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One of the problems I’ve faced with using groups, especially for an online course, is
that
sometimes, especially toward the to the end of the course, the
students don't seem to interact quite as effectively, and a very often what
happens is one student will sort of dominate the group
This happens,
all you have experienced this in face to face courses. When you use groups very often
there's a strong personality that will dominate, and we all have to deal with that
in certain ways
What happens with an online course when they are working independently but
also as a group,
what I’ve noted is that the student will basically just do all the
work, submit it, and everybody else basically doesn't have anything
left to do
This happened last year when I taught this course online
And I basically, at that point had to go in and reassign the
groups. Essentially make that one person who did that 0:00:54.940,0:00:57.120 a separate grew by themselves
and allow the other three people to do the activities. Because those three people actually
they wanted to; they contacted me and said
this person, they already did everything and we don't have a chance to do
anything with the group
with the project
and so they really wanted to do the work they just
I think that person's got a little ambitious, they had a big weekend coming up, and they
they just wanted to get it done
so you're going to face that sort of the same sort of you face with a
face to face course in group work
and it's just a matter of
maintaining contact. I think that's one of those important things. I monitor
the groups, I monitor the group discussions, and if it looks like one person
person's dominating
I’ll send them a quick email just let me know
maybe back off a little bit, allow other people to discuss what's going on. If I
see somebody that's not doing anything at all, then I'll send them an e-mail and say
that they really need to get involved in the group and participate
In the final assessment I always have a couple questions where students
have the opportunity to let me know
whether or not
the group worked for them, and whether or not the individual members were
participating or not. So that helps me at least know how to deal with it in
the future, and maybe if somebody wasn't doing anything at all
I might be able to make an adjustment in terms of grading
And another way to deal with groups and making sure people participate is
too
either assign individuals specific roles within the group
or assign a set of roles and then each of the members of the group can decide
what they want to do, or the group as a whole can decide what each
individual will be doing within the group
Similar to a face to face course you will face some problems with using groups in an
online setting,
but those are some of the ways you can deal with those