BellaOnline Forums Education Distance Learning Working on Joint Assignments

Have any of you worked on joint assignments in your online classes? How did the experience go?

I haven't, but Summer Term orientation week starts Monday and we have weekly joint projects in that class. I suspect that just like in person joint projects, what really matters is that your team members are serious about the project.

I'm happy to see that we get to pick our own teams, so that I can find someone who hopefully has a schedule similar to mine.

Julie

I had to do a few group assignments while taking my online courses. It wasn't too bad but I don't like them. I don't like chat sessions because I don't seem to be able to type fast enough to keep up with the conversation. Also I didn't like having to do them at a specific time. (One of the things I liked about online courses was that I could do them on my schedule rather than some else's).
The hardest thing that I remember was getting everyone in the group together online at the same time. This was most difficult when there was more than an hour time difference for someone in the group or if someone was doing the course from their work computer because then there was a firewall that prevented them from participating in the chat sessions from work.
I was lucky because I was never in a group that had a person who didn't do her/his share of the work - a little maybe but not to the extreme where we were all waiting for their input in order to proceed with what we had to do. We always used the course chat but we always got the group members' personal telephone numbers so that if we had a problem we could let others know or call someone else if they didn't make it to the chat. That always made me feel more comfortable than just relying on e-mail since if people don't respond then you have no idea what is happening, whereas a telephone call is more direct. Once again though we were lucky because no one refused to provide a phone number. It certainly came in handy a few times when someone's internet service was down.

My group project is going well so far. There are only 2 of us in our group (we were supposed to form groups of 2 to 3 and the only other woman in my course is also the only other person in my timezone, so we formed a group.) We were both thrilled to find another Pacific timezone person, as most people are from the East Coast where the school is and a 3 hour time difference is a lot to work around!

We don't have to do any chats in ours - we do it all via a bulletin board and email. We haven't even thought to give out telephone numbers! I admit I would resist that - with my hours, you never know when I'm asleep. We all email immediately though, so we are all online people and that hasn't been a problem.

My prior 2 classes at Stevens were almost all via bulletin board, but this one seems to very audio conferencing (or recorded audio conference) and power point slide focused. Stevens provides all students with access to Wimba Pronto, which provides audio, video and text chat and a shared whiteboard, and also group chat rooms using Wimba. It's up to us how we want to communicate in our groups. My partner works in the defense industry so has limited email access during the day and a long commute, so phone makes a lot of sense.

Julie

I do agree that providing all options is a good idea. You never know what will work well for a given group. I am a strong proponent of offering options and letting the users select what is best for them!

i enjoy group projects tremendously, although i do end up doing the bulk of the work. Not everyone is very motivated to get the highest grade possible - some people are content to simply pass a class. Which is fine! But since I like to have a great project i willingly take on more work. it's still fun for me to have people in a group to brainstorm the project with, and i feel that i might be lending enthusiasm to everyone and bringing the whole 'team' level up.

That's an interesting point of view Jilly! In my group projects we are all supposed to contribute part, and it is "tracked" in an online discussion board, so it means we all have to sit around and agonize while we wait to see if a team member is going to put in his share of content in time.