Group work helps to strengthen learners’ knowledge and understanding of issues. It has long been used in face-to-face instruction to improve cognitive learning among the students as it not only provides practical experience and allows students to practice the concepts they have learned, but also enables learners to examine topics from the perspectives of others.

Just because it’s online doesn’t mean you have to discard the group work. Not only are group assignments a good excuse for some additional peer interaction and engagement but they allow your students to showcase their different strengths and interests. We can’t deny that the fact that being social significantly enhances learning.

To keep online group work manageable, try breaking projects up into multiple steps with smaller assignments, create opportunities for student groups to interact online, and encourage students to collaborate using file-sharing or comment functions as in edWaves courses’ discussions.

Also some best practices for teamwork in online courses that the instructors can do are to Intentionally create teams, keep groups small and odd, set clear expectations for individual contributions, create a virtual group space, monitor online group space, and develop a peer feedback system.

edWaves enables smoother interactions in the online class and gives the opportunity for better collaboration in a virtual workplace that impacts both group interaction and dynamics.