In STE 312, Dr Rayna Fujii has her students read and reflect. However, they don’t just share their reflection with the instructor, they have to then contact a classmate about their ideas, have a conversation, then write up what they’ve learned from each other. This activity creates accountability and fosters community.

Small groups, especially those online, don’t always know how to establish protocols for working together. You might want to have small groups jointly reach consensus on the questions below to establish a “team charter” for working together.

• How will your group identify itself? (Your group may choose a name under which to function)
• How will the group communicate? (For example, through the discussion board, email, vOffice, phone or a combination of methods?)
• What day during the week will the discussion begin?
• How quickly should group members be expected to respond to emails or discussion board postings? (For example, within 12 hours, within 1 day etc.)
• What role or duties will each person in the group perform? (Possible roles include: initiator, secretary, liaison to the instructor, motivator, organizer etc.)
• Who is responsible for posting group responses to the main discussion board?
• How will the group handle a member that is not participating?
• Discuss any other topics that are unique to your group.

As an instructor it can be difficult to evaluate what each team member individually contributes to an overall project. Consider having students evaluate their fellow team members. For group work in her LTEC 600 course, Dr Betsy Fulford includes team evaluation scores as a part of each team member’s overall project grade.

Or view the LTEC 600 Team Evaluation Scoring Sheet in a new window.