The Spruce Group Online presentation

1. COLLABORATION IN THE ONLINE CLASSROOM The Spruce Group Melissa BorgerJohn GeraghtyAngela IveyJacqueline MingoHannah Saunders

2. Why Collaborate? “Unity is strength... when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” ~Mattie Stepanek Promotes deeper levels of knowledge Promotes initiative, creativity and development of critical thinking skills Promotes Co-creation of knowledge Promotes Reflection http://www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz/upload/Draft%20Digital%20Strategy%202.0/Collaboration.jpg 2

4. Students need a sense of community because they will feel comfortable collaborating in this type of environment. If they feel isolated, they will not open up and contribute to the discussion.

5. Melanie Misanchuk and Tiffany Anderson found that “when students communicate not only on an academic level but on a personal level…the members feel they are in a safe enough space to “speak up” about things in the public forum, rather than in individual e-mail messages…” (“Building community in an online learning environment: communication, cooperation and collaboration” )3

6. 4 Elements of Community

7. 5 Why Do People Need to Learn to Work Together? Evan Rosen, author of The Culture of Collaboration, indicates that 10 cultural elements are present during effective collaboration: 1. Trust – essential in order to create something with others. 2. Sharing – enhances the value of everyone involved because each becomes part of the whole--weaknesses in some members are supplemented by strengths in others. 3. Goals – agreed upon goals create the drive to create something new and exciting

8. Why Do People Need to Learn to Work Together? (cont.) 4. Innovation – the desire to create inspires innovation and innovation depends upon collaboration 5. Environment – both physical and virtual space are conducive to collaboration 6. Collaborative Chaos – “allows the unexpected to happen and generates rich returns”. 7. Constructive Confrontation – the exchange of viewpoints and the constructive confrontation are important so that the “shared creation” is better. 6

9. Why Do People Need to Learn to Work Together? (cont.) 8. Communication – necessary for collaboration (both interpersonal and intrapersonal communication) 9. Community – necessary for a sense of “comfort and trust” in which to collaborate 10.Value – primary reason to collaborate is to create value due to lessened product creation time, new ideas, faster problem solving, etc. (“In Today's Process-Driven Workplace, Collaboration Is King”, May 21, 2008 in Knowledge@W.P. Carey ) 7

10. 8 When Groups Work and Don’t Work Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec determined five components of successful groups:  Positive interdependence: group members need to believe that they cannot succeed unless others in the group succeed  Promotive interaction: group members should support each other’s success by encouraging each other’s efforts and by sharing resources.  Individual and group accountability: not only does the group need to be held accountable as a group, but group members must be held accountable for their participation  Interpersonal and small group skills: members should possess skills conducive to getting along with others. If these skills don’t already exist, they should be taught.  Group processing: members should be able to discuss how well they are achieving goals. They need to be able to define and discuss decisions and behaviors that help or impede group progress. (Cooperation in the Classroom. 1993)

11. 9 When Groups Work and Don’t Work: (cont.) Last summer I was at a two week summer training in Maryland for a new engineering course I was going to teach. It is a Project Lead the Way course called Engineering Design and Development. Right away the instructors divided us into groups of three and gave us our instructions. We had to "invent" something or make an innovation to an existing product by going through the design process. My group was very diverse; Ken came into teaching after 20+ years in industry, Walt had only been teaching a few years and this is my 26th year teaching. One characteristic that made this successful was that each person knew their role. Ken was the natural leader because of his experience, Walt is very organized and kept us on schedule and I took care of the design on the software. Another characteristic was that we all got along very well. We laughed and joked around a lot. This experience was in my classroom where my students were working on a virtual design project. My class worked with another class in South Carolina through Skype. I divided my class into 10 groups of two and they each were paired up with two students in the other class. They were supposed to work together through Skype to design a desk organizer. They would make contact each day, send files and talk about next steps. Throughout the project my students would complain that their partners in the other class weren’t doing their job. They said they were talking about things other than the project. It seemed they weren’t taking it seriously. I think the reason was that the other teacher didn’t set guidelines and wasn’t monitoring them very well.

12. Stages of Group Development 10

13. Stages of Group Development (CONT.) 11

14. 12 What Do I Need to Do as an Instructor? Set the Stage Let students know your expectations. Provide your students with a syllabus and review it with them. Create the environment  Create Wiki pages, and share contact info. Model appropriate communication methods. Check in frequently with your students give feedback where needed.  Comment on good work and contact students who are not participating.

15. What Do I Need to Do as an Instructor? (cont.) Guide the process If students are not on the right track, give them the support and resources that they will need. Transition your role from facilitator to consultant to provide your students with expertise and encouragement as needed. Evaluate the process  Use self-reflection and survey’s to evaluate the process. 13

16. 14 Successful Collaboration  Learn about each other.  Communicate frequently and effectively.  Try to avoid sarcasm, it’s hard to tell in text. http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/online-business-communication-tools.jpg

17. Ten Simple Rules for a Successful Collaboration 1 2 3 4 5 15

18. Ten Simple Rules for a Successful Collaboration (cont.) 6 7 8 9 10 16

19. Remember…… The Teamwork Makes The Dream Work! 17