InterPro - Online Learning - Teaching Resources for Instructors - Groups & Teams
This is an overview document for student-to-student engagement in groups and teams in an online course.
Teaching Strategies for Facilitating Group Work and Team Collaboration
- set clear purpose, instructions, and expectations
- form groups and initiate collaboration early
- establish checkins throughout the process
- when applicable, make the work cooperative (each person makes individual contributions)
- use a rubric to evaluate both the product and the group collaboration
- include self-evaluation of the group
- include peer-evaluation of the group
Canvas Group Formation can be done in the following ways:
1 – Automatically-assigned by Canvas system
*Students may always be manually reassigned.
2 – Manually-assigned by instructor
3 – Students self-enroll (to create interest-based groups)
- How do I create self-signup groups in a group set?
- How do I prevent students from switching groups in self sign-up groups?
*You can manually or automatically assign a group leader to help manage a group.
Canvas Group-based Discussion Forums can be used in the following ways:
- discuss, debate, come to consensus with a sub-set of the class, for more personal connections
- post individual work to the small group in order to receive feedback from the team (w/out using formal peer review tool)
- collaborate as a small group on solving a problem, completing an assigned task, or working on a project
Canvas Group-based Assignments can be used in the following ways:
- formative assessments
- final projects
- final presentations
Ultra Web Conference can be used for group work in the following ways:
- Ultra In-session breakout groups during the whole class main web conference
- Ultra dedicated or ad hoc web conference rooms for groups to use on their own
- dedicated room: each room exclusive to each team (eg. Team 01 Web Conference, Team 02 Web Conference etc.)
- ad hoc: open to whomever needs to use them (eg. MeetNow Room 01, MeetNow Room 02, etc.)
- if creating ad hoc rooms, consider creating a sign-up sheet, so students do not meet over each other
- if creating ad hoc rooms, consider creating a sign-up sheet, so students do not meet over each other
- How to create a virtual collaboration space for your students