online learning...

As I reflect on online learning, the one thing that I was concerned about and thought would be the hardest, or near impossible, was group work. This course was my first online course. I had never experienced working with a group online previous.

My past group work experience has been in a classroom during my undergrad years. The group would consist of how everyone allotted for the course or by the teacher. At times the people in your group are at different levels of skill and ability to work within your group. I always enjoyed presenting and always received high marks on behalf of my group and for myself. But working with an online group was much different. Even though initially I was very nervous working in an online group, to be honest thought it was impossible.

After having a first go at online group work, I must say I was very impressed. Of course it also has much to do with the people who are in your group. Fortunately, everyone in my group was very organized, goal oriented, and very structured, I was very impressed. I always had high standards in my work and always hoped that those in my group would be the same. I had not experienced great group work until my online group. We all had the same goals, we worked equally as hard, and we worked to benefit everyone within the group in ultimately receiving a good grade.
This was not always the case in my f2f groups. Many times I ended up taking on the entire assignment or carried most of the weight. Many times it was unfair. I would hope to illiminate this unfairness if possible when I carryout my online courses.

Now after having this great experience with online group work I look forward in implementing group work online with my courses. I feel a learner regardless of online or ground base needs to learn how to work as a team, or in a group setting. I also feel that online group work helps in learning something new. I hope for my students to be able to experience group work in a different light.

For Example:
When online there is no choosing like you normally would in a classroom course.
I must be honest, when I used to choose my group partners, I always chose the most talkative in class, the not so shy, the best presenter... ya ta ya ta ya ta. I always, from day one of class, would look out for these characteristics. In an English major group work and presentations is on a weekly bases, so I always tried to have a heads up. And it so turned out, that I would choose the same ladies that I always worked with over and over threw out my undergrad years; we took many of the same courses together threw undergrad and liked the way we worked together. But ofcourse it took many bad group to find a good one I wanted to stick with. Let me tell you, I had some very bad experiences with group work. Once, I carried the weight for many in my group because the two ladies that where in my group where very nervous and they said it was new for them. So I decided to help them as much as I could. On day of presentation the other ladies where to go first then I was last. When the girl before me had her turn, she decided to use all my information portion of the presentation. You can only imagin my reaction! I was sick to my stomach. So when it was my turn I had nothing to say because she said it all! I will never be put threw that again.
With my online experience everyone had to submit they're finding one portion of the project at a time, everyone reviewed it, gave it the ok, then would go on to the next portion. I hope to impliment this structure when I teach online, and to offer the same quality experience of online group work as I have had!


I hope to one day offer within my online courses the satisfaction of relating and enjoying group work just as I have.
Useful sources I found;

Collaborative Learning:Group Work and Study Teams:
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html

Seven Problems of Online Group Learning (and Their Solutions)
http://www.ifets.info/journals/10_4/22.pdf

Instructional Strategies for Online Courses
http://www.ion.illinois.edu/resources/tutorials/pedagogy/instructionalstrategies.asp

http://www.tltgroup.org/Collaboration/collabexploreguide.htm

Managing—and Motivating!—Distance Learning Group Activities
http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/millis.htm