Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project

Although collaboration skills are highly valued by employers, convincing students that collaborative learning activities are worthwhile, and ensuring that the experience is both useful and enjoyable, are significant challenges for educators. This paper addresses these challenges by exploring studen...

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Autores principales:	Helen Donelan, Karen Kear
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2018
Materias:	collaboration online learning group projects authentic learning assessment Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e6fcffd7558b4a69a30eb5a09ab65451
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e6fcffd7558b4a69a30eb5a09ab654512021-12-02T17:16:18ZCreating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project10.19173/irrodl.v19i2.31241492-3831https://doaj.org/article/e6fcffd7558b4a69a30eb5a09ab654512018-05-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3124https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 Although collaboration skills are highly valued by employers, convincing students that collaborative learning activities are worthwhile, and ensuring that the experience is both useful and enjoyable, are significant challenges for educators. This paper addresses these challenges by exploring students’ and tutors’ experiences of a group project where part-time distance learners collaborate online to create a website. Focus groups were conducted with students who had recently completed the project, and discussion forums were used to gather feedback from tutors who supported students and marked their group work. The research showed that students’ attitudes towards the group project on completion were generally favourable. Findings highlighted key aspects for successful online group projects and for motivating students to participate fully. These included: the design of authentic tasks, with skills development relevant to the workplace; careful attention to how the group work is assessed; and enabling students to develop websites they could be proud of. Frustrations for students were associated with the lack of engagement of fellow students and with limitations of the tool provided for building the website. Tutors found marking the work a time-consuming and complex process. Tutors were also unconvinced of the value and fairness of assessing students partly on a group, as opposed to an individual, basis. Helen DonelanKaren KearAthabasca University Pressarticlecollaborationonline learninggroup projectsauthentic learningassessmentSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 19, Iss 2 (2018)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	collaboration online learning group projects authentic learning assessment Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	collaboration online learning group projects authentic learning assessment Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Helen Donelan Karen Kear Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
description	Although collaboration skills are highly valued by employers, convincing students that collaborative learning activities are worthwhile, and ensuring that the experience is both useful and enjoyable, are significant challenges for educators. This paper addresses these challenges by exploring students’ and tutors’ experiences of a group project where part-time distance learners collaborate online to create a website. Focus groups were conducted with students who had recently completed the project, and discussion forums were used to gather feedback from tutors who supported students and marked their group work. The research showed that students’ attitudes towards the group project on completion were generally favourable. Findings highlighted key aspects for successful online group projects and for motivating students to participate fully. These included: the design of authentic tasks, with skills development relevant to the workplace; careful attention to how the group work is assessed; and enabling students to develop websites they could be proud of. Frustrations for students were associated with the lack of engagement of fellow students and with limitations of the tool provided for building the website. Tutors found marking the work a time-consuming and complex process. Tutors were also unconvinced of the value and fairness of assessing students partly on a group, as opposed to an individual, basis.
format	article
author	Helen Donelan Karen Kear
author_facet	Helen Donelan Karen Kear
author_sort	Helen Donelan
title	Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
title_short	Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
title_full	Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
title_fullStr	Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
title_full_unstemmed	Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project
title_sort	creating and collaborating: students’ and tutors’ perceptions of an online group project
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2018
url	https://doaj.org/article/e6fcffd7558b4a69a30eb5a09ab65451
work_keys_str_mv	AT helendonelan creatingandcollaboratingstudentsandtutorsperceptionsofanonlinegroupproject AT karenkear creatingandcollaboratingstudentsandtutorsperceptionsofanonlinegroupproject
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Creating and Collaborating: Students’ and Tutors’ Perceptions of an Online Group Project

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