Before the course begins, the instructor
should not assume that his or her learners possess the appropriate learning
strategies, knowledge, and the attitude necessary to successfully navigate within
a collaborative learning community. As
George Siemens (Laureate, 2008) identifies that “in a society where individual
contributions are highly acknowledged, collaboration learning communities can
be challenged for many students,” as it represents a loss of self. Many students who’ve reveled in individualized
recognition may not understand how to operate within collaborative environment
and still excel. With this in mind,
the instructor must create a trusting environment for individuals to work
within. To help ease the unsure of those
reluctant learners, educators must create a mix of individualized and
community-based environments (Siemens, 2008).
Palloff and Pratt (2005) suggest
that instructors set the stage for collaboration by providing: (1) an
explanation of the importance of collaborative work, (2) clear guidelines for
completing the work, (3) an agenda and instructions for the activities; and (4)
ensuring that students are comfortable with the technology in use. The instructor must also create an
environment for students to meet, complete work and determine what the “rules
of engagement” might be. Instructors
must then model, guide and evaluate the process (Palloff & Pratt, 2005).
Assessment (evaluation) of the
collaborative process should be fair and direct, based on stated outcomes, and
equitable (Laureate, 2008). As the vision
of education has broadened beyond a classroom confined experience, so has
assessment broadened beyond mark-based assessment and should find basis in
degree of student growth and within authentic assessment (Laureate, 2008). Palloff and Pratt (2005) note several principles
to guide student assessment: “design learner-centered assessments that include
self-reflection; design and include grading rubrics, include collaborative
assessments; provide guidelines and model good feeback; use assessment
techniques that fit in context and align with learning objectives; design
assessments that are clear, easy to understand, and likely to work in the
online environment; and ask for and incorporate student input. This helps to provide a road map for students
as they work through the collaborative tasks. This is especially important for those
reluctant to collaborate. Andrew
Marcinek, an instructional technologist at Burlington High School in
Burlington, MA, shares some of the principles for collaborative assessment as
Palloff and Pratt. He finds that when
assessing, instructors should (1) Set clear objectives and tasks; (2) Allow for open collaboration; (3) Allow access
to learning tools; (4) Limit explicit direction; and (5): Define clear
expectations (Marcinek, 2011).
Marcinek and Siemens
both understand that collaboration is skill that must be addressed within
education today in order for learners to be successful in the global society in
which we now live.
“Collaborative assessment must be part of our
learning today. We, as educators are doing our students a disservice if we
don’t attempt to make this type of assessment available to our students. There
are few professions and work environments that only focus on individual
competencies. Most modern work environments involve some type of collaboration
or connected problem solving to enhance their corporation or product” (Marcinek,
2011).
With the previous mentioned methods, those
reluctant to collaboration may find themselves more apt to participate and
eventually become more comfortable as their entire sense of self will not be
lost as they may at first expect. Continuous
self assessment and collaborative feedback keeps them constantly involved in
the collaborative community.
“The more we engage our students in a process of
ongoing evaluation of their own performance, the more meaningful the online
course will be to them. The more we
engage them in working with one another in both collaborative activity and
collaborative assessment, the more likely they are to engage in a learning
community that will sustain them beyond the end of the course” (Palloff &
Pratt, 2005, p. 53).
Throughout this entire process, the instructor
should be closely monitoring what is happening with learning individually and
collaboratively. If a learner is still
reluctant to participate within the collaborative learning community, the
instructor must address the issue and determine what needs to be done in order
to insure that learner receives the support he or she needs in order to be
successful.
Resources:
Palloff, R.
M., & Pratt, K. (2005). Collaborating
online: Learning together in community. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
