Students Who Are Lacking in Collaborative Skills?
All--
How can we encourage students to trust their classmates in order to expand and enhance their online leaning experience? Group work can be tricky, but the payoffs at the end of a project can be great.
Dale,
I agree with your strategy. You need to start with small successes with students in groups. They need to begin to understand the power of the technology as a vehicle to get things done. I even use the technology in my f2f courses as many of my students work and can't seem to meet.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I would agree that group work is tricky, sometimes they work great, and others not so much. One way to establish trust, is to create a discussion thread that students can use to talk to each other. It can be assignment related comments to each other, or it can be a forum that students can use to talk about experiences they have, or best practices they have learned.
Donald,
You are right. it is so important to develop a sense of community. The community can help provide the the accountability of expectations within the community.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Trust is not something that comes easy for some people. It all depends upon how many times the individual has been betrayed, or how many times they've been around the block. People trust other people who are like themselves. If you want people to trust each other, then my opinion is that we need to foster cooperation rather competition. The problem with fostering cooperation over competition is that society fosters competition. In this society. Competition is what markets do, and the market is present everywhere. I think that unless we have a fundamental change in our society, it'll be nearly impossible to encourage people to trust each other completely.
ANNE,
Yes, it is important to set expectations in the collaborative environment and monitor them. Good point.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
As a student I used this similar format. I thought it was fair. If a member was not pulling their weight and doing their share every member would have provded the same input. As well as if a students didn't get along you can tell by the two's grading of each other. I also had a instructor intrupt our group discussion whiling we were working on our project to help a student not dictate the work distripution.
Michael,
I make every student evaluate each other during and after a group project. They have to give me a realistic feedback about the group. I use a survey tool that is submitted only to me.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
