The questions below are drawn from Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt’s Building Online Learning Communities. Use them as a guide when planning how you will integrate collaborative learning activities in your online course.
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What is the content of this course? What aspects of the content lend themselves to collaborative group activities?
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What are the goals of the small-group activities?
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What size groups or teams should be formed in order to achieve those goals?
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How should groups or teams be formed? By the instructor? By the students? Dependent on interests? Dependent on strengths?
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Should the groups be homogeneous or heterogeneous?
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Will the participants remain in the same groups throughout the course, or will new groups be formed for each activity?
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How will activities be structured to ensure participation by all members of the group?
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Should roles be assigned to various group members?
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What rewards or motivations will be built into the process?
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How will accountability be built into the process?
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How will individual and group performance be evaluated? Who will evaluate this performance? The instructor? The participants themselves?
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Is there an expectation that students will provide feedback to each other on their work? How will this be built into the course?