Forced Group Work

There is a thought in education that learning happens in a social environment. This is called social learning. 

For brick-and-mortar classes and courses, students and instructors get to know each other and connect quite naturally. Chatting happens before and after class. Conversations naturally flow. Humans are social beings and a sense of belonging and community is needed for learning. 

How do we do this in an online learning environment? For teachers and those designing learning online, thought needs to be given on how to help students develop a sense of community with each other during their online class. One strategy is giving students group work. The intent is that students can get to know one another and feel connected when they are given as assignment to work on together. This, in turn, helps them not to feel so alone and also exposes the learner to different perspectives and experiences from their classmates, enriching their learning.

This is the intention of group work anyways, but not always the experience. Mandatory group work can help build a sense of online community but it is a double-edged sword. Like Boling and colleagues noted from interviews with online instructors and learners, group work can backfire. Groups often focus on just completing the task. When interactions are just task-oriented, they feel unauthentic leaving the learners feelings even more isolated. Another problem is if not everyone in in the group is contributing or pulling their weight, then the experience can be outright stressful and frustrating for some, especially when there are a lot of marks at stake. Group work is supposed to be an opportunity for connections and learning from other students but sometimes the effect is quite the opposite. 

I had my first experience of doing online group work recently. It was for a mandatory assignment that was work a good chunk of my grade. I could choose from a list of assigned topics so I knew at least who else had signed up for the group I would be in. I could get a sense of who these people were, their experience and how they would work from other assignment posts and their introduction.  

To skip to the end of the story, I had a pretty good experience with my group but I think it came down to some luck. My groupmates fell into 2 categories: leaders-types and the quiet ones. We didn't assign a leader but the leader types took turns stepping up and leading the project forward at crucial points. The quieter ones, luckily, took to the suggestions and leading well. Even more luckily, the other leader-types would also follow. There wasn't any disagreements, just questions for clarity here and there that we all helped each other with. We largely marched steadily forward. I think I also lucked out in that all my groupmates were pretty good communicators online. Everyone was pretty responsive and respectful, open to feedback and suggestions.  

Did I get to know my groupmates better? Did I feel I had built a community? Not exactly. The group project was at the end of the course so after it was done, so was the course. I reached out with my information to keep in contact and only 2 of my groupmates responded (both leader-types), so I think the feeling was mutual. Learners might not expect to make connections with others during group work of the benefits of social learning. Most of my group focused on getting tasks done and all of our communications were about that only. If learners only see group work as work to be completed, then they won't necessarily put the effort in to connect with others during the project. So setting expectations might help maximize the impact of group work on social learning. 

Another strategy is to give students resources on how to do group work. My instructor had made a website on how to survive group work as part of the course content 4-5 weeks before the project was due. It was part of the required readings so there was some guarantee the learners were going into the experience somewhat equipped. 

Overall, group work has a place in meeting learner social needs which also support their learning. Encouraging students to use it as an opportunity to build a community within the course and giving them some tools on how to do it is important. 



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