"But why, do we have to do group work? I am fine working alone": Rethinking Learning Experiences for Online and Blended Collaboration

Concurrent Session 6

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

"The process of shared creation: two or more individuals interacting to create an understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own" (Shrage, 1990). The session focuses on fostering social engagement presence within digital collaborative learning experiences to connect with your students deliberately.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Amy Dye-Reeves, Texas Tech University

Amy Dye-Reeves is an Associate Librarian within the Texas Tech University Libraries. She is the liaison to the College of Education and Department of History. She provides information literacy instructional sessions and workshops throughout the year. She loves assisting faculty members with any of their upcoming research projects. She received her Master of Information Science from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Additionally, she has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in History from East Tennessee State University. Before joining TTU, Amy was an Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction at Murray State University. She previously spent 5 years as a certified State of Tennessee Educator with a Pre K to Grade 12 (Library Media Specialist) endorsement. In 2019, she won the Innovators Award from the University of Tennessee School of Information Science. During the spring of 2018, she was selected to participate in a four-month Wikipedia Education Fellowship Program. Research interests include information literacy instruction, learning outcomes assessment, instructional design, and gamification.

Extended Abstract

"As collaborators, not only do they plan, decide, and act jointly; they also think together, combining independent conceptual schemes to create original frameworks" (Minnis, John-Steiner, and Weber, 1994, as cited in John-Steiner, Weber, and Minnis, 1998). The collaborative process for generations has scaffold and structures meaningful opportunities to build thriving learning communities. However, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, a shift to digital collaborative learning opportunities quickly developed in weeks.

The "Suddenly Online: A National Survey of Undergraduates During The COVID 19 Pandemic", administered to a random sample of 1,008 undergraduates who finished their courses in electronic modality during the spring of 2020, showed a high rate of student satisfaction. Only nineteen percent of students surveyed were very satisfied with the online course experience. In retrospect, the course instructors felt vastly unprepared to move their courses from face-to-face to entirely online in weeks. The students often had difficulty connecting with their peers within a social presence sense. In a recent class, the facilitator found it hard for students to gain back social skills and interact with their material personally. The session focuses on the top eights to get students hooked into creating a meaningful social presence within group work assignments. The session will also implore technological advancements in developing a solid sense of identifiable work experience. The attendee will come away with quick ideas to painlessly improving group assignments. The facilitator will provide a website with information from the session and supplementary resources in your upcoming courses. Next time you assign group work, students will understand the "why" and how these developed "soft skills" translate into future workplace experience.