collaboration

I've always had a love/hate relationship with group projects - so often they do lead to improved learning about a topic, but the process can often be full of challenges, frustrations, and unintended delays (on my part and/or the part of others). What was particularly interesting about the current group project is that we're creating a paper on the use of wikis and blogs and have been using a wiki to collaborate on the paper.

The readings indicate that wikis are great because of the opportunity to have team members not just distributed and compile portions of a project, but because they can create true collaborations where members really offer substantive inputs into all sections of the project. When we first designed our workplan, we divided up the project with each member taking on a major section of the paper, and then had two members assigned to the intro and conclusion, and some roles attached to editing/formating. When the major sections were posted we did have four separate but interrelated voices, and then the true collaboration began. Several members noted areas where we could improve flow and focus, and we at times reframed the topic, introduction and conclusion to match this flow and focus. Additions and deletions were made to each major section with no territoriality/authorship concerns, but rather a desire for a stronger whole. Several members took on editing and formatting roles, each improving the work of the prior students.

Thus, what began as a not very collaborative work became moreso over time - and time is a key factor here. We needed time to get the project underway, to do our research, and to become comfortable with our sharing and editing. We didn't really do much to improve our personal relationships with one another - I didn't really learn anything new personally about the group members via the group process - but I did come to better understand the work style and writing strengths of each member. Had we had less time for the project (or had to delay more than we did with some late submissions), I don't think we would have gotten to the collaborative moment we reached in the past few days.

I'm going to take this to heart as I'm developing group work in the classes I teach. I need to be sure that there is time for norming and performing. I have the benefit of teaching on a semester system, and thus have a bit more time for group activities that is available at CSUEB, but I also work with undergrads with less content knowledge, process knowledge and lower tech skills than the grad students I'm in class with, so we often need more time to do the work.

I'm really pleased with the progress of the group I was in, even if there were times that each of us failed to meet the communication and timeline standards we had set. The content and process were both really helpful to my own teaching.

betsy