Students' Perception of Collaborative Small Group Projects Using Synchronous and Asynchronous Tools

This session will report on findings from a three-year study that explored how different communication tools may impact small group collaborative learning projects in an online course. The central purpose of this study was to compare graduate students' perceptions and practices of collaborative small group work in three differently contrived sections of the same online course. In the first section, students collaborated using both synchronous and asynchronous wiki tools, as well as an asynchronous discussion board. In the second section, students collaborated using an asynchronous-only wiki and discussion board. Students in the third section used an asynchronous discussion board to collaborate. This study examined how teams in each section used the web-based tools available to them to organize, democratize, and complete a project within a shared online workspace. Comparisons between the three sections were made on individual member's perception of a team's interpersonal social effects, team-learning behaviors, and mutually shared cognition (Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, & Kirschner, 2006). Individuals were compared on their sense of teaching, cognitive, and social presence in the course using the Community of Inquiry Model (Swan et al., 2008). The primary hypothesis for this study was that online graduate students who use synchronous collaborative tools for small group work would perceive a higher level of mutually shared cognition and social presence than students using asynchronous collaborative tools. In this session, the authors will share the findings of the study, which concluded June 2011. The primary goal for this presentation will be to share successful techniques for organizing and facilitating small group collaborative projects in online and blended courses.