Working in teams: A graduate attribute. Collaboration versus Cooperation

Collaboration or Cooperation

In research undertaken by the author in recent times it was found that the particular institution was not meeting its stated goals in terms of producing graduates who were able to work in teams and had developed the abilities and skills to collaborate effectively. This was in spite of the enormous effort by individual teachers and (what was thought to be) careful design of curricula to ensure that students (over a period of years) had many opportunities to engage in team work in a variety of subjects/courses.

How could this be? In subsequent discussions with both student focus groups and academic staff a common picture emerged. This involved:

• assigning students (either self-selected or chosen by the lecturer) into groups in order for a team to undertake a particular assignment or assessment task;
• providing templates or guides that outlined the various components required of team members to complete the team-based assignment; and
• developing assessment protocols or rubrics to assess student learning (but not necessarily individual student learning).

So what happened? It was found that the students did the sensible thing to maximise their opportunities and their time: they chose to divide and conquer. From a student's perspective, this is a very sensible strategy. Each student takes on a particular responsibility (e.g., one student does the lit review, another designs the survey, while the third writes methodology). That is: they Cooperate. The result is a team that cooperates very well with each other but the amount of Collaboration is limited to ensuring the various parts fit together in a reasonable manner for a final submission.

So what to do?  This is where technology can help innovation. At my current institution we are working on ways of using various hardware and collaborative applications, where students in teams work on documents or research projects simultaneously. One such solution to this issue and one of the better tools for this process is Google Docs. Multiple students can work on the same document simultaneously, seeing each other's contributions and editing each other's text. Therefore classroom design (if this is a face-to-face process) is a crucial part of the process, With a shared central monitor that is large enough so that all members of the team can see it and engage with the single shared document in real time an absolute necessity (and multiple stations across the room). In a fully online environment the same effect is achieved by using a cloud-based document that all students work on simultaneously. With a product like Google Docs (and there are other examples) the history of changes can be seen in the contributions by individuals in the team accessed. We are undertaking work in this area in my current institution in a number of academic disciplines. The room (one of) is shown below. Stay tuned for updates.

The Collaborative spaceThe Collaborative space

Blended learning: Where to from here?

I have been in transition of late and therefore have not been publishing my ramblings recently. However, 2013 is a new year with a new job starting in March, in Singapore. More about this later.

In thinking about ongoing developments in technologies to support learning and teaching, it is clear that there are a wealth of opportunities, platforms, applications (apps) and resources.  So much so, that deciding what to use, which platform/device and what applications becomes almost overwhelming to any teacher who is tasked with so many other responsibilities to manage, including having a life. However, I'd like to share a quote from Tony Bates: 

"Good teaching may overcome a poor choice of technology but technology will never save bad teaching"

Many of the platforms/ devices and applications now available are not panaceas for poor teaching, or saving money, but like all tools, they need to be used appropriately in order to be effective. With so many choices, here is my short list of criteria for choosing one application/ platform or device over another. The non-exhaustive list is:

• what is the specific educational need(s) the application/platform/device will help address?
• e.g., communication, content, process, practice, etc etc;
• what are the limiting/supporting factors in your institutional context (context is vital!)?
• e.g., will the infrastructure support what you intend to use (mobile bandwidth is a growing problem for many institutions);
• e.g., where will you and your students receive help from (IT Help Desk?);
• e.g., how will the application/device provide access and engagement and what training will be needed?;
• e.g., do you already have access to something similar that is currently installed (the modern LMS has a huge variety of communication options, and some ePortfolios have social networking opportunities built-in (e.g., Mahara);
• e.g., can the resource be installed onto University/student computers/tablets etc without significant costs/time?;
• how easy is the resource/application to use and how much support will be needed?
• will there be a significant change in teacher/student behaviour needed?
• what is the 'management overhead' for managing the use of the application from a variety of viewpoints, institutional, pedagogical and at the individual teacher level (e.g., are passwords necessary, or is privacy an issue?)?
• what will the impact on student and/or teacher workload be?
• is what you propose compatible with institutional policies, equipment, infrastructure, policy (IP and privacy for example) and will management support what you propose?
• and, not at least, will students be willing to engage and work in ways that make the process worth the effort?

The last is something I have found to be the easiest to solve by involving the students in the process and giving them opportunities to provide feedback and guide the process directly. The rest I leave up to the reader.

2010: The year the mWorld becomes mainstream?

I have deliberately used a provocative title based upon all of the articles that are appearing touting the rise of mobile computing in 2010, moving from the fringes of education to the center. But will it happen in higher education in the West? I am inclined to agree with Tony Bates when he suggests that the revolution will occur, but not where we might expect it to.

On a trip through Rajasthan in 2008, a relatively desolate place of sand and scrubby trees with little sign of habitation, I was constantly amazed to find a mobile presence - a connection to a mobile network on my mobile phone. More recently, attending a UNESCO event in Paris (Dec. 2009) I was intrigued and very engaged when the presenter talked about the impact that a project funded by Nokia was making on the lives of farmers in developing countries. Can you think of a more contrasting image to that above? Farming practices that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years, supplemented by real-time instant updates via a mobile phone to market prices for produce in the city.

In developing countries, where a small fraction of the population has access to a traditional library, the mobile phone provides a link to the internet for a much larger proportion of the population. The concept of learning via mobile phones is compelling, because that is the medium of communication and collaboration, providing access to the wider world, to markets, improving the fundamental aspects of peoples lives. In one sense, in developed countries we are too rich - we have so many other avenues by which we can access information, and so many alternative means available to us for collaboration.

Arguments for appropriate pedagogy when considering the use of technology in teaching and learning occasionally miss the point - pedagogy does not exist in a vacuum, anywhere. The local context, perceived educational needs and motivation, and the educational intent and knowledge of learning design of the teachers who design and develop learning activities are also key drivers that impact on the adoption of any technology - most especially mLearning. Having said that, it is clear that there is an unstoppable change occurring, with small mobile computing devices (netbooks, laptops and mobile phones in particular), outselling desktops. Mobile phones now have features that just a few years ago required a desktop with an ethernet connection. There seems to be an opportunity or two here to engage students with the technology they always carry and is always on.

Google wave

I like a number of others have been provided with a Google wave account. I have been looking at it for about two months now, and more than any other application in my experience, I am asking the question, does this have a place in education? If so, what is its place?

After I set up the account, I invited a number of people I know who are not afraid to try something new and guess what happened, after the initial flurry of exchanges, the communication channel died and for the past four weeks it has been entirely dormant. I have read one account of a professor that used Google wave as a means of communication between classes on different sides of the Atlantic, but that could have just as easily been accomplished using other, more well established and understood, mediums of communication. So to the occasional viewers of this blog, or visitors, do you have any examples to share? How was it evaluated? Would you use Google Wave again?

Social media and Pedagogy

There is a very interesting interview with Associate Professor S. Craig Watkins (found HERE) on the impact of social media on teaching and learning, pedagogy and future employment. In a recent presentation at my university with over 1000 students present, nearly ALL admitted to having Facebook accounts, and with mobile phone ownership in Hong Kong approaching 170% you can guarantee that no students are without a mobile phone (and therefore, SMS).

The question I would like to ask is: as university faculty, what should our reaction be to this information? There is evidence that students don't want faculty staff in their personal space (see HERE) but equally there is evidence that Facebook and the mobile world is where the students are. One anecdote from the University of Hong Kong Library in which late-book reminders were sent via SMS. The income from fines decreased by 90%!. Communication via SMS was clearly more effective than the previous approach, email. In another recent study (see HERE) librarians who set up a Library Facebook site observed that while the use of email and Facebook were almost equal for inquiries, the Facebook site inquiries were dominated by undergraduate students.

Now, social media and mobiles are converging - fast. The plethora of applications that allow social technologies and mobiles to connect grows daily. Applications that support microblogging (Echelon, Twitteriffic), blogging (Blogger), social networking (Facebook, Fring, Skype, iPadio), content upload/download etc etc. are growing. The trickle-down of applications that were traditionally the domain of desktops, then notebooks and now mobile computing devices has turned into a flood.

Observations. Clearly social networking and mobile devices (particularly SMS) are going to continue to dominate the lives of our students, particularly the younger students arriving at our institutions. How these vehicles for communication and (potentially) interaction can be used effectively for learning (rather than merely low level reminders or a basic information medium) still remains issues of affordability, pedagogy, willingness (staff and students), available applications, support and most especially, learning design. What are the affordances of mobile devices that can be used to address higher order thinking skills (HOTS). The research evidence is growing - mobiles + social networking for field studies and language learning are just two that have been described recently.

More to come.