I can sense the hesitation from here: “But Rachael, group work is hard enough to do in my face-to-face class. How could I possibly get it to work online?”

Well, let’s talk about that!

Start small: group work doesn’t need to be complicated. For each lab activity you assign, ask your students to report their findings in a dedicated discussion board. This could be done within pre-arranged groups or as a class. Then ask students to compare data sets and post their observations and questions. Lively discussions around experimental design and sources of error will soon follow. Depending on the lab, you could even ask your students to analyze the class data as a whole to calculate average values and percentage error.

When you’re ready to up the ante, you can assign projects to smaller groups of students who must work together to deliver a single product. To increase the odds that your groups function smoothly, use LMS analytics to see which students engage early and often with the course, then group these students together. This will reduce some of the friction that comes when one student obsesses over deadlines more than the rest of their group.

Speaking of deadlines, why not have a few? By establishing checkpoints throughout the project, rather than a single due date, you create a framework that helps groups make consistent progress toward their final product. And likely reduce the number of emails about how So-and-So didn’t do their portion of the assignment the night before it’s due.

Have you tried group work in your online classes? How is it going?

We all know the challenge of distance learning microbiology: ensuring students don’t just "check the boxes" on their Carolina Biological kits, but actually synthesize what they’ve learned. To wrap up each semester in my online microbiology course, I’ve moved away from a standard final and toward a "Virtual Microbiology Conference".

The goal is to take those at-home results and treat them with the same gravity as a professional research project. Here is how it works:

The Activity: The Virtual Microbiology Conference

Instead of a final report, students select their most successful (or most interesting) lab investigation from the semester to present to their peers on a discussion board.

The Professional Requirements:

• Conference-Style Slides: Students build a deck covering the full scientific arc: Introduction/Background, Hypotheses, Methods, Results, and Discussion.

• The "So What?" Factor: I require a section on Broader Application, specifically asking how the findings relate to their future career fields (nursing, public health, etc.).

• Audio Voiceover: To mimic a live talk, students must embed an audio narration, practicing the "soft skills" of scientific communication.

• The Peer Review: Using the discussion board, students act as conference attendees by asking questions, providing feedback, and discussing data discrepancies.

Why It Works

It shifts the mindset from student to researcher. By the time they finish, they aren't just saying "bacteria grew on my agar on my agar plate"; they are presenting data in a format they will actually encounter at professional conferences or in their careers. It’s also a great way for them to see the variety of results their classmates got from the same Carolina kits!