It’s Alive: Collaborative Group work with Google
I enjoyed the exercise of completing the empathy map, as it encouraged me to reflect on some of the most common concerns I hear from students. When they begin my course and see that it involves a lot of group work online, some reach out to me for approval to work alone instead of in a group. They often cite issues with coordinating schedules, and equitable work distribution which they feel is further complicated by learning online. To address this challenge, I began using the Google Suite of tools to help facilitate effective group interaction. In the learning management system, I use the group function to create the groups and that allows me to share links to the shared documents and folders within Google. This way, as an instructor I can jump into the students work in-process and provide feedback at the checkpoints to help guide their work. As well, I can monitor member’s contributions and discussions. Students can make comments on their partners work, or use Google Meet to set up live discussions. The only concern I have is around privacy, so I make sure to link to the privacy policy within the course site, and provide the option of not suing the tool if they feel uncomfortable. I think going forward I can also use Microsoft One Drive, and Teams to help facilitate once my institution supports it.
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