Community-Building and Group Negotiation Process in Computer-Mediated-Communication: An American-German Teacher Education Project from the Student Teacher's Perspective

Carolin Fuchs

April 23, 2003, 1600 GMT

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< cfuchs> Hi Joanne!
< Joanne> Hi!
< Joanne> Yay!
< cfuchs> I'm Carolin
< Joanne> I'm Joanne. Lovely to meet you
< cfuchs> Great to meet you too
< cfuchs> sorry i'm late
< cfuchs> but I had tremendous server problems
< Joanne> It's ok. I'm just glad you found it.
< Joanne> Yes, that is always the tricky part.
< cfuchs> oh yes
< cfuchs> Where are you located?
< Joanne> I'm in New Jersey in the US
< cfuchs> I'm in Germany
< cfuchs> Are you a teacher?
< Joanne> Awww.. my husband travels to Germany a lot for business. He loves it. I've not gotten to visit -- yet. :)
< Joanne> Yes I teach computer science classes in an online environment.
< cfuchs> Germany is really nice this time of year. What levels are you teaching?
< Joanne> I teach pretty much undergraduate students.
< cfuchs> I used to teach English and German at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in CA.
< Joanne> smiles
< cfuchs> Well, did you get to read my paper by any chance?
< Joanne> So I have to confess I've not read your paper yet, but I'm very interested in building an online community.... and I am just dead awlful at group interactions... so I wanted to hear how you did those.
< cfuchs> Well....it was quite an adventure!
< Joanne> smiles
< cfuchs> We basically had six transatlantic groups
< cfuchs> consisting of 3-4 students in Germany plus 2 in Monterey
< cfuchs> The local groups in Germany and Monterey got along pretty well whereas
< cfuchs> there were a zillion problems when they collaborated with their transatlantic partners.
< Joanne> Wow....
< cfuchs> And, surprisingly, problems
< cfuchs> involved a lot of cross-cultural and linguistic issues despite
< cfuchs> the students' high level of English proficiency. (Sorry - I'm forgetting to put the...if I want to continue.)
< Joanne> smiles
< Joanne> The students were roughly the same age?
< cfuchs> Students in Germany were between their early and late 20ies...
< cfuchs> students in Monterey in their mid-20ies to mid-30ies (teacher education program)
< Joanne> (just popped open your paper in another window)
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< cfuchs> Hello cb
< Joanne> So not a big difference in age... just a difference in cultures. That's surprising to me.
< cb> hi , I'm just popping in to see what is happening..
< cfuchs> Where are you cb?
< cb> australia and it is very late indeed
< cfuchs> Joanne: yes, and most students had had prior cross-cultural experience
< cb> is this a formal chat session- sorry to disturb you both?
< cfuchs> Yes, but please, be my guest!
< cb> haven't done my homework on your paper yet:-), but cross cultural stuff sounds very interesting
< Joanne> So there were experienced teachers on one side... and student teachers on the other.. trying to cooperate to create a joint Web page with First Class! Wow!
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< cfuchs> Yes. Are you dealing with online only? Or do you use a mix of online instruction and traditional classroom instruction?
< cfuchs> Hi Lori_B!
< Lori_B> Hello
< Lori_B> At our college we are dealing with both modalities.
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< cfuchs> We were chatting about group formation and related problems in the absence of FTF
< Joanne> No, ours is online only.
< cfuchs> Wow!
< cfuchs> So what kind of problems do you run into with online only?
< Lori_B> Students seem to expect that there will be no synchronous or group activities in an onine course.
< Joanne> Well I guess like your participants, things start up fast. Students don't have a heck of a lot of time to get to know each other.
< Joanne> So then to throw them into a group... sometimes they get cranky. They want to work alone.
< cfuchs> Yes.
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< Lori_B> Yes, we do that. One of our professors gives students the option to work independantly. what do you think of that practice?
< cfuchs> But do they have to collaborate on a common project?
< cfuchs> Lori: I think that's a great idea...
< cfuchs> ...based on our experience, the groups who were most successful in their collaboration...
< Joanne> In some classes yes, there are group projects. *listens to how you did with your group*
< cb> just had a quick read of your paper- even without the cultural and language differences doing wholly online team projects is 'tricky' I think
< cfuchs> ...were the ones who worked out a common goal and project plans but then divided up the tasks so that local groups (who were able to meet FTF) could work independently or even individually.
< cfuchs> cb: Agreed.
< cfuchs> But is this group work truly collaborative then?
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< Joanne> I believe so, yes. They have a final project and just need to divide up the pieces to be done.
< cfuchs> Right.
< cfuchs> I guess the main question I have is...
< Joanne> I just have run into all sorts of personality things.... students sending me private emails to complain about other ones who don't keep up the workload
< cfuchs> ...how much interdependence should online group projects involve?
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< Joanne> Your groups really pulled together?
< cfuchs> In terms of the final website, yes.
< cfuchs> It was a lot of cliff-hanging and nailbiting at first, though.
< cfuchs> The group in my paper...
< cfuchs> ...is the one that had the most problems with the collaboration.
< cfuchs> There were others who were more successful.
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< cfuchs> Thanks for visiting!
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< Joanne> Did you do something you think contributed more to the group success, or was it something that just seemed to happen by themselves?
< cfuchs> Good question. Teachers on both ends and myself had to do a lot of clarifying...
< Joanne> nods
< cfuchs> ...and reiterating of course goals and expectations all along. But I think what...
< cfuchs> ...distinguished the more successful groups from the less successful ones in terms of establishing a sense of community...
< cfuchs> ...was either the use of chat for exchanging private mails...
< cfuchs> ...or exchanging lots of private messages via email.
< cfuchs> I think what we learned from this experience was...
< cfuchs> ...that chat should definitely play a major role in the beginning when teams have to get to know each other.
< cfuchs> There should...
< cfuchs> probably be some kind of chat task involved even. But you don't really deal with synchronous communication in your teaching, right?
< Joanne> Hmmm...isn't that interesting? Just like in f2f where you meet after class for coffee... the out of class communication was the thing the connected people in your group.
< cfuchs> Yes, very interesting!
< Joanne> No, right now it's all asynchonous. I try to offer chat for office hours... but few to no students seem to log in
< cfuchs> That seems strange, don't you think?
< Joanne> Yes, I do. I think I would welcome a chance to talk online with a prof... with other students in the class...
< Joanne> Time differences can make it all very tough though
< cfuchs> Yes, it's a completely different ball game. Yes - where are your students from?
< Joanne> They can be from all over. I have many students in the US, but some in Hawaii, then out in Turkey, Israel, Germany....
< cfuchs> That's hard in terms of coordinating chat times. Our students had to deal with a 9-hour time difference and that's why not all of them managed to chat.
< Joanne> nods
< Joanne> Did you assign the Web page tasks or did the local groups each pick which part they would do?
< cfuchs> They got to pick. All we required was something CMC-related...
< Joanne> Oh! And if this is graded, did they get graded for participating in some chat type thing?
< cfuchs> ...at the meta-level.
< cfuchs> No, they were only graded...
< Joanne> nods
< cfuchs> ...based on the presentation of their joint project, i.e. each of the 6 groups presented their part in class. In other words,...
< cfuchs> ...students in Germany presented their part and the 6 local groups in Monterey did the same.
< Joanne> nods
< cfuchs> They also had to do a self-assessment at the end of the course and...
< cfuchs> ...write several learning process statements and logs throughout the course of the semester (part of it was for my research).
< cfuchs> I was wondering how you go about creating a sense of community within the teams?
< cfuchs> I.e. how do you start out so that students get to know each other and how do you match them?
< Joanne> Well... sometimes it seems like magick... but I try to have lounge place where they can send messages to each other. I also have an introduction thing where they tell about themselves, share a picture if they want, etc.
< cfuchs> Ah! So the lounge places probably serve the purpose of private chats then?
< Joanne> They usually have one or two assignments due individually before the group project time... so I try to put some really experienced programmers with some newer ones to hope they will help each other out.
< cfuchs> Ok, so you group them based on skills. That makes a lot of sense!
< Joanne> It's private but it's not really, since we all can read it. Many times I try not to interact much in the lounge, and let them talk about whatever.... When a community clicks, the lounge has lots of entries. I have one class presently... the lounge boar
< Joanne> The lounge board is completely empty. :(
< cfuchs> :-(
< cfuchs> Now, do you think that we can avoid all these problems that we've talked about? I mean...
< cfuchs> ...it seems like all we can do is some awareness-raising regarding expectations...
< Joanne> nods
< cfuchs> ...but I don't think that teachers can trouble-shoot everything. (I've done 4 projects of this nature so far and there are still so many problems...)
< cfuchs> What do you think?
< Joanne> Yes, I agree. All we can do as teachers is to pick up tricks that might work, learn from mistakes, and I guess keep trying...
< cfuchs> :-)))
< Joanne> smiles
< cfuchs> How do you manage the time-consuming nature of online teaching, though?
< Joanne> Erm... *laughs* .... I drink coffee :) It sure is a lot of work.
< cfuchs> Yes!
< Joanne> I hate when students complain that they haven't heard from me in two days... when in a f2f class they might not see their teacher for another week. The whining students are a bother. :)
< cfuchs> Yes, it's very frustrating if it doesn't work out the way we expect it.
< Joanne> Yes
< Joanne> Well this has been really a wonderful session! I will try offering my students more chat options in the future and see if they bite.
< Joanne> Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me.
< cfuchs> It was great meeting you! I got a lot of interesting ideas from you. Please don't hesitate to contact me...
< Joanne> Oh thank you!
< cfuchs> ...via email if you have any further questions. I'm always happy to share these experiences and receive input from others!
< Joanne> Might I have your e-mail address? I do not see it listed on the paper.
< cfuchs> Oh, it's not on the paper? Well, in that case:
< cfuchs> carolin.fuchs@zmi.uni-giessen.de or cfuchs@miis.edu
< Joanne> Thank you!
< cfuchs> Sure. Anytime. Thank you so much for joining this chat!
< Joanne> Let me skoot to the next session! Have a lovely evening!
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< cfuchs> It was great talking to you!
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TCC 2003 Online Conference
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