A Framework
for Looking at Group Work
in Asynchronous Online Courses
Dr. Susan Lowes
Teachers College/Columbia University
August 2012
Background
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iNACOL standards:
 “The teacher plans, designs and incorporates
strategies to encourage active learning, interaction,
participation and collaboration in the online
environment.”
Of the fifteen elements in that standard, three refer to
student-student interaction:
 Facilitating interaction among students
 Engaging students in “team problem-solving”
 Promoting learning through group interaction
Goals of this research
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To look at groups working online and ask:
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How do groups manage themselves in an online environment?
How is knowledge collectively built? How do groups establish
common frames of reference, resolve discrepancies in
understanding, and come to a joint understanding?
What do such 21st-century skills as critical thinking and
teamwork look like in online environment?
To take analytical approaches from f2f group work and
see how/if they adapt to analyzing group work online
To contribute to the design of online learning that leads
to high levels of engagement and critical thinking
Site of this research
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A series of one- and two-year courses offered online by
the International Baccalaureate (IB)
through VHS
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More than one section of the same course
Virtual classroom model with emphasis on various types
of student-student interaction
Methodology
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Discourse analysis, based on work by Brigid Barron in
analyzing problem-solving in f2f classrooms
Three styles of working together:
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Parallel interaction
Associative interaction
Cooperative interaction
Four responses for reactions to initial proposals:
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Accept
Ask for clarification
Elaborate
Reject
Our adaptations
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We found that the problem-solving style of the group
depended in part on the design of the activity, so we
looked at both, and at how/if they were linked
We found that we needed to look at the way a proposal
was initiated as well as the response:
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Asking
Telling
Telling with a question (asking for consent)
We found we need to add a category that we called
“course correction,” which was generally the facilitator
but could be a student
Types of problem-solving styles
Parallel collaboration
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No monitoring of others’
contributions
No interchange of ideas
Final product is
cumulation of individual
contributions
Associative collaboration
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Some monitoring of
others’ contributions
Some interchange of
ideas
Final product is still a
cumulation of individual
contributions
Synergistic collaboration
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Monitoring of others’
contributions
Interchange of ideas
Final project jointly
created
Design of group activities
Cumulations
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Develop dictionaries,
bibliographies, glossaries,
timelines, family trees
Tasks are simultaneous
No necessary order of
contributions
No necessary end
No need for interaction
No coordination
necessary
Jig-saw projects
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Each student works on
one piece
Students may have roles
Tasks may be serial or
simultaneous
All pieces are needed to
create the whole
BUT some jigsaw projects
are really coordinated
cumulative projects
Finding #1
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There are actually two sets of activities that demand
problem-solving styles
 Problem-solving styles for working together as a
group
 Problem-solving styles for responding to the content
of the assignment
A group’s style may differ for each
Finding #2
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Groups that successfully completed the task initiated the
process by Telling
Groups that successful completed the task responded
by Accepting
Groups that successfully completed therefore:
 Used an associative style for organizing themselves
BUT THEN
 Used a parallel style for getting the work done
There was almost no use of a synergistic style, except
occasionally between two students
Finding #3
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This was partly because
the designer believed the
activity necessitated
synergistic collaboration,
BUT the students were
able to (and did) use a
parallel or associative
style
Finding #4
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Orderly turn-taking, which organizes coordination in f2f
conversations, is difficult in online environment
Violations of turn-taking include overlapping posts, posts
to previous threads, private and public threads
This was because students were in different time zones
and therefore online at different times
And because of the constraints of Blackboard
Finding #5
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Group work online calls for different 21st century skills
than group work f2f
Key complaints for f2f group work:
 Too much socializing: not an issue online
 Freeloaders: a big issue online
 Bossy leaders: a strength online
The only groups that completed the tasks had one
student who took charge, assigned tasks (Telling),
asked for agreement--always granted (Accepting), and
then collected the work at the end
Implications for instructional designers
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Separations in time and distance mean that the design
of group activities cannot be serial but must be
simultaneous
If designers want group projects to be synergistic, they
need to design them so that the problem-solving style
cannot be parallel
If students are really to hash out things together, they
need time, so group projects should last more than a
week but should be scaffolded so that the students don’t
wait until the last minute to do the work
Implications for facilitators/teachers
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Groups need to be small because asynchronous
coordination across time and space is difficult
Students need specific instructions for how to work in
groups online because f2f strategies do not work
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Freeloading is the biggest issue and students need to know
what to do if a student doesn’t show up
Acting as a “boss” is necessary and needs no apology; one
person should be assigned as “boss” for each
project/week/task, etc.
Critical thinking happens in one-to-one exchanges, not
many-to-many or even one-to-many so encourage peer
interactions
References
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Brigid Barron, “Achieving Coordination in Collaborative Problem-Solving
Groups,” The Journal of the Learning Sciences 9 (4), 2000: 403-436.
Dazhi Yang, Jennifer Richardson, Brian F. French, James D. Lehman, “The
Development of a Content Analysis Model for Assessing Students’
Cognitive Learning in Asynchronous Online Discussions,” 2009, manuscript
of paper submitted for publication in Educational Technology Research &
Development.
Research assistance: Seungoh Paek and Devayani Tirthali, Program in
Computers, Communication, Technology, and Education, Teachers
College/Columbia University.