High-Impact Practice: Collaborative Assignments and Projects

Collaborative learning combines two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences. Approaches range from study groups within a course, to team-based assignments and writing, to cooperative projects and research. (https://www.aacu.org/leap/hip.cfm)

Resources

• Davidson, Cathy N. “Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 26, 2011, sec. The Chronicle Review.http://chronicle.com/article/Collaborative-Learning-for-the/128789/.

• AAC&U VALUE Rubric (pdf) on Teamwork

• Draft Badging System for Peer Feedback from Cathy Davidson: http://hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/2012/12/29/how-do-you-encourage-peer-feedback-group-projects-heres-my-draft-bad

• See the Team-Based Learning Collaborative for more resources on team-based learning

• Praxis Program (UVA), “Toward a Project Charter

• Group Evaluation Rubric

Tools and Assignments for Collaborative Learning

Wikis, e.g., PBWorks: http://www.pbworks.com

• A wiki is a website whose users can add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often created collaboratively by multiple users. (from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Sample Wiki Assignments

• Wikis in the Classroom by Jason Jones (ProfHacker): http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Wikis-part-2-In-the-clas/22686/

• INQ student Wiki: http://oxmedia.oxford.emory.edu/studentwiki/index.php/Main_Page

• Using the Moodle wiki to create a commonplace book

• Economics brainstorming

 Social Bookmarking and Citations

• Diigo: http://www.diigo.com/

  • Social bookmarking and annotation tool

    • http://www.diigo.com/user/rebeccadavis

  • Sample Assignment: “Bringing Web 2.0 to the Classroom,” on teaching with diigo

  • Try this: start a diigo account and start bookmarking and annotating.

• Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/

  • Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.

  • Brian Croxall’s Annotated Zotero Group Bibliography Assignment: http://www.briancroxall.net/2010/01/18/final-annotated-zotero-group-bibliography-assignment/

  • Try this: Set up a zotero account and start adding items.

A Matrix of Tools for Collaboration from THATCamp DHCollaborate