Disclaimer: I do not have an answer to it. Like the questions listed in my last post named “Individual Learning within Groups in an Online Course: Who Cares?”, we are still in the process of finding answers to achieve group learning without sacrificing individual learning opportunities. A large number of research teams and projects are making efforts in this regard. But here, I would like to share some of my observations and thoughts on my personal experiences of group work, based on which, I am trying to answer some of the questions I raised in my last post: What instruction designers and facilitators could do to enhance individual learning in small groups?

 

Personalization in groups

In a long-term group project lasting one semester, I was paired with another student. We were required to submit our work in progress bi-weekly. I had many individual learning moments in this project. We normally received feedbacks from instructors on Friday and met virtually next Tuesday for future submissions. On Mondays, I would read and reflect on the feedback, as well as prepare for the meeting. Another individual learning opportunity is to link my own interests to the group task. Apart from the long-term project, our team was also responsible for monitoring an online discussion forum for one week. We decided to make my research interest of collaboration the topic of that week. During the journey of planning and monitoring for the discussion forum, my understanding of collaboration is deepened.

 

More importantly, being capable to personalize my education and enjoy some individual learning moments do not hinder me and my partner to work as a group.  Instead of being isolated, we formed group cohesion. In the weekly/bi-weekly meetings, we critically examined what had been completed, collectively interpreted the instructors’ feedback, and negotiated what to do next. For example, we planned two parts for the prompts of the discussion forum. One part was to ask students to do a word cloud to gather their first impressions of collaboration. The other part was to let them rank the importance of several collaborative skills and write a small reflection on it. I later suggested to combine word cloud and rank as part one, and make part two reflection on both word cloud and rank. My partner agreed at first, but then raised the concern that if the reflection was in the second part, there would be less time for students to comment on others’ reflection. After comparing between different ways to set the prompts, we finally reached agreements as to put rank and reflection part one while word cloud and comments on reflection part two. If I had to carry out the whole plan myself, I would not be able to see the limitations of my proposal.

 

Experiencing the whole long-term group project increases my confidence in the assumption that a long-term project is necessary for achieving individual learning in small groups. A temporary one-week or one-time group work does not provide enough time to engage in individual reflection, form group cohesion, and participate in in-depth discussion before making decisions.

 

Knowing the benefits

Earlier, my approach to learning was more like a lone wolf. I would rather do everything myself for the sake of freedom. There is no necessity to schedule a meeting at everybody’s available time, and I can start the task whenever I feel like to. I could also pick whichever topic I prefer without negotiating with others. At that time, collaboration to me equals to responsibilities and constraints. However, after years of “brainwashing” by learning theories like social constructivism and constantly reflecting on my past experiences, I begin to notice the benefits human interactions bring. I only need to do part of the task, which grants more time to digest and makes deep learning possible. More importantly, now I have someone to help correct my cognitive bias. The problems we are trying to solve nowadays are complex. In most situations, there are more than one solution, and each solution has its pros and cons. Problem solving is more about making value-laden judgments. And that needs analysis, comparison, and negotiations from a whole group efforts. Last but not least, having emotional supports from the ones who experienced the same difficulties eases the frustration of a task. It is more emotionally hard if I have to deal with a difficult problem independently.

 

All the benefits I know about group work is from the education I received. But not everyone has the opportunity to know them and willing to take part in group work.  I believe this is where facilitators can contribute and shift their roles from delivering information as in traditional learning environments. As the most complicated creature in the world, how human beings interact within a group and how that dynamically changes over time are unpredictable. Instructors need to explain to students why they should work in groups in advance, intervene when the group goes awry, and offer advice upon how to proceed next.

 

Using technology for its functions

In addition to human interactions, technology is another key piece in group work. I have profited from technology in several ways. For instance, google doc was used as a shared object of referent to help my group stay on track. In the long-term project mentioned above, we put outlines for assignment in one google doc and frequently referred back to it because our thoughts would otherwise easily change and go wild. Another time, my partner was driving when we were having a virtual meeting and had no access to a computer. I took notes of what we had discussed on the google doc so that she could review it later for the ideas we had at that meeting.

 

That brings to the question: what kind of technology a designer should use or design for group work? A plain google doc or a fancy collaborative whiteboard app? My personal answer to this is the functions/ affordances the piece of technology could provide and influence on the learning processes matter more than the forms of the technology.

 

A few extra words

It is easier to say that realizing personalization, knowing benefits of it, and having access to functional technology are important to achieve satisfactory group work experiences. But “how to” is the piece need to be conquered before we can say that putting students into groups is worth than letting then learn alone.