics to guide and measure student achievement of expectations.


Group Formation


Team Building

Learner Assessment

ActivityDesign

Closing thoughts…• Research is limited, varied and evolving.

• Recommendations are not rules…consider your unique educational goals and context, and evolve your own approaches through experience and reflective practice.

• Questions?

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