Group items tagged

The responses below clearly show that most of us did not feel comfortable editing the work of other students in class. This would suggest that we are using Wikis merely as another tool for hosting group discussions, and not using it to collaboratively write, edit, and produce a high quality final product. However, one of the students noted that he/she would be comfortable making edits on other students' work if he/she could present his/her justifications and reasons for doing so. Perhaps more edits would be make to produce a higher quality end product is I simply asked or required each student to explain his/her actions within the "Notes about this edit..." textfield located at the bottom of each wiki page during page edits. What do you think?

This is not a weakness in students' performance. It is a factor that contributes to poor performance. No?

If we encourage students to invite others to share opposing viewpoints, then we would have to call the activity something else other than a "Debate" given that this is not a behavior you see in most formal debates. Regarldess, it is a good idea given that one of my studies (Jeong, 2006) found that simply using conversational language (e.g. tag questions) can increase the number of explanations posted in reply to each challenge by 70%.

This is not a measure of weaknesses in student's performance. Instead, it is a factor that influences students' performance. Or a weakness in the activity's design.

There were only five postings that were labeled as EVID out of the 121 total student postings - four of these were posted in response to challenges. How can we get students to support their claims with supporting evidence? The most obvious solution here is to provide access to more research findings and journals that present statistical numbers to demonstrate the veracity or strength of given claims. I could present a list of recommended journals and instruct students to find and make reference to at least one article to support a claim or counter claim. Your thoughts?

The most obvious solution here is to provide access to more research findings and journals that present statistical numbers to demonstrate the veracity or strength of given claims. I could present a list of recommended journals and instruct students to find and make reference to at least one article to support a claim or counter claim. Your thoughts?

This in my opinion is the main weakness in the quality of students' essays. Students need to present both sides of the argument. But even if students do that, I think another contributing factor is that students are at a lost as to how to articulate how one arrives at a conclusion based on all the presented arguments. Possible Solution: Have students collaboratively write an essay/conclusion statement and have student apply any of the tive methods explained in "RankingProposals.doc" found in the Documents folder.

Why not an actual link? michele wirt

Good catch, thanks

A great spot for a sample diagram or graphic organizer example. michele wirt

It would also be nice to see this series of steps re-written for instructors eaching in online environments. Or, present this guideline in more generic terms so that it applies to both F2F and online teaching.

Why not post the models' diagrams? michele wirt

I would present the last sentence at the beginning of the guideline (instead of at the end) to firmly establish the importance and purpose of the guideline. The next guidelines, 7.2, does not appear to present a clear purpose or function.

I tried to post the model diagram but was unable to make it work. I ended up with a big blank box so I deleted it. I also attempted to insert a link to the diagram online but again when I followed the link I ended up at a big blank box. I'm not sure why.

Grammatical problem: "Guestures" should be spelled "gestures."

Note: When you highlight one word (particularly a word that occurs frequently within the document), Diigo will highlight the first instance of the word in the document. Just watch out for this when you are highlighting single words.

Place the guideline, "Transfer and maintenance are the keys to greater expertise," at the beginning of the paragraph. Placing the elaboration/explanation points at the end rather than the beginning allows readers to identify the main point of the guideline up front.

Great suggestion. I'll do that.

What is the relationship between this section and the sections before and after it. I notice that the items before and after are numbered Guidelines 1.5 (then the highlighted text is insterted) Guidelines 1.6. Consider rearranging these and putting the highlighted text after, unless it was here for a purpose. If so, perhpas it should be given a guildine number.

I am the author of the highlighted section, and i must say this must have been an oversight on my part. I agree that this section should be moved to Guideline 1.7 because the last sentence highlighted beginning with "According to Salmons" does not belong here. I have a question for Dr. Jeong, when should we revise our report to reflect the comments we received from our fellow classmates?

It may be unfair of me to say this, but it seems like this section contains an etxteremly long entry consisting of 6 guidelines that are essentially pages 57-61 of the Johnson and Johnson book. Were our guidlines limited to around 200 words. If so, should they be lengthened for cases like this where there simply is not enough space to get everything in? OR... is there a way to summarize all of this content into a briefer guildine or two?

There seems be a lot of information in this section of the report becuase there was a lot of articles to gather information from. Interpersonal skills, constructive criticism, debates, and constructive criticism regarding debates are important social and teamwork skills we believe are necessary for collaborative learning. How would you suggest we go about simplifying this material without losing valuable informaiton?

Dr. Jeong removed all of the word limitations from the directions for this assignment. While you are correct that this section contains a lot of information, I agree with Motorya that it would be difficult to eliminate areas without eliminating necessary elements.

Does DAT only work with Blackboard or will it analyze any type of posting forum feeds? Dr. Jeong, I suppose this is a quesiton for you if you happen to come across it.

According to Dr. Jeong's article on Discussion Analysis Tool, the minimum software requirements for DAT is MS Excel with Macro security set at low or medium level, therefore, DAT can be used with any program that supports MS Excel.

Yes. DAT can be used to analyze any sequential data. But ForumManager is used to download Blackboard discussion forums.

Does DAT work only with blackboard? Dr. Jeong, this is a quesiton for you if you find it. What does DAT do with text structured from other posting forums and LMS dialog diagrams?

According to Dr. Jeong's article on Discussion Analysis Tool, the minimum software requirements for DAT is MS Excel with Macro security set at low or medium level, therefore, DAT can be used with any program that supports MS Excel.

Consider rewriting as an instrucitonal guideline. For example: "Have students assess their content understanding with self assessment techniques like "Self Quizes," "Reflective Journals", "Content Mastery Checklists" and "Team member evaluation forms."

That is a great suggestion - and a pretty easy fix. Thank you!

Thanks for adding the numbering system to the questions and guidelines! I think it makes the document much easier to browse and easier to identify the various sections and subsections. I still think, though, that we need to add indentations to clearly demark each section and subsection. Good job laying out the steps in formulating a guidelines. :-)

This looks like another separate guideline. Maybe you could number if Guidelines 1.1b. If so, number the guidelines above as Guidelines 1.1a?

I think that this part (guidelines for constructive criticism) is redundant with Guideline 1.2 below. I suggest that this part can be combined with Guideline 1.2 which consists of guidelines on how to prepare students in how to engage in constructive criticism.

From the way it is written, the article is summarized first and then the guidelines are stated below the article. I agree that the report could be better organized in listing both the summary of the article and the guidelines together so that it won't be so confusing to viewers.

My comment is that the methods for assessing learning (Q4) should be separate with the challenges associated with the methods. Instead of writing the contents under Guideline 4.11, I suggest that this part of the content regarding 'the challenges associated with the use of self assessment' should be written under a new topic called 'Major challenges associated..'.

That is a good suggestion. I think that the reason we did not separate the two is because the question directly asks that we address both the methods and challenges - we probably just thought that since the question covered both, we would respond to both in the same section. I like your suggestion though - it would be nice to not have quite so many guidelines under this question!!

It seems to me that these 4 levels of cooperative skills are not hierarchical in nature. Am I right to say that in order for a group to be successful, its members have to possess all 4 sets of skills? In that case, I wonder if "sets" instead of "levels" will make more sense? I know that the txtbk presented it as "levels'....

The levels are hierarchial in terms of the mental complexity of the task. The first level of skills is the least complex. For instance: It is "easier" to 'use a quiet voice', or 'take turns', than it is to 'explain step-by-step on'es reasoning'. Each level also includes a variety of skills. I will try to clarify the guideline by writing: Level 1 - Forming skills (meaning level one includes the set of forming skills). I hope this helps.

Although I know that it is recommended for the instructor to conduct seperate series of sessions for the students to practice the skills one by one, I wonder if it is feasible for the skills to be paired up or even combined into one complete package for the students to practice all of them at the same time. Especially since forming skills seemed to be the "ground rules", it might be more meaningful if the students practice together with another level of skills.

I reviewed the source of this information and the text does not provide much explanation of these patterns. She (Burgoon) included these terms at the end of a paragraph without expounding upon them. Perhaps the information can be found in earlier chapters of the text (which were not given access to). The person who posted this guideline may be able to give you more insight as to why they chose to start with this sentence.

(Melissa Wilson) Clarification would be beneficial Based on the text and Burgoon's research, the patterns of reciprocity, compensation and dominance are vital to online conversations. These terms were introduced, but an explanation and/or example would be beneficial for further understanding based on their importance.

Thru group processing, members may reveal issues that they can resolve amongst themselves.  For example, schedules, pace, roles, and attitudes can typically be worked out amongst the members. The instructor may need to get involved in more serious issues, such as when someone is simply not cooperating and hurting the group; or, when the group cannot come to a resolution and requests a mediator.

(Melissa Wilson) Guideline 4.6 Clarification: I understand what you are saying under the guideline on group reviews, but does Sharan advise that students typically make the changes (as stated) or that instructors typically make adjustments when needed? Are these merely self-assessments or are they instructor assessments which impact grading?

(Melissa Wilson) Sharisse, Thanks for the explanation! I understand what you are saying...I was just initially thinking of larger problems that typically require complete group changes, but I see what you are saying! Thanks for the clarification!

These sound really thought provoking-might do well to give a brief description or example, or even a Diigo comment. michele wirt

Well, I agree that they are not very self-explanatory :) although I will want to think that the 'audience' will exercise their "creativity" in interpreting these 5 different methods of random assignment. Nonetheless, I think a brief description or example will be helpful to facilitate the understanding. 1. The Math Method - ask students to (a) solve the problem; (b) find the students with same answer; and (c) form the group 2. States and Capitals - (a) divide the class into 2 groups; (b) write down the names of the states and their capitals on cards; (c) students with matching cards will be paired together 3. Historical Figures - (a) write names of historical figures on cards; (b) distribute cards to students; (c) form groups by matching the same historical period they lived 4. Literary Characters - (a) distribute cards with names of characters from literature the students recently read; (b) form groups by matching to the same story, play or poem 5. Personal Preferences - (a) get students to write their favorite sport/ food/ celebrity/ skill/ car/ etc; (b) form groups by matching similar preferences.

Is this section an elaboration of item 4c listed above? If not, which/where is the guideline for this section?

Somewhere here, we need to define the term "Role interdependence.

Is this referring to work done by L. R. Goldberg? A link to information about Goldberg's Personality Trait Index would be appropriate here.

(Robert Barton) The link has been added. Thank you for noting our omission. This reference is accessed through the course website under "Documents".

To re-write this as an instructional objective, you could start with something like: "Some of the things you could to to make sure students take personal responsibility for their groups tasks and outcomes (what we call individual accountability) include..."

I find the possibility of turning this kind of info into an instructional guideline both challening and limiting. None the less, perhaps this entry and the one below it could be re-written as an instructional guidline (alhtough much detail would be lost) in the following manner: As an instructors or designer you need to take concrete steps to find out the communiction and learning styles of your learners. Are they (1) convergent thinkers (2) Divergent thinkers (3) Assimilators or (4) Accomodators? (Charactersitics of each can be found here-- CLICK HERE) Conisder using the following tools to find out the above characteristics of your students: (1) Felder and Silverman's index of leairng styles questionaire (2) Hay Group Assessments (3) Goldberg's Personality Trait Index assessment, or the (4) Learning and Study Strategy Inventory (LASSI). Details about each of these tools can be found here (CLICK HERE)

Of the three articles that were required for this section, was there more information available for methods used to establish positive interdependence? For instance, could you elaborate more on the definition of positive interdependence, for those who may be reading the report and cannot fully grasp the concept of what positive interdependence is.

(Robert Barton) Per Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, the element of positive interdependence is one of five required elements for cooperative learning to occur. Positive interdependence is informing the group that they must work together to accomplish an assigned task. These group member's must realize that each person's efforts not only benefit the individual, but the team as well. Positive interdependence creates a committment to the success of others, and individually. Without positive interdependence, there is no cooperation (p. 9).

Error on link. May want to correct for the final wiki report

(Robert Barton) Thanks for the information. This link was working fine when I posted it. I'll research it and try to find another one.

Who prepares the group contract? The members of the group or the professor? Who assures that the items established in the contract are executed? What would be an example of a group contract?

(Robert Barton) Group contracts are written by the group members. Items to be included are showing up to class, being prepared, contributing to all aspects of the assignment, etc. The group takes it upon themselves to execute all items in the contract, as a form of ownership. If there are any conflicts thoughout the learning process, the instructor will step in and resolve them.

learning

How do you determine which students should be assigned to which group whereby they'll reap the maximum learning benefits? What is the determing factor? Is the the number of group members or level of education or etc.?

There is something a bit wrong grammatically with this statement - I think you could either take off the word "By" or move "Help maximize student learning" to the beginning of the sentence.

Are you referring to student or instructor functions here? If these are student functions, examples of roles (team leader, record keeper, secretary, etc.) could be helpful as examples of how these functions transfer into roles.

Were suggestions given on how the students should perform these functions? For instance, would the student be given guidance on how to get group members to practice critical thinking skills?

Should the numbering of the following entries be continued from above? Furthermore, group contracts are discussed just above this entry. Is there a way to incorporate the two so that the info about group contracts is centrally located?

(Melissa Wilson) Contradictory The guideline indicates implied responsibilities, meaning those responsibilities that are understood without explicitly being stated...but then below the guideline, is the indication of things the instructors should tell the groups

(Robert Barton). Interesting point of view. I read the article again and based on Dr. Jeong's research, these statements are correct. But I'm in agreement with you. One would assume that students that are more outgoing wouldn't necessarily be timid in their postings.

(Melissa Wilson) Sorry...I may be misreading-clarification needed: Per the article, students post more responses when they are less outgoing (less extraverted)? It just seems as if those whose personalities are unreserved would be more likely to post responses than those who are reserved, as they wouldn't be afraid to share their feelings or thoughts and wouldn't be afraid to be challenged on those. Am I misinterpreting? Thanks!