How to design Collaborative Learning activities

METIS - Meeting teachers co-design needs by means of Integrated Learning

Environments

http://www.metis-project.org

How to design Collaborative Learning activities

A hands-on workshop exploring tools and techniques for designing successful online collaborative learning activities in

higher education

Author(s)/Editor(s): Andrew Brasher, Patrick McAndrew & Christopher Walsh

Project Number: 531262-LLP-2012-ES-KA3-KA3MP 1

http://www.metis-project.org/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Project Number: 531262-LLP-2012-ES-KA3-KA3MP

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author(s), and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

2

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

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ContentsWorkshop aims and overview........................................................................................2

Workshop activity structure...........................................................................................4

1 Introduction (15 minutes)............................................................................................4

2 How to ruin a collaborative learning activity (15 minutes)..........................................5

3 Heuristics for collaborative learning (25 minutes).......................................................6

4 Conceptualize: Learning outcomes (40 minutes).........................................................7

5 Conceptualize: Evidence, examples and patterns of Collaborative Learning (60 minutes)...................................................................................................................................9

6 Conceptualize: Storyboard (45 minutes)...................................................................10

7 Author: use the WebCollage tool to create a detailed prototype of your collaborative learning activity (45 minutes)............................................................................11

8 Implement your activity in a VLE (30 minutes)..........................................................12

9 Heuristic evaluation (35 minutes)..............................................................................13

10 Wrap up (15 minutes)................................................................................................14

11 Evaluate (15 minutes)................................................................................................15

12 References.................................................................................................................16

How to design Collaborative Learning activities 1

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Workshop aims and overview1. Overview

In this workshop you will work in a small team to design a collaborative online learning activity. You will have the opportunity learn about the principles involved, experiment with tools that can help you structure and analyse your ideas and learn from case studies of successful activities tried and tested on Open University modules. At the end of the workshop you will have produced an initial design which you can then develop further to be used in your online teaching activities.

This workshop has been created by the Metis Project, and it is one of three workshop structures that heave been developed for different educational sectors across Europe. You will use several paper-prototyping tools and the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE), a bespoke environment for the co-design of learning, developed by the Metis Project. The ILDE aims to support practitioners in completing the "learning design" lifecycle from conceptualising designs to deploying them in virtual learning environments (VLEs) for enactment and eventual redesign. In particular, you will use WebCollage, an online tool specifically designed to assist you in creating collaborative learning activities ready to run in a VLE. The overall design of this workshop is based on a meta-design template produced by the Metis project (Brasher, 2015) .

1.1 Learning and other outcomesFor participants:

Apply one or more 'learning design' practices to incorporate collaborative learning in the context of your work;Demonstrate an understanding of the value of 'learning design' and note key issues and debates in the field;Use the ILDE tools to develop a learning design that fosters collaborative learning in the context of your work and share it with peers; andDemonstrate an understanding of the value of sharing design knowledge and identify forms and formats appropriate for your work.

1.2 Workshop Schedule


http://www.metis-project.org/

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Start time

Activity

code

Activity Duration/mins.

10:00 A1 Introduction 15

10:15 A2 How to ruin a collaborative learning activity

15

10:30 A3 Heuristics for collaborative learning 25

10:55 -- Break 10

11:05 A4 Conceptualize: learning outcomes 40

11:45 A5 Conceptualize: evidence, examples and patterns

60

12:45 -- Lunch 30

13:15 A6 Conceptualize: storyboard 45

14:00 A7 Author: use the WebCollage tool to create a detailed prototype of your collaborative learning activity

45

14:45 -- Break 10

14.55 Implement: produce a runnable activity in a VLE

30

15:25 A8 Heuristic evaluation 35

16:00 A9 Wrap up 15

16:15 A10 Evaluate 15


Workshop activity structure

1 Introduction (15 minutes) The facilitators introduce the workshop, the Metis project and the Integrated Learning Design Environment (ILDE) http://ilde.upf.edu/ou/.

The ILDE’s Learning Design Project functionality that participants will use within the workshop will be described.

http://ilde.upf.edu/ou/

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2 How to ruin a collaborative learning activity (15 minutes)

2.1 Participant resources (per team) A1 sheets of paper 3 Post-Its packs per team Marker pens in black, red, blue and green Student personas Slides with title beginning ‘A2’

2.2 Instructions

In this activity you will think about factors that can cause a collaborative learning activity to fail.

1. Individually, write down 3 (or more) ways to ensure that an activity you are designing will fail! Write each on an individual Post-It (5 minutes);

2. As a team, place all your Post-Its on a sheet of A1 paper and structure them in a way that seems useful (e.g. by themes or arrange into a map) (10 minutes).

(During or after the workshop a facilitator will upload a picture of your representation of ways to ruin a collaborative learning activity to your project within the ILDE. Please feel free to upload other images during the workshop).

2.3 Activity output

A representation of ways to ‘ruin a collaborative learning activity’. This representation will be used as a starting point for the development of heuristics for successful collaborative activities in Activity 3.


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3 Heuristics for collaborative learning (25 minutes)15 minutes team work, 10 minutes plenary.

3.1 Participants’ resources (per team) A1 sheets of paper 2 Post-Its packs per team (one in blue, one in yellow) Marker pens in black, red, blue and green Slides with title beginning ‘A3’ Student personas Examples of heuristics Use of ILDE (for capture of results)

3.2 Instructions1. Individually, think about how you would avoid ruining a

collaborative learning activity. Write down 2 or more heuristics (guidelines or ‘rules of thumb’) that a collaborative activity should adhere to for your particular teaching and learning context.

Some example heuristics have been supplied: you can adopt and/or modify these

Write each heuristic on a separate Post-it (5 minutes);2. Collaborate with the others on your team by placing your Post-Its

on an A1 page. Arrange them in some order or map, and identify a few key guidelines or heuristics that you believe a successful collaborative learning activity should follow. One member of the team should add the heuristics to your Heuristic Evaluation page within the ILDE (10 minutes);

3. Each team will then present its heuristics to the whole workshop. Please focus on describing the key heuristics as you will only have 3 minutes to present! (10 minutes in total, your team will have about 3 minutes).

Use the Heuristic Evaluation template within your ILDE project to collect your heuristics.


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3.3 Activity outputA set of heuristics. These heuristics will be used as one of the design evaluation tools in a mid-way design review (Activity 6), and for your design prototype (Activity 9).


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4 Conceptualize: Learning outcomes (40 minutes)

4.1 Participants’ resources (per team) A1 sheets of paper 2 sets of OULDE Post-Its pack number 3 ‘Aligning Outcomes-

Assessments-Activities and Visualising Learning Designs’ Document listing verbs and phrases for describing collaborative

activity learning outcomes ( e.g. words such as debate, discuss, perform, motivate, engage, co-create, contribute, share, build, design etc.).

Marker pens in black, red, blue and green Print out of slides describing the Learning Outcomes View Access to ILDE to load representations of the results Slides with title beginning ‘A4’ including the activity verbs and

phrases

4.2 InstructionsIn this activity, working individually and as a team, you will describe your vision for a collaborative learning activity by focusing on the effects that the activity is intended to have on learners (note that the focus of a later activity ‘Conceptualize: Storyboard’ is on how these effects will be achieved).

You will use the OULDI Post-Its packs to create a Learning Outcomes View for a collaborative activity. The Learning Outcomes view is a notational view which illustrates how the learning activities and assessment tasks are aligned with the intended learning outcomes of the course or module. The view is informed by Biggs’ work on Constructive Alignment (Biggs, 1999).

Use these Post-its from the OULDI Post-Its pack:

Learning outcome(s)

Learners’ output for formative or summative assessment

Activity undertaken by the learner

Process:

1. Listen to the introduction to the Learning Outcomes View and this activity (2 minutes);


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2. Individually write down one or more learning outcomes for a collaborative learning activity, each on a separate Learning Outcome Post-Its. Use at least one of the verbs and phrases particularly relevant to collaborative learning per learning outcome (these are supplied on a slide and in print). (3 minutes);

3. As a team, collaborate to choose and refine one or more learning outcomes that your activity will produce (10 minutes);

4. Individually, each write down one or more outputs a learner could produce to show that they have reached one or more of these outcomes. Use a separate Learner Output Post-Its for each output. (5 minutes);

5. As a team, collaborate to choose and refine the definition of the learner outputs (10 minutes);

6. As a team, collaborate to produce a Learning Outcomes View on an A1 sheet of paper, illustrating the relationships between learners' outputs and learning outcomes (10 minutes).(During or after the workshop the facilitator will upload a picture of your Learning Outcome View to your project within the ILDE. Please feel free to upload other images during the workshop).

4.3 Activity outputThe teams’ Learning Outcomes View shared on paper (e.g. affixed to the wall) and via the ILDE.


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5 Conceptualize: Evidence, examples and patterns of Collaborative Learning (60 minutes)

5.1 Participants’ resources (per team) Printed copies of the Collaborative Learning Patterns

(Hernández-Leo, Asensio-Pérez, Dimitriadis, & Villasclaras, 2010) Printed copies of summaries of the case studies in “Review of the

Strategic Use of FORUMs on Modules and Qualifications” (Thorpe & Norwood, 2013)

2 Post-Its packs (one in pink and one in green) Access to ILDE to allow results to be shared

5.2 InstructionsIn this activity, working individually and as a team, you will:

1. Listen to the presentations about the case studies and patterns, and whilst doing so, think about if and how they could be applied to your teaching (35 minutes);

2. As individuals, think about which features of the examples and patterns could be applied to your teaching context and used to support your learners reach the learning outcomes you specified in Activity 4 “Conceptualize: Learning outcomes”. Keep in mind the heuristics and ways to ruin an activity you

identified in activities 2 and 3. Pick one or more of the patterns or case studies, and for your

chosen one(s) write down “pros” on green Post-Its, and “cons” on pink Post-Its and attach them to the relevant print out (5 minutes);

3. As a team, use the annotated print outs as prompts to discuss and agree on features of the patterns and examples that you can make use of. Nominate a note taker to describe the pros and cons and other features you think will be useful. There is a Google Document within your team’s project in the ILDE for this purpose. (20 minutes).

Use the ‘Notes on examples and patterns’ document within your ILDE project to describe the pros and cons and other features you think will


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be useful.

5.3 Activity outputNotes on potentially useful design features added to the ILDE.


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6 Conceptualize: Storyboard (45 minutes)

6.1 Participants’ resources (per team) A1 sheets of paper 2 sets of OULDE Post-Its pack number 3 ‘Aligning Outcomes-

Assessments-Activities and Visualising Learning Designs’ Marker pens in black, red, blue and green Print out of slides describing the Learning Outcomes View ILDE access to view your and other teams’ heurristics.

6.2 InstructionsIn this activity, working individually and as a team, you will use the OULDI Post-Its packs to create a storyboard describing how your collaborative activity will run.

1. Listen to the introduction to the Storyboard view (5 minutes);2. Collaborate to layout your storyboard (25 minutes);

Issues/questions to think about include:

a. Which parts of the activity should be synchronous, and which should be asynchronous?

b. Which pattern(s) can be used to help support your planned collaboration?

c. Which tools have the right affordances for your activity?Remember to reflect on the heuristics you created in Activity 3 and use them to guide your design. (You can also check it against other teams’ heuristics in the ILDE).

3. Present your storyboard to the workshop (15 minutes, about 5 minutes per team).(During or after the workshop the facilitator will upload a picture of your Storyboard to your project within the ILDE. Please feel free to upload other images during the workshop).

6.3 Activity outputThe teams’ storyboards shared through presentation and upload to ILDE.


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7 Author: use the WebCollage tool to create a detailed prototype of your collaborative learning activity (45 minutes)

7.1 Participants’ resources (per team) Computer with access to WebCollage Large monitor so that everyone in the team can see what the

author is doing Role cards for the team participants (Media Specialist, Academic,

Module manager, Accessibility specialist) WebCollage worksheet (example) Slides with title beginning ‘A7’

7.2 InstructionsIn this activity, working as a team, you will use WebCollage to create a detailed description specifying how your collaborative activity will run.

1. Listen to the introduction to WebCollage (10 minutes);2. Given that there is limited time available for this activity, you

may want to select a portion of your storyboard to author – the facilitators will help you with this. (5 minutes);

3. Use WebCollage to select the pattern that is most relevant to the storyboard. (5 minutes);

4. Customise the pattern to produce the first stage authored sequence. User of WebCollage thinks-aloud during creation while other participants feed in suggestions based on their own role in the module team and other roles (e.g. those on the supplied role cards). (15 minutes);

5. Note any issues related to your role in the Google document within your team’s ILDE project (5 minutes);

6. Finalise the WebCollage prototype for presentation to other participants during the next activity. (10 minutes)

7.3 Activity outputA WebCollage prototype in the ILDE.


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8 Implement your activity in a VLE (30 minutes)

8.1 Participants’ resources (per team) Computer with access to ILDE Large monitor so that everyone in the team can see what the

author is doing WebCollage prototpe from activity 7 Slides with title beginning ‘A8’

8.2 InstructionsThis activity will focus on demonstrating that the prototypes produced in WebCollage can be converted into runnable activities within a working Moodle system.

1. Listen to the introduction to GluePS. (10 minutes);2. The facilitators will select one of the prototypes and show how it

can be converted to a runnable activity in Moodle. (15 minutes) (If there is time, facilitators will support other teams to complete conversions of their designs.); &

3. The facilitators will review the ways in which the Moodle implementation can be refined in WebCollage or other tools. (5 minutes).

8.3 Activity outputA runnable activity in Moodle.


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9 Heuristic evaluation (35 minutes)

9.1 Participants’ resources (per team) The design of another team The other team’s evaluation heuristics (i.e. the output from

Activities 2 and 3). Background to heuristic evaluation

http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/methods-and-methodologies/heuristic-evaluation (printed copy)

Slides with title A9.

9.2 InstructionsHeuristic evaluation originates in usability research, as a technique for early formative evaluation of digital systems. A team of experts is asked to assess a particular design using a given set of heuristics or “rules of thumb”. In this activity, your team will split into two groups. One group will evaluate another team’s design, the other group will make themselves available to answer any questions that may arise as your team’s design is evaluated by another team.

1. As a team, select a view or representation of your design that summarises its features. For example, you could choose WebCollage’s ‘Summary View’, or your Storyboard (5 minutes);

2. Make your chosen representation available to another team, i.e. display the selected ILDE view on your team’s monitor or display the storyboard (5 minutes);

3. One group from your team should carry out a heuristic evaluation of another team’s design, using the heuristics provided, and bearing in mind all the heuristics identified in this workshop. Fill in the scoring sheet within the heuristic evaluation document to summarise your findings.

(10 minutes) 4. Each group of evaluators will present its evaluation to the

workshop (you will have about 5 minutes per group, so lead with the most important points) . (15 minutes)

9.3 Activity outputCompleted Heuristic Evaluation scoring sheet in the ILDE.


http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/methods-and-methodologies/heuristic-evaluation

http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/methods-and-methodologies/heuristic-evaluation

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10 Wrap up (15 minutes)The facilitators will conclude the workshop by describing how participants can find out more about learning design in general and the ILDE in particular. The facilitators invite participants to discuss their intentions and timescales for progressing towards enacting their own learning designs using the ILDE.

In addition, we value your feedback on both the ILDE and the workshop so invite you to kindly complete the evaluation questionnaire.


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11 Evaluate (15 minutes)We value your feedback and need you to kindly complete the evaluation questionnaire.

11.1 Participants’ resources (per individual) The Metis evaluation questionnaire :

http://www.itd.cnr.it/Metis/questionnaire.html

11.2 InstructionsComplete the questionnaire! (Thank you).




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12 ReferencesBiggs, J. (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education

Research & Development, 18(1), 57-75.Brasher, A. (2015). Metis deliverable D3.4: Final workshops packages: a meta-design for

workshops for different educational levels and education contexts Hernández-Leo, D., Asensio-Pérez, J. I., Dimitriadis, Y., & Villasclaras, E. D. (2010). Appendix:

A CSCL scripting pattern language. In P. Goodyear & S. Retalis (Eds.), E-learning, design patterns and pattern languages: Sense Publishers.

Thorpe, M., & Norwood, L. (2013). Review of the Strategic Use of FORUMs on Modules and Qualifications. Retrieved 20/6/2014, from https://intranet7.open.ac.uk/collaboration/iet-learning-design-best-practice/Forums/E210%20level%202%20Extending%20professional%20practice%20in%20the%20early%20years%20accessible%20version.doc


https://intranet7.open.ac.uk/collaboration/iet-learning-design-best-practice/Forums/E210%20level%202%20Extending%20professional%20practice%20in%20the%20early%20years%20accessible%20version.doc



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