Collaboration

You can find a range of articles on collaborative online learning and teaching in the E-Learning Industry blog (see link). It offers reasons for collaborative activity in online learning and outlines its benefits and challenges. It also features a range of strategies for designing collaborative activities and encouraging student participation in online learning, as well as recommendations for collaborative tools and practical suggestions for your next learning activity and ways of appraising and assessing group work.

There are multiple approaches to collaborative learning that make online learning more varied and exciting and help to maintain the attention and motivation of students who may be working from home. They include the Jigsaw Technique, Think-Pair-Share, Break-Out Groups, and Peer Review.

Both approach and setting determine success in collaborative learning. This website (see link) presents a range of strategies and offers advice for successful collaboration, such as taking size and composition of groups into account and guiding learners towards relevant content. It also provides tips on how to assess group work.

Would you like to explore collaboration deeper? Click on the link to be guided through the complex task of designing and supporting online activities that are clearly structured to ensure collaboration and are in line with the aims of the programme. It consists of two parts: the first outlines the benefits of collaborative activities; the second provides detailed guidance on delivering effective collaborative online activities (by means of design, support, and feedback).