Science, as a career, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Scientists work in research teams, collaborate with other departments or institutions, and share their work with colleagues around the world. Shouldn’t students practice this collaboration in their lab courses?

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?