Promoting%20cooperation%20and%20collaboration%20in%20a%20web-based%20learning%20environment

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Promoting cooperationand collaborationin a
web-basedlearning environment

• Fay Sudweeks
• School of Information Technology
• Murdoch University, Perth, Australia
• sudweeks_at_murdoch.edu.au

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Questions

• Can we do more to encourage cooperative and
  collaborative learning among students studying
  online?
• How can we connect students who are studying in
  different modes and in different locations?

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E-Learning

• Why e-learning?
• Rising costs of education
• Reduced funding for universities (particularly in
  Australia)
• Demand from students wanting to study off-campus
  (whether internal or external students)
• Benefits of elearning
• Attracting new offshore markets
• Ability to develop packaged programs
• Reducing inequalities, e.g. access for the
  disabled, the elderly

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E-Learning

• Problems in e-learning
• Learning environment, itself, regarded as glue
  connecting separate educational elements.
• Little thought given to specific pedagogical
  strategies
• Lack of appropriate social and collaborative
  activities
• Little support for students to build
  interdependent relationships
• (Unintended) consequences of e-learning
• Feelings of social isolation in students
• Paradox communication technologies can separate
  rather than connect students with one another.

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Cooperation vs Collaboration

• Cooperative learning
• a protocol in which the task is, in advance,
  split into subtasks that the partners solve
  independently (Dillenbourg and Schneider, 1995)
• Collaborative learning
• where two or more subjects build synchronously
  and interactively a joint solution to some
  problem (Dillenbourg and Schneider, 1995)

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Effective cooperation/collaboration

• Critical elements
• learning tasks
• learning resources
• learning supports

• Attributes
• communication
• interdependence
• leadership
• accountability

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E-learning framework
After Oliver, 2001, p. 407
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Case Study

• Organisational Informatics
• Part II undergraduate unit
• Enrolment
• 156 students
• Multimodal and multi-located students
• Modes part-time, full-time, external
• Locations Murdoch, Rockingham, International
• Topics
• computer-mediated communication, group process,
  computer-supported collaborative work, virtual
  communities, etc.
• WebCT learning management system

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Case Study

• Organisational Informatics
• Assessment
• online tutorial presentation
• online tutorial participation
• weekly reflective journals
• research essay
• examination

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E-learning framework
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Web-based Learning Environment
Web-Based Learning Environment
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Team Project

• Students assigned randomly to project teams
• 156 students in 10 tutorial groups
• 4 teams in each tutorial group 39 project teams
• Development of a proposal for a major event
• e.g. weddings, funerals, safaris, conferences,
  product launches, 21st birthday parties,
  concerts, movie premiers, store opening
• Aim
• Effective team work, i.e. communication,
  interdependence, leadership and accountability

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Project Objectives

• Practical skills
• stimulate creativity and skills in project
  development
• develop knowledge of distributed collaboration
  (practising what we are preaching)
• experience different modes of communication among
  virtual team members
• evaluate effectiveness of different modes of
  mediated communication
• develop skills in presenting information to
  distant clients
• Requirements for effective team work
• communication, interdependence, leadership,
  accountability
• Learning can be fun!
• different (fun) style of assessment

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Communication

• Team members (4) restricted to text-based
  mediated communication
• E.g. email, private forums (bulletin boards),
  chat rooms, IRC, ICQ, instant messaging, SMS
• Advantages
• level playing field for multi-mode/multi-located
  students
• practical application of units theoretical focus
• Communication diary
• recorded frequency, length, topic and reflection
  of each communication event.

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Communication Diary A worksheet for each
communication type and each group records
frequency, time, topic and reflection .
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Communication Diary The overview worksheet
automatically updates frequency and time length
of each communication event.
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Interdependence

• Interdependent roles
• Client
• Consultant
• Researcher
• Presenter
• Advantages of roles
• Facilitated structure of interdependent subtasks
  (cooperation) and interactivity in problem
  solving (collaboration)

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Interdependence

• Client
• Proposes initial ideas for the event, which need
  to be creative and innovative.
• Provides requirements of what components are to
  be included.
• Provides a budget.
• Evaluates consultant's two alternative plans for
  the event, chooses one, and provides a rationale
  for the selection.
• Evaluates and approves detailed budget.

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Interdependence

• Consultant
• Develops two alternative plans for the event.
• Advises the client to choose the better plan,
  giving clear reasons why it is superior. Both
  plans, though, are within the guidelines provided
  by the client.
• Provides a detailed costing for the selected
  plan.
• Provides steps for implementation.

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Interdependence

• Researcher
• Keeps a diary of the communication among team
  members including
• Time spent on different communication channels
• Frequency of messages on each channel
• Main topic of communication
• Reflection on the effectiveness of each
  communication channel
• Prepares a graphical representation of this
  information to be included in the presentation.

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Interdependence

• Presenter
• Organises material into a PowerPoint
  presentation.
• Includes information from the researcher for the
  firms billing purposes and for improving the
  quality of the firm's service for future clients.
• Demonstrates creative and innovative ideas
  appropriately to sell the plan to the client.
• Presents the project online to the tutorial group
  in the last week of semester.

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Leadership

• Team member
• Suggested that the team member who was the
  Researcher be responsible for keeping the project
  moving forward
• Practical since researcher was monitoring all
  communication
• Tutor and unit coordinator
• More of a monitoring role
• Access to most communication and able to resolve
  any potential conflicts

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Accountability

• Communication archives
• Available to all team members (bulletin boards,
  private forums, chat rooms)
• Peer-assessment of individual team member
  contribution
• Default assessment was equal distribution of
  marks among team members
• Option for the team to request unequal
  distribution (communication archives provided
  partial evidence of unequal participation)

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Communication

• Frequency of communication media
• Asynchronous media used most frequently
• Email (41), private forums (bulletin board)
  (20)
• Some notable exceptions
• One team used instant messaging almost
  exclusively (95 of all communication compared
  with average of 5 across all teams)
• One team used SMS extensively (64 of all
  communication compared with average of 5 across
  all teams)

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Communication
Average across 39 teams
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Communication

• Duration of communication media
• Average time 460 minutes (7½ hours)
• Shortest time 41 minutes
• Longest time 1,978 minutes (33 hours)

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Communication Summary
Average across 39 teams
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Survey

• Students surveyed at end of semester.
• Asked for a rating on 20 questions related to
• Team communication
• Team dynamics
• Perceptions of the team project
• Perceptions of e-learning
• Plus comments

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Team communication
The degree of interaction was very high (49)
Getting in touch with team members was easy (35)
I learned more about other team members than I
would have in a ftf team (47)
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Team dynamics
Reaching consensus was easy (56)
I enjoyed working with this team (61)
I appreciated the cultural diversity of the
student population more (47) (12 different
cultures reported by teams)
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Project
Project guidelines were clear (76)
Able to work independently on own tasks (70)
Project was a positive experience (61)
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E-Learning
Effective learning experience (78)
Comfortable with communication being monitored
(51)
WebCT encourages active learning (74)
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Comments

• Positive
• I think that the online team is a great idea for
  university courses. Why Its so easy to see who
  is at meetings, record minutes, have tasks
  pinpointed. You have time to think before
  answering via email and the ability to get good
  written feedback. Maybe I was lucky in that the
  team I was part of was excellent. So far it has
  been one of the best group experiences.
• No fights only good discussions, everyone has
  done their bit excellently, it has been a
  pleasure to work in this team.

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Comments

• Negative
• Communication was difficult because not all
  group members could access all channels.
• One of the team members was a bit difficult to
  get in touch with took several days before he
  answered email and he did not show up in the chat
  room.

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Evaluation

• Student self-reports
• Overall satisfaction with the project
• Project grades
• More than two-thirds (69) of the teams attained
  a higher grade (D or HD)
• Conflicts
• 7 of the 39 teams requested variation in grading
• 2 teams requested 1 member receive a grade less
• 2 teams requested 1 member receive a pass grade
• 3 teams requested 1 member receive a fail

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Example Project EventHomers FuneralMarilyn
Ranford, Timothy Geldard, Kelwin Chan, Veronica
Malmoe
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Conclusions

• Cooperation
• Students felt a sense of autonomy in working on
  subtasks as well as working interdependently with
  team members. Most students found the teamwork a
  positive experience despite some members not
  working as well as the rest of the team.
• Collaboration
• The majority of teams were congenial. More than
  half of the teams found it easy to reach
  consensus in problem solving, enjoyed working
  together and expressed interest in meeting
  face-to-face.

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Conclusions

• Design of web-based learning environment
• Include elements of tasks, resources and
  supports.
• Teamwork attributes
• Integrate key attributes of communication,
  interdependence, leadership and accountability

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Further considerations

• So perfect? No, not quite
• Team composition
• Consider incorporating an initial skills matrix
  to match students of similar work habits (e.g.
  JIT), preferences (different streams) and grade
  expectations.
• Comparison
• Compare results with different student cohort (in
  2003).