How do I get students to work together in a fully online course?

When you are interested in having students work collaboratively on a research paper or project there are a number of ways to designate the group in which they will work. The instructor can choose arbitrarily who will work in a certain group as well as set up a group discussion board (and other features) just for that group to access. The instructor will need to be enrolled in all the groups. Some instructors will want to designate who works with whom, however, others may wish to set up a discussion board designated for each group topic and then have students post their name under that particular topic.

Each group may benefit from designating specific roles within the group, for example, team leader, scribe, and so on according to the student?s particular strength. One key advantage that students have when working in a group and posting their work to the discussion board as it develops, is that the group can receive feedback from the instructor as they are working on their project rather than receiving feedback in the form of a final grade after the project is finished.
Cleo Magnuson
Instructional Designer
NCSU-DELTA Posted by cgmagnus ( Oct 10 2008, 11:42:13 AM EDT ) Permalink