As written in an article from Inside Higher Ed, “Online students don’t have to work solo.” Group work and teamwork are key ways to create a collaborative learning environment. Group work can be as simple as creating study groups so that students feel connected to specific students who they can then ask for help. Teamwork is slightly different in that students must truly rely on each other and work toward a common goal, such as developing some type of assignment or deliverable. The image below visually depicts group work versus teamwork. The group on the left shows several individuals contributing a piece of the puzzle to bring together the final product. The team on the right shows several individuals collaborating to contribute to the collective goal.
The table below compares group work and teamwork.
| Group Work | Teamwork |
| Individual goals | Shared goals |
| Cooperation | Collaboration |
| Individual accountability | Individual and mutual accountability |
| Individual success or failure | Collective success or failure |
Recommendations for Group Work/Teamwork in the Online Classroom
Whether you want to enhance collaboration through group work or teamwork, here are a few tips in using both types in an online class:
- Make online students aware of the group work early in the semester. Online students tend to have many competing priorities. If you have anything related to groups or team assignments, be upfront with students about it and the timing of any assignments so that students can plan ahead to coordinate busy schedules.
- Assign students to groups. Assigning groups alleviates student anxiety about finding a group to join. Assigning groups can force students to work together with new people and can introduce students to new perspectives and lead to healthy collaboration. Assigning groups doesn’t have to be random. You could ask students to fill out a basic information form to help you in assigning the groups. For instance, you may want to ask what time zone students are in to help to create the groups. Another way to group students is based on majors (whether your plan is to put similar majors together or intentionally create groups from several different majors). It isn’t as easy for students to easily join a group as it may seem to be in the face to face classroom, which is why we suggest helping to assign students to groups.
- Ask groups to share their communication plan as their first low-stakes assignment. This communication plan should have how they plan to communicate, back up methods of communication if someone becomes unresponsive, when they have common time to meet, etc. In addition to this communication plan, a creative first assignment might be something like the Group Resume assignment. This assignment asks the group to create a resume that includes their contact information, strengths, special skills, etc. This assignment can be a fun, creative way to get the students working together and establish some group norms before being asked to complete more complex tasks that may be worth more of their final grade.
- Set up a space for students to work as a group in Canvas. Having a dedicated space to work (where the students know a professor is able to see their collaboration) can create a better sense of commitment from the group members because they perceive there is oversight from the instructor. (For the how-to steps of how to set up this space, visit the Canvas Student Groups Guides.) Students can, of course, use other spaces like Teams or a group chat, but some students prefer the centrality of the group work taking place within Canvas and the accountability for others when they know that an instructor can peek in at any time.
If you would like to explore the concept of group work as a more specific technique of promoting teamwork, World Campus offers a professional development course entitled OL 2300: Teamwork in Online Teaching and Learning. You can also meet with an instructional designer for a consultation.
