Describe an educational situation in the past where you had to work collaboratively with classmates to produce some kind of joint project (e.g., an essay or a presentation).

Assignment Question

1. Describe an educational situation in the past where you had to work collaboratively with classmates to produce some kind of joint project (e.g., an essay or a presentation). If you’ve had such an experience in an online course, please share that with us. Otherwise, describe a group work experience in a face-to-face course. Describe the project. Did you feel it was an effective learning experience for you? If yes, explain why you feel it was effective. If no, explain what went wrong and why you feel these problems occurred. During your groupwork experience, did you experience any of the phenomena discussed in the readings? (e.g., positive interdependence, individual accountability, free-rider effect, social loafing, sucker effect, conflict among team members)?

2.There are many different tools that you can use to support various kinds of teamwork in an online environment: Discussion boards or forums Collaborative co-editable documents (e.g., Google Docs) Shared online whiteboards (e.g., Zoom) Peer reviews Video conferencing (e.g., Zoom break-out rooms) Virtual reality environments Collaborative concept maps Online chat In some cases, you may use two or more of these tools at once (e.g., Zoom break-out rooms + collaborative concept map). In this discussion, describe a collaborative assignment that you might design for an online course (you can choose whatever subject and audience you wish).

1. What do you feel would be the educational benefits of this activity?

2. What do you feel are the Coordination Costs, Motivation Costs and Intellectual Costs of this activity? (see Teamwork video and the Ebely Center resource for more information about these costs).