In this blog post I will write about some factors that I think are important to get successful collaborative learning, regardless of if the collaboration is online or not.

The first thing is the importance of motivation. According to the article Motivation to learn in massive open online courses by Miri Barak, Abeer Watted and Hossam Haick,  motivation is part of a person’s objectives and beliefs about what is important or not. It determines whether a person will have a certain interest or be engaged in a certain activity. Motivation is what keeps us striving to reach a goal. One of the factors to get a successful collaboration learning is therefor to have a clear goal which also is discussed as one of the design principles associated with successful (online) discussion in the article Online collaborative learning by Anthony William (Tony) Bates. When people are supposed to collaborate it’s not just one person that needs a clear goal, but the whole group needs to have the same goal so that the whole group can stay motivated to stay focused.

When formulating the goal for the collaboration I think that groups preferably can formulate the goals as S.M.A.R.T goals. The ”S” part stand for that the goal shall be Specific. To get a specific goal you can ask yourself ”What exactly are we supposed to achieve?”. To obtain a specific goal the group can for example brainstorm around a problem and together try to break down the problem into smaller parts which eventually can be categorized and form av specific goal for the collaboration. The ”M” part stand for Measurable, which means that the group identifies exactly what it is you will see, hear and feel when you reach your goal, i.e how does the group know when it is done. The ”A” part stands for Attainable which means that the goal is agreed on and is reachable for example does the group have the relevant resources to reach the goal. The ”R” part stands for Relevant, i.e. is the goal relevant to you and the group. Do you feel motivated to spend time and effort to reach the goal. The ”T” part stands for Time, which means that the group will have to specify when in time the goal shall be achieved.

The survey that we took before the webinar for Topic 3 showed that one of the greatest things to reach a successful collaboration is Communication. Communication is about someone who says something (the sender) to one or more people (the receivers). In the article 9 effective communication skills by Habits for Wellbeing, the authors say that communication is more than just words. It’s also about how you say it, why you say it, when you say it, what you don’t say and what your body language say. The same article lists nine skills that make communication effective:

1. Active listening. Listen with your whole body, try not to interrupt to much.
2. Non-verbal communication, i.e. what you for example tell with body language
3. Asking questions. Asking questions shows you are interested in what the sender is saying.
4. Being clear, articulate and concise
5. The receiver(s) can clarify and summarize what was said. This shows that you have listened to what was said and that you have understood what the sender was trying to tell you.
6. Being empathetic. Try to understand and share the feelings of the other.
7. Providing feedback. It’s difficult both giving and receiving feedback.
8. Developing trust. What is trust to you?
9. Being present. For example be accepting, allow life as it is.