Do group (team) activities in online classes have any academic value?

I hear you, TJ... Those are two of the biggest collaborative messes ever made.

 

The only team project I have had for my online classes has been with National University in a forensic pathology class. There were six of us in the group and the professor chose the groups based on the education and work history the students listed in the first introductory discussion post. We had to translate the autopsy of Ronald Goldman into plain English, and everyone was involved through the whole process. It was a good experience and I believe the project had academic value, but I can see how the team assignment can be less beneficial if everyone is not involved.

 

What are the problems with Wikipedia? I understand that it is unreliable due to its open nature. Are there other issues as well?

 

The biggest problem with Wikipedia is that terms itself "The Free Encyclopedia," when it is NOT an encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is really a massive topical discussion community, that is largely unedited / unreviewed by subject matter experts.

Of course, Wikipedia can be changed by anyone at anytime; however, not everyone knows enough to authenticate the information on any page. Hence, Wikipedia is useful only as a last resort on any subject, mostly pop culture.

Probably the most insidious feature of Wikipedia is that the pages are subject to vandalism. For example, it is possible to go the Chihuahua page, under the famous Chihuahuas heading, and add Nancy Pelosi with a link to her Speaker of the House page; assuming this information is incorrect , it could take days or weeks for that page to be corrected.

Moreover, Wikipedia pages are full of grammatical mistakes... If ever you have time to kill, copy / paste Wikipedia pages into MS Word and then make the corrections in Wikipedia; you'll stay busy for the rest of your natural life.

In sum, Wikipedia is just for fun and should almost never be referenced in a college paper, if other edited sources for a topic are available.

 

Hi 1MP4Life, what that a team project for an online class?

 

How is this different though than working on a actual team in a business context? I wonder.

 

Bump. I'm bumping this because the poll is still open and more responses could make this poll more useful...

 

It was a team project for an online introductory forensic pathology course.

 

In my entire career as a college student, I only had one experience in a group project. It was at a "brick and mortar" school in a masters level criminal justice management class. We had to do a pre-accredidation study of a juvenile detention facility. The project had its interesting aspects. In general, though, I disliked the experience. One person in the group did nothing. The "twentysomethings" in the group were not used to working with other people and were pushy and sometimes unpleasant. With the exception of the one lazy person, we worked hard and got a collective "A." I would rather not do a group project ever again. I can only imagine how horrible they must be online!

 

I already responded ("sometimes" -- for once I chose the middle value). A well-chosen group project with sufficient instructor control or delegation of same:firedevil: can be effective. A program built around group projects would be too much.

Phillip

 

OK, thanks... So National University does not require team projects in every course?

 

This poll is still open. I would like to encourage folks to take the poll so the results can be more representative of Degreeinfo readership.

 

Bumping this to the top to get a few more respondents.

 

They would be very valuable if one could draw good team members. For me, that never seemed to happen; they always drove down our grade. That's what sucks about team projects, especially if you previously had a good grade in the class that is damaged by poor teammates. A team project with individual grading might be more equitable.

 

That was the only class I had in the Forensic Science program that required a group project.

 

Exactly, Michael. Some schools advertise that team work is pretty much the main thing you get out of their MBA program. On the other hand, MBA students often remark that team projects "suck beyond belief" and are "soul crushing"...

TUI University doesn't have any team projects and the students seem to love the MBA program, without having to pretend that "team projects" were fun and flexible, which they are not.

There is a huge philosophy difference in DL about team work, so I hope can get more respondents to this convenience sampled poll.

 

The DL group activities poll is closed now. Two out of thirty-two respondents in this unscientific poll thought group activities were a highly valuable part of an online class.

When 6.25% of your customers are delighted with your service, that should tell you something...

 

I'm in the middle of my "study group" projects - six in total, due on a weekly basis. The first week 4 of our 6 people group never answered emails, so I ended up doing 50% of the material. 2nd week only three people worked. 3rd week, exactly as the first one: 2 people working.

Of course, we contacted the professor and the feedback we got was: the word needs to be delivered, it doesn't matter who works on it and who doesn't.

Just a big waste of time and energy.

 

One of the toughest things for me to overcome as a distance learner has been how to collaborate with other students and teachers. What sort of tools have you all used to work together in group projects or other collaborative learning settings?

I've used Google tools in the past but wasn't hugely impressed, but recently have been trying out ProofMe (www.proofme.com) and have been pretty impressed. The free accounts have 5gb of storage space with no limits on the number people who can edit and access documents. It integrates pretty well with other online storage websites like Dropbox and Onedrive and has sharing capabilities with almost all social media outlets. I think it would be really good for marketing courses where you need multiple people working on a product design all at the same time and giving feedback on others' work.