One way that the Center for eLearning keeps up-to-date with ideas related to teaching is by listening to podcasts. For this month’s podcast recommendation, we suggest an episode entitled Demystifying Online Group Projects from the Teaching in Higher Education podcast. This podcast is hosted by Bonni Stachowiak, Dean of Teaching and Learning at Vanguard University. From the Teaching in Higher Education podcast website, “The podcast focuses on topics such as excellence in teaching, instructional design, open education, diversity and inclusion, productivity, creativity in teaching, educational technology, and blended learning.”
The episode we suggest for this month is a conversation between Bonni and Rebecca Hogue, Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts-Boston in the Masters of Instructional Design Program. They discuss ideas and strategies to promote better functioning online groups for completing team projects.
In the episode, Rebecca shares ways that she encourages students to be better team members in online group projects. She encourages her students to leave their ego at the door and not get caught up in individual contributions by trying to compete with each other. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on the group rather than being competitive within the group. She also discusses the age-old debate of whether to assign students to groups or allow students to choose groups on their own. She shares that she facilitates the formation of groups by collecting some basic information from students, such as their method of contact, when they are available to work on group projects, what strengths the students think they have, and an area they want to develop. While she primarily forms the groups based on availability, she will also refer to the other information to help assign students to groups. There are many more tips and ideas shared about online group projects, so for more information check out the podcast!
Have a podcast you’d like to recommend? Let us know!
