As online learning continues to gain acceptance among instructors at tertiary institutions (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2003), of necessity, lecturers will begin to explore the Group Learning Environment (GLE) that is built into the Learning Management System (LMS) used in their respective institutions. Such explorations will build on the successful morphing of effective face-to-face (FTF) collaborative learning processes to the GLE. To address some of the inchoate challenges inherent in such morphing, this paper models a three-stage Socratic approach. Each stage addresses a question posed from a student perspective and then provides a brief rationale and, where appropriate, an example designed to spark subsequent adaptive responses on the part of the reader.

Stage One: How am I supposed to do this?

To achieve success at this stage begin by focusing on skills development. An institution’s LMS will probably enable instructors to create and enrol groups, as well as assign to each group, various communication tools such as a Discussion Forum, a Whiteboard, a Virtual Chat, and Group Email. It needs to be stressed, however, that simply creating a group, enrolling members, providing access and assigning students a project will not ensure proper usage or success. Students will resist and question the benefits of such activities (Eijl & Pilot, 2003). To obviate some of this resistance, train the students to use the tools. For example, instead of simply announcing that a group discussion tool is available to the students, instructors could spend some time helping the students develop their skills with the tool. One approach could be an icebreaker exercise. First, create a discussion forum in which you could ask the students to introduce themselves to each other, using the following questions as a guide:

• What Primary school did you attend?

• What is your favourite childhood memory?

• Who was your childhood hero and why?

• What three adjectives would you use to describe yourself?

• What three adjectives would your friends use to describe you?

Answering these questions not only enables the students to familiarise themselves with the tools in a non-threatening way, it also provides the first step towards building group cohesiveness and an online community. Similarly, if instructors want the students to use the Whiteboard to create a workflow chart, or to brainstorm solutions to problems, spend some time practising using the tool with the class informally, before splitting them into smaller groups.

Stage Two: What am I supposed to do?

Whether the instructor is of the sage on stage or guide on the side interventionist mindset (Mazzolini & Maddison, 2002), providing students with some structure is essential to helping them succeed in their assigned task/s. Here is a sample approach for instructors to consider:

1. Create small groups of twos or threes, as larger groups tend to spend more time organising than attending to tasks. (Eijl & Pilot, 2003).

2. Make available to each group a document which outlines clearly:

   • the nature of the task,
     
   • the instructors’ expectations regarding each member’s participation,
     
   • a suggested process for working through the project,
     
   • how the instructor will contribute, and
   • how the group will be monitored.

3. Within each group’s work area create a number of discussion forums to serve as a record of their progress and processes, and insist that each group member participates.
   

   • Forum 1: Group Responsibilities
     Stipulate that each group member outlines his/her responsibilities within the group.
     
   • Forum 2: Work Schedule
     Require that each group member report regularly (e.g. weekly, in five sentences or less) his/her progress on the project, plus any other anecdotal comments related to his/her work in the project.
     
   • Forum 3: Pedagogical Guide
     Provide a series of guiding questions to which the groups must refer and respond when they encounter problems along the way. In addition, make it compulsory for each member to respond at least once during the project. Here are some examples which require the students to explain:
     
     • the nature of the problem,
       
     • how the problem was communicated to the rest of the group, - whether the group felt the problem was resolved, and
       
     • how the group might have avoided the problem.

Stage Three: How am I to be assessed?

A crucial aspect of student acceptance of any collaborative process is that for all the activities in which the students participate, there is an assessment value that is tied directly to the overall course assessment (Macdonald, 2003). For example, in Stages One and Two, there should be specific assigned activities, each having an assessment component with increasingly demanding assessment criteria that reflect both the difficulty of the task and the effort involved. An icebreaker introduction, for instance, could earn the student a possible 5 out of the 20 marks allotted for that portion of the overall Group Participation assessment component. This, in turn, would leave the remaining 15 marks as incentive for those who complete the more demanding structural assignments that require students to think.

To summarise, student appreciation for and acceptance of the GLE may be facilitated through careful skills development, structured guidance and appropriate incentives. Those who venture forth, however, into this brave new world of the GLE will also need to understand and accept that the morphing from the FTF environment will also involve much trial and error. The three-stage Socratic model simply tries to set the stage. The scripting will be up to each instructor.

References

Press release by McGraw-Hill Ryerson dated 10 June 2003, ‘Web-Based Technology Has Immediate Impact on Student Success in Higher Education, Landmark McGraw-Hill Study Finds’, announcing the 4th annual publication of Technology & Student Success: A Research Study on Faculty Perceptions of Technology and Student Success.
(https://www.mcgrawhill.ca/highereducation/images/studentsuccess4epressrelease.pdf).

Eijl, P.J. van, & Pilot, A. (March–April 2003). ‘Using a Virtual Environment in Collaborative Learning: Criteria for Success’. Educational Technology. pp. 54–56.

Macdonald, J. (2003). ‘Assessing Online Collaborative Learning: Process and Product’. Computers & Education. Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 377–391.

Mazzolini, M. & Maddison, S. (2003). ‘Sage, Guide or Ghost? The Effect of Instructor Intervention on Student Participation in Online Discussion Forums’. Computers & Education. Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 237–253.