Activity9

Discuss the use of activities that relate to real-life situations as a springboard for collaboration. What do these activities offer by way of promoting collaboration? Give an example.

The most important characteristics of an effective, successful online communication can be achieved through collaborative learning, healthy online classroom participation and in promoting reflection on the knowledge acquired through the coursework being learned. The researcher strongly encourages using asynchronous communication over synchronous for weekly threaded discussions through the group discussion board forums, as students have time to think about what they have to say and reflect upon. Also, instantaneous response is not required in asynchronous communication. Students can receive the message and analyze the content more carefully so the response they make can be more meaningful, because it has gone through a series of thought process of elaboration as it is self-paced.

Reflective thinking help learners, especially in a collaborative group project to develop higher-order thinking skills by prompting learners to relate new knowledge to prior understanding, think in both abstract and conceptual terms, apply specific strategies in novel tasks, and understand their own thinking and learning strategies. Palloff and Pratt (2001) strongly believes, “the reflection process transforms a participant in an online course from a student to a reflective practitioner” (p. 33), and ideally sets in motion for lifelong reflective learning. By using reflective thinking, learners can control their learning by actively participating in assessing what they know, what they need to know, and how they can bridge that gap during learning situations by discussing openly with their peers. Though discussion threads are asynchronous mode of communication, however, as the online coursework has to meet the assignment deadlines just like the traditional classroom learning, leader-led learning approach need to be considered. Leader-led learning approach has been adopted in the //Systems Development Methods// course as the instructor often times have to lead the students through the course and in discussions via live seminar sessions or through threaded discussion posts in the course management system.

One example that I would like to share where I promote project-based learning would be: I am a project mentor for undergraduate students working towards their Bachelors program in Computer Programming – Information Technology field. The students enrolled in //Systems Development Methods// course have to complete an assigned collaborative project and each group consists of 3 to 4 students in a class. The whole class may consist of 15-20 students and they have to do a “virtual internship collaborative project” for this elective course that they take in the third year of their BS program. Some students go one step beyond in doing a real internship by working as an unpaid intern at a local company for 5 weeks and at the end, put together a presentation for final project grading to send in the complete System Development Life Cycle project (SDLC) that they used for their business area chosen. This career project coursework runs for six weeks and every phase of the students’ projects are being monitored and provided timely feedback in places where they need improvement or for positive reinforcement. I meet with the students once in every week to collaborate and get project updates and if needed any instructional guidance for them to move forward. Project students in this course collaborate through group discussion board and campus blog available through LMS. Authentic learning collaborative activities motivate learners and support online learning community given that "students must be stimulated and motivated to consider the essence of the material being presented and translate that into personal meaning that can be shared and collaboratively confirmed" (Garrison, 2006, p. 25-26).

Students get to apply SDLC iterative methodology or Agile approach in creating a business model for their career project identified. Real-life situations serve as a catalyst (springboard) for collaboration, as students are motivated by solving real-world problems. As Lombardi (2007) discussed, success is not achievable by an individual learner working alone and mainly the authentic learning activities make collaboration integral to the task, both within the course and in the real world situation. It is essential to design courses which include real-life situations as, authentic learning focuses on real-world, complex problems and their solutions, simulation exercises, problem-based activities, case studies, and allows participation in virtual communities of practice.

Many traditional and online educational settings have revised requirements according to the National accreditation academic standards for Information Technology (IT), business and healthcare career disciplines. Students graduating from an emphasis in IT or other core disciplines should have acquired the knowledge and skills appropriate to their degree programs and that education should have prepared them to grow personally and professionally for their future careers. Hence, project-based  learning is introduced in major disciplines of science and technology, as it provides a cross-collaborative learning environment that enhances student-learning through team interaction.

Rob & Etnyre (2009) emphasizes that project-based learning provides improved understanding of the subject matter expertise through the course curriculum, develop inter-personal skills within the team, fosters teamwork, and provides opportunities to hone leadership skills. Inquiry-based learning being used as an instructional method for project-based learning courses as complex, real-life projects used to motivate learning and provide learning experiences that are authentic and yet adhere to the curriculum standards (PBL, 2011).

Sometimes, collaborative project through group discussion board threads can become complicated and go off topic from the original posting due to project pressure and project phase deadlines. When such situation happens, as an instructor/project mentor, I try to intervene and keep the students focused and motivated to attain their learning goals. As facilitators we should remain open to keeping discussions fairly fluent and moderate those posts that may be “negative, personally attacking and devastating to the groups’ existence” (Palloff and Pratt, 2003, pg. 106). For a team to be successful, the group should possess some of the following characteristics: a small size, a complementary skill set within the group, a commitment to goals and objectives, and accountability of each team member's efforts (Wells, 2002).

The e-learning environment provides multiple opportunities for learners to utilize technology that serve to enhance the authentic learning activities within the courses. One of the key features of Web 2.0 application is collaboration, not only between system and the users, but also to collaborate among the users. These social applications promote critical thinking and facilitate cognitive processing. Text, voice, music, graphics, photos, animation and video are combined  to promote users' thinking and creativity when undertaking high-level tasks (Cerdà & Planas, 2011) .

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Though working effectively with the affective domain of students can be a challenge without many visual or verbal cues in an online environment, today’s online communities are in a rapid state of flux. There are many new types of communities being formed online including friendships on Facebook, avatar groups in Second Life, and communities that include educational simulation requiring large scale role play (Dede, 2007).

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline;">The main benefits in an online community through project based learning would be the students gaining insight into group dynamics and lifecycle of the project, develop good interpersonal skills, gets exposed to the viewpoints of other group members, and prepares for the real world than by traditional classroom methods alone. <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center;">References <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Cerdà, F. L., & Planas, N. C. (2011). Facebooks potential for collaborative e-learning. //RUSC, 8(//2), 197-210. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Retrieved from ProQuest.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Dede, C. (2007). Reinventing the role of information and communications technologies in <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">education. //Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 106(//2), 11-38. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Retireved from EBSCOhost.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Garrison, D.R. (2006). Online collaboration principles. //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Journal of Asynchronous Learning // //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Networks 10 //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">(1), 25-34.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Lombardi, M. (2007). //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Authentic learning for the 21st century: An overview //. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">In D. Oblinger <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">(Ed.), //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Educause Learning Initiative // [White paper]. Retrieved from <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3009.pdf

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2001). //Lessons from the cyberspace classroom: The realities of online teaching.// <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Palloff, R.M. & Pratt, K. (2003). //The Virtual Student. A profile and guide to working with online// //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Learners. //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;"> San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass/Pfeiffer.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">PBL(2011), What is //Project-Based Learning (PBL)?.// Retrieved from <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">http://imet.csus.edu/imet2/stanfillj/workshops/pbl/description.htm

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rob, M. A. (2006). Development of Project Documentation: Key Ingredient in Teaching Systems Analysis <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">and Design, //Issues in Information Systems, 8(//1), pp. 83-87.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Rob, M. A., & Etnyre, V. (2009). Project-based learning: An assessment on team building across the MIS <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">curriculum//.// //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Journal of International Business Education, 4 //<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">, 193-208. Retrieved from ProQuest.

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 10pt;">Wells, C. E. (2002), //Teaching Teamwork in Information Systems.// Ideal Group Publishing, pp. 1-24.