Participating in group projects can be difficult enough, especially if it focuses on online group work. The complexities of today’s technology create even more challenges when it comes to collaboration with others online do due certain communication limitations. Here are a few techniques and resources that can be used in order to increase online communication and successfully collaborate with others in a group for a group project.
- Get to know your group members – Knowing your group members is one of the most important steps to being a successful online group member. Establishing relationships with group members can eliminate the possibility of misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The sooner you can become comfortable with your group members, the easier it will be to communicate and share ideas. This can lead to the discovery of everybody’s different strengths and skills which will be valuable information when doing the project.
- Understand the assignment – After the instructor assigns the project, it is very important that everyone in the group has the same goals. If everybody discusses their interpretation of the assignment, everyone can gain an understanding of the common goals of what wants to be achieved. This allows everybody to initially come up with an agreement, which helps the project run smoothy.
- Assign Roles – Breaking down the project into manageable parts can be very helpful and can have a major impact the outcome. Success will not come if only one person does the entire project. After the demands of the project are analyzed, assigning roles and responsibilities allows everyone to complete their own individual assignments. This can relieve some stress and enables everyone to fully contribute to the project. Establishing expectations among all group members will make it clear what is expected of everyone which can further establish group consistency and organization.
Additional Resources:
- Scheduling Tools – Doodle, When2Meet, BuckeyeMail Calendar
- Discussion/Video Conferencing – GroupMe, Appear.in, Skype, Zoom