In praise of collaborative online assignments

Conventional online learning design focuses on self-study and self-pacing, with all the advantages and disadvantages with which these are associated. Yes, students have much greater control over what and when they learn and at what speed, but on the other hand, they have to rely on their own time structuring and self-discipline, and remain isolated from their colleagues.

In a number of courses which I have worked on recently, we have shifted the emphasis towards collaborative assignments - not at the expense of individual, self-paced activity, but as well as. This typically requires students to make contact with each other, plan how they will split responsibilities for their task, maintain communication and make a joint submission to the course as a whole. A typical task would be to conduct research on a topic related to the course (typically in the form of a webquest) and then present their findings, perhaps as a forum posting, a wiki entry or a podcast. These activities have some powerful advantages:

• Students seem to really enjoy them - it's not what they expect from boring old e-learning.


• Working with colleagues provides impetus/peer pressure/a sense of group responsibility, all of which encourage students to get the task done now rather than later.


• Students support and learn from each other.


• Groups compete with each other to make the best submissions and it comes as no surprise when competition improves performance.


• In familiarising other groups with their findings, students increasingly assume the role of teachers. And teachers are almost certainly going to gain valuable new insights from what groups submit. It seems everyone's a learner and everyone's a teacher.

Are there disadvantages of group activities? Yes:

• They take time to set up and organise.


• They can run into difficulties if a group member is sick, on holiday, too busy to contribute or just plain hard to get hold of.


• They make it possible for weak students to hide behind other, stronger contributors.

On balance, I'm going to come out strongly in favour, while working hard to solve some of these problems.

Afterthought: do we really need formal learning materials?

It's becoming ever more clear to me that formal learning materials - interactive self-study materials, papers, etc. provided by so-called experts - are increasingly peripheral to the process of online learning, and in many cases could be unnecessary. Students can and do find the information that they need using Google and by calling on each other's help and experience. What they come up with is far more precious than a piece of CBT or a handout because it is their own. A course wiki, developed by students themselves, is a tangible output from an online learning activity which students can take great pride in. It's also likely to be relevant, practical and up-to-date (more than you can say for the average textbook).