Online Collaborative Learning: Lessons Learned

Research shows that online collaborative learning provides support to learners; thus, allowing them to explore and construct knowledge (Harasim, 2012). Having taught preservice teachers online for three years, I noticed that they did not approve of collaborative activities and preferred to work individually. This realization sparked my interest and led me to investigate the reasons behind such preference. I believe that preservice teachers need to experience collaborative learning because this is a type of learning they will try to enforce in their future classrooms. I felt that this experience would allow them to better perceive the challenges and help them understand what needs to be done to avoid them. In this presentation, I plan to share my methods and findings with the audience and together reflect on experiences from our online classrooms. The audience will discuss their experiences in small groups and then share some examples with all attendees. By sharing stories and results from the study, attendees will learn about the challenges students face when collaborating online, but from the perspective of future educators. This study is important because it allows preservice teachers to experience firsthand what their students will be going through, which will cause them to avoid certain pitfalls and inspire them to help their students avoid unnecessary difficulties. Through slide sharing and discussion, attendees will learn what techniques can foster collaborative learning and how they can encourage their learners to engage in it. Data Source The participants in this study were twenty-nine undergraduate preservice teachers at a southeastern university in the United States. They were all females who were given the option to either work alone or in a group. Due to the shortness of the semester, most of the students, that is twenty-five of them, chose to work in a group, whereas four decided to work alone. They enrolled to study an online course (Applying Linguistics to ESOL Teaching & Testing) during the summer semester. Method Considering that I have been teaching pre-service teachers online for the past three years, I am aware of which assignments require much effort and collaboration. Thus, I provided clear instructions about the requirements for the projects, the amount of work the students must do, and the different assignments they needed to submit. Providing a complete and straightforward explanation of the projects allowed the students to comprehend the complexity of the tasks and helped them decide whether to collaborate or not. I encouraged the participants to collaborate to make the workload more acceptable considering that the course only lasted ten weeks, which resulted in more pressure. I also felt that the nature of the tasks necessitated collaboration since the students had to gather data from English language learners (ELLs) at a time when the school year was close to an end. I felt that allowing the students to share and analyze data would allow for maximization of learning (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 2008). The participants completed a survey that consisted of fifteen open-ended questions that were developed by the instructor/researcher to allow for a better understanding of their perceptions about online collaboration and how they interacted with one another to complete the tasks. The questions were about what the participants did, how they interacted, what worked, and what did not work for them. Furthermore, to learn how they benefited from collaboration, they were asked to provide examples about what they learned from their group members and what they will take with them to future collaborative tasks. Results and Conclusion I adopted open coding to analyze the data whereby I studied the answers word-by-word to allow for different concepts to emerge (Grbich, 2013). This helped me not to only focus on the ideas that were clearly developed, but to also locate other implied ideas to help create themes. Doing this, I hoped to express my participants’ experience in its entirety (Guest, MacQueen, Namey, 2012). The participants were satisfied with their collaboration experience; thus, many denied facing any challenges. Those who mentioned time constraints and problems working with people at a distance reported that they finally managed to turn in their work on time. However, one participant had a bad experience with her partner and resolved her problems by finishing the work by herself. In discussing what helped make the projects successful, a main theme that emerged was communication. This was achieved through texting, using Google Docs and GroupMe, planning, and equally dividing the work among group members. Google Docs were repeatedly mentioned as being a platform to ease communication since they enable users to share documents with one another, see what everyone is doing, and work on a document at the same time. Having used different ways to complete their tasks and communicate effectively caused the participants to have a positive experience. In answer to what can be done to help improve future collaboration, one of the participants wrote, “I do not feel there is any improvement needed.” A second theme is gains, which refers to the lessons learned from the online collaboration experience. The number one lesson is keeping communication open. This idea was repeatedly mentioned and was stressed as being “…the key to success.” By keeping communication open, the participants were able to benefit from each other’s different perspectives, understand different concepts and activities, and acquire collaboration skills. On a personal level, they learned accountability, time management as well as how to trust other group members. However, one participant talked about how her poor experience has taught her how to choose her partners “more wisely” in the future. I conducted the research to investigate pre-service teachers’ experience collaborating in an online course. To this end, I found that most of the participants were content with their experience because they successfully communicated with one another throughout their work. They did not only interact to discuss what they needed to complete, but also to encourage each other to stay on track and submit work on time. They also reached out to one another when help was needed and asked for clarification, which enabled them to stay on task. Interestingly, what began as an exploration of what held students back from collaborating gave rise to different benefits and emphasized the necessity of communication for the success of any collaborative task. Those positive results were summed up in one of the participants’ quotes when she talked about her collaborative experience describing it as, “… the best group project I have been a part of.” This study extends the findings of previous research including Laal and Ghodsi’s (2012) about the benefits of collaborative learning. It helps better explain what pre-service teachers need to do and stresses the importance of communication and collaboration skills as being crucial elements in the success of any collaborative experience. Implications This study has shed light on the benefits of Google Docs. On one hand, the participants found them a productive platform that enabled them to synchronously work on their task and enhanced their ability to edit and provide feedback to one another. On the other hand, the participants raised my awareness to how I can use Google Docs to monitor their work and be knowledgeable about who contributed what to the different tasks. In this sense, Google Docs can be of equal service to both students and teachers and is conducive to improving online collaboration. Future research needs to look at how instructors can effectively make use of online platforms to enhance communication and collaboration, which as Moore (2016) pointed out does not only allow instructors to effectively apply collaboration skills, but also helps enhance autonomy. References Grbich, C. (2013). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Introduction (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. Guest, G., MacQueen, K. M. & Namey, E. E. (2012). Introduction to applied thematic analysis. In Applied thematic analysis (pp. 3-20). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd doi: 10.4135/9781483384436.n1 Harasim, L. (2012). Learning Theory and Online Technologies. New York/London: Routledge. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. J. (2008). Cooperation in the classroom (8th edition). Edina, MN: Interaction. Laal, M., & Ghodsi, S. M. (2012). Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 31, 486 – 490. Moore, C. (2016). The Future of work: What Google shows us about the present and future of online collaboration. Tech Trends, 60, 233-244.