| Online learning is rapidly growing in higher education, providing community colleges in particular with opportunities to change how teaching is practiced and learning is achieved in fundamental ways. Social constructivism has been suggested to have great potential for informing the design of online learning. In particular, adult educators have been interested in the potential of social constructivist based instructional techniques that promote real world applications through collaborative activities. While it is possible that the unique environment of online learning may create an opportunity for community college students to engage in new and potentially more effective online learning activities grounded in social constructivism, success in these efforts rests with the instructional design process carried out by community college professors.; This project, informed by social constructivist thought, focuses specifically on the design and enactment of learning activities which require community college students to collaborate in real world applications of course content in online settings. This study investigated three specific cases of online learning activities, all featuring student collaboration applying course knowledge to real world problems.; A qualitative research methodology was employed to investigate the process used to design collaborative real world online learning activities in the community college due to the current lack of detailed description of this emerging and increasingly popular form of education. Through a multiple case study design, I have explored the process of how community college professors design collaborative real world application activities for online environments, including relationships between design decisions and activity outcomes.; The results of the study identified a set of critical decision points for faculty in the design of collaborative real world application activities and provide insights into effective management techniques to promote quality in online groups, including important emerging group roles and useful metaphors for faculty participation. Critical decision points in the design included: the timing and duration of the activity; the amount of structure provided to students; the grouping strategies employed by professors; the nature of the instructional problem posed to students; and the ways in which group work was graded.; Effective management techniques for collaborative real world application activities in online environments include: identification of an effective metaphor for the instructional role; leveraging the emerging group roles of student leader and student technical support; recognition and support for extended collaboration among students; and acknowledgement of individual student routines and multiple overlapping calendars when planning group work. |
