In
distance education, one will find that successful collaboration depends greatly
on whether a strong learning community existed from the beginning of a course. Successful
collaboration in distance education involves working with various learning
styles and often working with different cultures. Virtual groups go through
various stages, in which members are in disagreement, resolve issues or become
productive (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).
However, if a strong sense of community was build from the beginning of
the course, virtual teams will be able to successfully work through these tough
times.
When
assessing a collaborative learning community in distance education, there are numerous
factors to bear in mind, for example the instructors’ roles and students’
roles. For instance, distance education instructors are responsible for
ensuring that cultural sensitivity within virtual groups is present. Students
on the contrary, are responsible for developing their team charter as a form of
coaching and management.
If a student does not want to
network or collaborate in a learning community for an online course, other
members could attempt to rally around such an individual in a manner that would
allow such a person to feel a sense of trust and warmth. However, the distance learning professor
should have in the first place, allotted time for virtual team members to become
acquainted with each other (Duarte & Synder, 2001). In other words,
networking is essential in collaborative efforts. Most importantly, the instructor should have
already set goals and objectives and established rules at the beginning of the
course. Rules such as how students will be assessed should have been
established from the beginning of the distance education course. Assessing
students online according to Palloff & Pratt (2003) include:
1) design learner-centered assessment which involved self-reflection; 2) design
and include grading rubrics to assess contributions to the discussion for
assignments, project and collaboration itself; 3) collaborative assessments
through publicly posting papers along with comments from student to student; 4)
encourage students to develop skills in providing feedback by providing guideline to good feedback and modeling what
is expected; 5) use assessment techniques that fit the context and align with
learning objectives; 6) design assessments that are clear, easy to understand,
and likely to work in the online environment; and 7) ask for and incorporate
student input into how assessment should be conducted (pp. 101-102). This student who does not want to collaborate
will clearly not thrive in an online environment, since collaboration is the
main vein running through this learning mode.
Interestingly, the question is asked on Beth’s blog, if
online collaboration is effective without ever meeting, or should persons need to
meet face-to-face to build trust? The answer was no. There is no difference
between weaving networks face to face and weaving networks online. The author noted that Artifacts are critical for effective collaboration for both face-to-face
and online environments. I particularly liked the tic-tac-toe example used in
which playing the game without the paper drawing would be almost impossible in
either environment. However, there are
trade-off to both environments in terms of scalability and keeping individuals
engaged. For scalability, online collaboration enables dissemination, since
this method is inherently replicable and
shareable in which geographical limitations do not apply. Therefore, there is a
potential to reach a much larger audience.
In terms of keeping team members engaged, face-to-face is somewhat easier,
since one cannot guarantee that a person is present online. Note though that at times individuals might be
present face-to-face, but their minds are elsewhere. For detail information on
Beth’s blog see:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2010/03/weaving-together-onlineoffline-collaboration-in-a-network-context.html
References
Beth’s Blog
(2010). Weaving together
online/offline collaboration in a network context. Retrieved
from http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2010/03/weaving-together-onlineoffline-collaboration-in-a-network-context.html
Duarte, D., and Synder, N.T. (2001).
Mastering virtual teams: strategies,
tools, and techniques that succeed (2nd ed). San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Laureate
Education, Inc. (2008). Distance Education: The Future of Distance Education [Video].
Baltimore,
MD: Author.
Palloff,
R. M., & Pratt, K. (2003). The virtual student: A profile and guide to working with online
learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff,
R. M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating online: Learning together in
community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
