Hands of students completing a cloud-shaped puzzle which reads "Online Collaboration"

Up and Running with Remote Group Work

A Case for Group Work

Group work can elicit negative reactions from instructors and students alike. Often enough, students groan about doing it and instructors dread grading it. The process is ripe for communication breakdowns resulting in stress from both perspectives. On top of this, the digital learning environment tends to compound these issues. Why then is group work so prevalent?

The answer is that, when done well, group activities help foster engagement and build relationships. Collaborative work helps students develop important skills like effectively articulating ideas, active listening, and cooperation with peers. Collaborative assignments correlate strongly with student success positioning them as one of eight high-impact practices identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Making group work a worthwhile experience for students requires extra consideration and planning, but the positive gains are worth the effort.

Designing Group Work for Student Success

How can we design collaborative activities that are a quality learning experience for students? Scaffolding makes sure students are confident in their understanding of and ability to execute the activity. UW-Extension has created a helpful guide on facilitating group work that outlines three key suggestions to get you started. First, be sure students understand the purpose of the activity, in terms of what they are supposed to learn from it and why it is a group activity. Second, provide support so students have the necessary tools and training to collaborate. You are clear how and when students are to collaborate or provide suggestions. You ensure students understand how to use the needed technologies. Finally, providing opportunities for peer- and self-evaluation can alleviate frustrations of unequal workload by having students evaluate their own and their peers’ contributions. As challenges arise, guide groups toward solutions that are flexible but fair to all members. When embarking on group projects, be prepared to provide students with guidance about what to do when someone on the team is not meeting the group’s expectations.

One example of this as you design your group projects is to ask yourself whether it’s important students meet synchronously. If so, how might you design the project for students with caregiving responsibilities or with full-time or “off hours” work schedules? These students may not be able to meet as regularly or at the same time as other students. See below for how this might play into assessing the group project. You might also consider whether all students need to hold the same role within the group, or if their collective project be split up based on group roles.

Consider how the group dynamics can impact student experiences. Helping students come up with a plan for group work and methods of holding one another accountable promotes an inclusive and equitable learning environment. Consider any of these tools to help your students coordinate these efforts:

Assessing Group Work

Equitable, specific, and transparent grading are crucial to group-work success. The Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence of Carnegie Mellon University has a great resource on how to assess group work, including samples. This resource breaks grading group work down into three areas. First, assess group work based on both individual and group learning and performance. Include an individual assessment component to motivate all students to contribute and help them to feel their individual efforts are recognized. Also assess the process along with the product. What skills are you hoping students develop by working in groups? Your choice of assessment should point to these skills. One way to meet this need is to have students complete reflective team, peer, or individual evaluations as described above. Finally, outline your assessment criteria and grading scheme upfront. Students should have clear expectations of how you will assess them. Include percentages for team vs. individual components and product vs. process components as they relate to the total project grade.

Tools for Working Collaboratively

Picking the right tool among a plethora of what is available is an important step. First, consider how you would like students to collaborate for the activity. Is it important that students talk or chat synchronously, asynchronously, or both? Will students share files?

The following suggestions include the main collaboration tools supported at UWGB. Click to expand the sections for the various tools below.

If you are interested in learning more about any of these tools, consider scheduling a consultation with a CATL member.

Canvas discussions are one option for student collaboration. Operating much like an online forum, discussions are best suited for asynchronous communication, meaning students can post and reply to messages at any time, in any order. If you have groups set up in Canvas, you can create group discussions in which group members can only see one another’s posts. You can also adjust your course settings so that students can create their own discussion threads as well.

Hypothesis is a Canvas integration that lets instructors and students collaboratively annotate a digital document or website. Hypothesis annotation activities can be completed synchronously, such as over a Zoom call, or asynchronously on students' own time. Activities can be created for either the whole class or for small groups and are a great way for students to bounce around ideas about a text or reading. 

Office 365 refers to the online Microsoft Office Suite, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Students can work collaboratively and asynchronously on projects using online document versions of any of these software, which updates changes in nearly real time. Microsoft Office 365 has partial integration with Canvas, allowing students to set up and share Office documents from within Canvas using the Collaborations feature. Students will have to log in to Office 365 through their Canvas course before they can use most features of Canvas and Office 365 integration.

Zoom is one of two web conferencing tools supported by the university, the other being Teams. The Zoom Canvas integration allows instructors to set up meetings within a Canvas course. Students can then access meeting and recording links from within the Canvas course. As such, it is generally easy to for students to access and use. One downside to Zoom is that it is a purely synchronous meeting tool, so students will have to coordinate their schedules or find other ways of including members that may not be able to attend a live meeting. Students that wish to set up meetings amongst themselves are not able to set up meetings with the Canvas integration, though they can use the Zoom desktop app or web portal and their UWGB account.

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool that combines web conferencing, synchronous and asynchronous text communications (in the form of chat and posts), and shared, collaborative file space. Students can create a new team in MS Teams for their group project or operate in a channel of an existing class team. Microsoft Teams also has partial integration with Canvas, meaning students and instructors can create and share Teams meeting links within the Rich Content Editor of Canvas (in pages, announcements, discussions, etc.).

Putting It into Practice

When we ask students to work collaboratively, it’s important we reveal the “hidden curriculum” by building in the steps they should take to be a successful team. As a starting point, asking students to answer these questions helps clarify the work of the group:

  • “Who’s on the team?”
  • “What are your tasks as a group?”
  • “How will you communicate?” (Asynchronously? Synchronously?)
  • “How will you ensure everyone can meet the deadlines you set?”
  • “If or When someone misses a meeting, how will you ensure that everyone has access to the information they’ll need to help you all complete the project on time?”
  • “When will you give each other feedback before you turn in the final assignment?”

For a ‘bare bones’ group assignment, take the above considerations on designing and assessing groupwork into account and create a worksheet for the student groups to fill out together. Create a Canvas group assignment to collect those agreements, assign it some points that will be a part of the whole project grade, and set the deadline for turning it in early so that students establish their plan early enough for it to benefit their group. Scaffolded activities that give students enough structure and agency is a delicate balance, but these kinds of guided worksheets and steps can help students focus their energy on the project, assignment, or task once everyone is on the same page.

Let’s keep the conversation going!

Do you have some tried and tested strategies for helping students coordinate and complete group work online? Send them our way by emailing: CATL@uwgb.edu or comment below!

Facilitating Online Student Presentations (Synchronous)

This article contains strategies for preparing your students to give awesome presentations in synchronous online classes over videoconferencing programs. While many of the fundamentals of making strong in-person presentations apply to presenting online, the online element adds an extra layer of technical competencies and media-specific best practices for your students to consider. The aim of this article is to help you prepare your students for success in their presentation projects.

Table of Contents

  1. Teaching Technical Fundamentals
    1. The Best Way to Join Video Meetings
    2. Audio and Video Settings
    3. Screen and Content Sharing
  2. Facilitating Rehearsals
  3. Managing Session Permissions
  4. Audience Engagement Strategies
  5. Appearing Professional in Online Presentations

Teaching Technical Fundamentals

Given that student presentations usually occur well into a semester, by the time these presentations are due, your students may feel some level of comfort with the video meeting program you are using for synchronous sessions, but that comfort may only extend to the program features needed to participate in, but not lead, a class. A few weeks before presentations are due, you should provide your students with resources for teaching them the best way to join a meeting as a presenter, how to ensure their audio and video settings are correct, and how to share their presentation materials over the video meeting.

The Best Way to Join Video Meetings

While video meeting programs may support multiple ways to join a meeting, not all methods are created equal. The inequality between join methods is more pronounced when the user is expected to present in the meeting, as the non-ideal join methods often have limited content sharing functionality. To ensure that student presenters have access to the widest array of meeting features, recommend that they join the meeting via the best method. For Microsoft Teams and Zoom, for example, this means downloading the app and logging in with their UWGB accounts. Joining on mobile devices can limit the features that user can access, so recommend that students join the meeting on a desktop or laptop computer (if able).

Audio and Video Settings

If a student has been camera shy and mostly participating in class via text chat, they may not be fully confident that their microphone and camera are properly set up in the software settings. Share resources with your students to help them check and test their device settings.

Screen and Content Sharing

If your presentation assignment involves the sharing of a visual aid, make sure your students know how to use the screen or content sharing features of the video meeting program you are using. Some video meeting programs provide multiple ways to share content with the audience. In both Microsoft Teams Meetings and Zoom, presenters can share content by either sharing their entire screen or uploading presentation files—most commonly PowerPoint presentations—to the meeting. Both of these sharing methods have strengths and weaknesses:

When sharing the entire screen:

  • ✅ Presenters can easily share multiple programs and documents during their presentation by opening different windows on the shared screen. If a student’s presentation has any links they wish to follow during the presentation, sharing their entire screen would be the best strategy for ensuring a smooth transition between presentation slides, website content, and other documents.
  • ❌ Unless the presenting student has multiple monitors hooked up to their computer, sharing the entire screen can leave the presenter blind to raised hands and chat messages as the meeting window will be minimized. A presenter sharing their entire screen may have to delegate chat monitoring duties to another member of their group or defer all questions to dedicated Q&A breaks where they can stop sharing and pull up the meeting window.
  • ❌ For student presenters with aging computer hardware, screen sharing will tax and slow down their computer more than the file upload sharing methods. Screen sharing also requires more internet bandwidth, so student presenters with limited internet connections may have an easier time with the file upload sharing methods.

For group presentations, the presentation may run most smoothly if one member of the group is in charge of sharing all presentation content. The flow of the presentation can be stifled if each individual student needs to start sharing content before beginning their part of the presentation.

Facilitating Rehearsals

Rehearsal is a BIG part of preparing for successful presentations, and, for online presentations, effective rehearsals extend beyond practicing in front of the bathroom mirror or a trusted friend or family member. In addition to rehearsing their presentation content, students should also rehearse working with the technology. It’s important for students to become comfortable with the logistics of sharing their content and navigating raised hands and chat messages before giving their presentation. It is easier to navigate the technology in a rehearsal setting without the pressure of the spotlight and the resulting jitters. A proper tech rehearsal will help students identify and avoid potentially derailing technical snags.

For group presentations, groups should be able to effectively rehearse together as a unit, but you could also consider pairing groups together if you wanted to incorporate peer review into the development of the final presentations. For individual presentations, consider pairing your students with a rehearsal buddy or creating a Canvas discussion for students who need to seek out a rehearsal partner. To facilitate these presentation rehearsals, you will have to help your students find or create virtual rehearsal spaces.

Managing Session Permissions

Video meeting attendees can hold different roles in the meeting, and these roles dictate how much control the user has over the meeting and whether they can share their screen or other presentation content. To ensure your student presentations go smoothly, make sure you understand what each role can do in the meeting and that you understand at least one of the two methods for assigning meeting roles to your students:

  1. You can edit the meeting settings so that students automatically join the meeting with elevated presentation privileges.
  2. During the meeting, you can manually promote individual users to the presenter role.

Audience Engagement Strategies

While presenting online, it is important to think about how to keep your audience engaged through participation opportunities. At the most basic level, this can entail building in Q&A breaks throughout the presentation, but students should give thought as to how they will handle the Q&A. Would they like the audience to type questions in the chat as they come up with them? Would they like the audience to use the raise hand feature to indicate that they have a question? To keep the audience engaged, students should consider spreading Q&A opportunities throughout the presentation instead of leaving all questions for the end. Beyond Q&A breaks, students can use their video meeting’s polling tool to survey audience knowledge and opinions.

Appearing Professional in Online Presentations

It is not uncommon to see the odd student walking down a crowded hallway of campus in business attire, looking like a shining beacon of professionalism adrift among an ocean of sweatpants. It’s a telltale sign: it must be student presentation day! Presenting online over a videoconference can carry the same expectation of formal dress as an in-person presentation (at least from the waist up), but there are a few additional online-presentation-specific tips available in this guide you can give your students to help them present themselves professionally.

Please remember that your students have different living circumstances and remote-work environments, and that an ask for students to remotely present from a professional setting may not be equitable. Express compassion and understanding for those students who may not have control over the environment from which they can attend class and give their presentation.