FACILITATING COLLABORATION IN ONLINE LEARNING

Collaboration entails working together toward a common goal, but what is the common goal we want students to work toward in classes? What kinds of interactions and outcomes do we value as collaboration, and how do we facilitate them? This paper addresses these questions, beginning with an examinatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Caroline Haythornthwaite
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Online Learning Consortium 2019-03-01
Series:Online Learning
Subjects:
Online Access:https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/1769
Description
Summary:Collaboration entails working together toward a common goal, but what is the common goal we want students to work toward in classes? What kinds of interactions and outcomes do we value as collaboration, and how do we facilitate them? This paper addresses these questions, beginning with an examination of research on groups, community, and shared cognition that inform collaboration, and then addressing what we mean when by collaboration. Three questions define the discussion: Why do we emphasize collaboration and try to engage students in collaborative activities and collaborative learning? What outcomes do we expect from collaboration in terms of how students interact, tasks are conducted, learning accomplished, and knowledge created? How does communication differ online from offline, and how does the difference affect collaboration? Each section ends with some recommendations on how to facilitate collaboration, and the paper concludes with a brief summary and some key concepts for facilitating collaborative activity.
ISSN:2472-5749
2472-5730