{"id":1211,"date":"1901-09-16T22:06:07","date_gmt":"1901-09-16T22:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=1211"},"modified":"2021-09-16T22:07:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T21:07:46","slug":"supporting-students-in-collaborative-online-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/?p=1211","title":{"rendered":"Supporting students in collaborative online activities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Collaborative learning activities build students&#8217; critical thinking skills and encourage them to reflect on their learning. However, students can struggle to engage with them if they don&#8217;t feel supported. Use these steps to build in support for students before, during and after online collaborative activities.<br \/>\nThe steps are based on a study by Zheng et al. (2015)<\/p>\n<h6>Before &#8211; Explain and guide<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>Explain the purpose of, and the benefits of completing the activities by linking them clearly to learning outcomes.<\/li>\n<li>Remind students when they need to be available for this work, and to flag to the group if there are periods when they won&#8217;t be available.<\/li>\n<li>Provide preparatory activities to build up students\u2019 skills and experience with group working.<\/li>\n<li>Provide opportunities to practice using any technology involved to help students build confidence.<\/li>\n<li>Provide some examples of finished work from previous cohorts, or provide one or more example answers that students can use as a reference.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6>During \u2013 Reassure<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>Make sure there&#8217;s a mechanism for identifying and supporting students if they get stuck.<\/li>\n<li>Ensure that students are clear on how to ask for help or clarification, and make sure they feel comfortable requesting guidance.<\/li>\n<li>Keep an eye on the mood of the students and find ways to keep morale high.<\/li>\n<li>Be ready to point out interesting findings coming out from other groups or even set up some element of competition or reward if morale drops.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h6>After &#8211; Relax and reflect<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li>Ensure there&#8217;s an opportunity for students toreflect on their experience. Usually this is via assessment, but this could be done in other ways.<\/li>\n<li>Provide a bit of breathing space this will have been an intense experience for some students.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t launch them straight into another high-stakes activity.<\/li>\n<li>Consider providing a way for students to share their finished product with the rest of the cohort.<\/li>\n<li>Reiterate how this has helped with the learning outcomes, skills and with their PDP employability.<\/li>\n<li>Provide opportunities for tutor and peer follow up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>References<\/strong><br \/>\nArang. B. Niya M &amp; Warschauw, M (2015) \u2018Wikis and collaborative learning in higher education\u2019 Technology, Pedagogy and Education, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 357\u201374<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Collaborative learning activities build students&#8217; critical thinking skills and encourage them to reflect on their learning. However, students can struggle to engage with them if they don&#8217;t feel supported. Use these steps to build in support for students before, during and after online collaborative activities. The steps are based on a study by Zheng et [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcript"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1214,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions\/1214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/learning-design\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}