Thoughts on group assignments

I divide groups in a couple of different ways. For my online student success class (taught fully online), I divide the class into four groups (usually seven or eight per group) based on their grade at that point in the class (three weeks into a six-week class) to do one small assignment. I use the course grade as a means of judging ability and responsibility, so each group has students who are roughly the same in those areas. The best students are in a group together, and the worst students are in a group together. My rationale is that high-functioning people need to learn how to deal with other high-functioning people and not assume that they will automatically be the leaders of any group they are in. At the other end, someone in the free riders will have to step up and show some leadership else the group will fail. They only have a week to complete the assignment. I find generally that students appreciate the group assignment (note I did not say enjoy), though the students in that bottom quartile who do not participate generally are not interested in the class anyway. None of the students complain about having flaky peers.

In my (full term) American history class, I create groups based on shared interest. This is a face-to-face class, though the assignment would be the same for an online class and the method of dividing the groups would likely not change. The group project for the class is to create a web site that requires students to collect primary source documents, analyze them, and write a synthesis of those analyses. One of my introductory lectures for the class is to show the students that some of the questions we are asking ourselves as Americans (like what our country's place is in the world) have always been asked. I present a series of questions and show examples of how those questions were asked in the time period covered by our course and how those questions are being asked today. I tell them that throughout our class those questions will come up again and again and that those questions help us as historians make sense of all the different ways we can look at the past. After the lecture, I ask each student to tell me what he or she thinks is the most important question. I use those answers to create groups of six to eight students, and those groups are together throughout the semester and the web site. I do this in lieu of an individual research paper, and they tell me in my end-of-class survey that they feel like they learn more about the past through this assignment than they would have with a traditional research paper. I use a peer review survey to get them to share how much effort they and their group mates put in, and I use the results of that survey to adjust individual grades.

Both of these methods require a lot of work. I could divide the class randomly or let students pick their own groups, but I like to have some kind of instructional design behind what I do in class. I have been grouping by ability in my online student success class for the dozen years that I have been teaching it, and so far it has worked great. I am grouping by interest for the second time this semester, and one change I have already made is to have my students do the peer review survey three times instead of once. That way they can adjust their work ethic if necessary before they get going on the big project.

General questions about online teaching

I teach a class on how to use Blackboard for the @ONE project,  and recently a participant asked the following questions on the "Discussion Grading and Help" forum. I liked her question and decided to blog her questions and my answers:

In general, does teaching online pay the same as teaching face-to-face classes?

• In my district there is no pay differential for online teaching.

Where are good places to look for openings regarding online teaching positions?

• Almost all California community colleges offer online courses, and the best place I know to find jobs in this system is the CCC Job Registry.

Is it hard to find an online teaching position?

• The difficulty depends on the institution.

Does the @one certification cover all levels of online teaching or just college? Is there anyone out there teaching online classes other than college?

• The standards for the @ONE certification program are based on standards originally written by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. More information is on the @ONE web site.

Do you find online teaching requires more work, less work or the same work as face-to-face classes? In what way?

• In my experience online teaching requires a lot more work initially, as there is a lot less room for error than in a face-to-face class. If I screw up in class, I can let my students know immediately (or the next time we meet) about my mistake. If I screw up online, I might alienate a student who might decide not to log in again. The efficiency gained from experience makes it less work eventually, and the freedom to schedule the time I work helps make up for the extra time required.

What are some of the things you would do differently, if you could teach your first online class again?

• I would spend more time teaching in a web enhanced or hybrid mode before teaching my first fully online class.

Do any of you do group work with your online classes?

• Yes, I teach a class on online student success and give students a group assignment to give them the experience of working on a team they do not get to see in person.

My answers are of course based on my experience, and I do not include hearsay from other colleges and districts. Many institutions make for many situations, and I expect the answers to differ in other places.