Tools for Managing Groupwork in Learn@Seneca | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Kevin Pitts, the Teaching & Learning Centre

in the March 2020 issue

The benefits of group work are well known. Group work helps students build collaboration and communication skills. As a result, many of us include group work as part of our course design and assessment strategy. But managing group work can be tricky, and there is always a level of unpredictability with group work based on student preparedness, personality, experience, and the like. Luckily, Learn@Seneca has several tools available to help us manage groups and help students collaborate.

So, you’ve designed an awesome authentic group task that will help students achieve quite a few of the course learning outcomes. Now you want to implement the task. Some questions you might consider are:

How can I place students in groups?
The Learn@Seneca group tool gives you three main options: you can manually enroll students in groups, you can have Learn@Seneca randomly assign students to groups, or you can have students self-enroll in groups. To find out how, check out the Setting up Groups page in the Learn@Seneca Groups Tool online module.

What online tools are available to students in Learn@Seneca?
Once students are placed in groups, you can assign each group specific communication and collaboration tools. Common communication tools include email and discussion board for asynchronous communication, as well as web conferencing (via Blackboard Collaborate Ultra) for synchronous communication. Common collaboration tools include a group wiki, where students can document their learning journey over time and publish their group deliverables, and file exchange, where students can share files. To find out how to assign group tools, check out the Managing Groups page in the Learn@Seneca Groups Tool online module.

There are many other questions you might be considering, such as how to grade group work. As always, The Teaching & Learning Centre is here to help. If you would like to explore more options, email us at teaching@senecacollege.ca to set up an appointment.

^{Image credit: “Group work” image is in the Public Domain}

View the March 2020 issue of the Academic Newsletter.