Group formation

Moderation of a web based collaborative project is a complex task. Bear in mind that groups of students take time to form and this process of group formation has various stages. These stages were originally identified by Tuckman in 1965 as:

• Forming (where the group comes together).
• Storming (where the group sorts out elements of conflict, differences obstacles).
• Norming (where the group agrees on a series of norms or rules that suit it).
• Performing (where the group, which now functions as a group, performs the tasks it formed to do).

These stages require different actions by the teachers, for example promoting activities that help people get to know each other in stage 1, mediation between different positions in stages 2 and 3, facilitation of the conversations in all stages, and so on.

Presence

What is vital is not to underestimate the importance of cultivating a sense of the presence of all the participants in your project. In order to acheive a high interaction between your students two aspects are fundamental:

Another important aspect for your students is to feel that their messages are being read and responded to by you and by other students. This acknowledgment is central to the learners sense of presence, without which demotivation and abandonment are likely outcomes.

Framework for the interaction

Another fundamental aspect is the provision of a framework for the interaction in which the students are to take part. This obviously includes technological issues like the design and functions available in the twinspace or in another collaborative platform, but the “space” is also an administrative and social space, and your students need to know what is expected of them in this space, what behaviours are acceptable and unacceptable and so on. This includes not only the way specific activities and objectives are initially set out and described, but also how teachers intervene in the process of interaction in order to facilitate project process.