Use Small Group Discussions to Connect your Students

Positive social interactions and a feeling of connectedness are basic human needs, even online. Students are conscious of how connected they feel with others in their online course and feel like something is missing if they don’t get the chance to interact with their classmates. Because this mostly occurs in the discussion area, it’s important to recognize how certain design considerations can influence the connectedness that students feel. In this post we will specifically focus on group size.

Connectedness in whole class vs. small group discussions

It is often difficult for students to cognitively deal with the number of discussion posts in whole class discussions. The amount of information is so overwhelming that group members have trouble getting to know each other. Students tend to dip into a whole class discussion, get their requirements done, and get out.

Picture working with four or five people in a small meeting room. There are few distractions, and you can have a productive conversation. You can get to know how those people tick while you work through the agenda.  Now imagine attending a large annual academic conference. Interactions there are generally shallow and short as people dip in and out of conversations on their way to this or that panel, constantly distracted by what’s going on elsewhere. Unless you make a point to do so, you rarely talk with the same person for more than a few minutes. Even though you may meet many people, the relationship usually doesn’t go beyond the exchange of business cards.

Think about online discussions in the same way. Overall, whole class discussions generally lead to a low level of connectedness. On the other hand, Akcaoglu, Mete, & Lee found that working in small groups promoted a sense of connectedness that led to increased social interactions among group members. They also found that students in small groups engaged in high quality discussions, and students were able to manage the number of threads that developed.

Student Perspective

In fall 2017, UW MBA Consortium students received a survey asking about the types of discussions they enjoy participating in. A few students shared their thoughts on discussions size:

“It is helpful when the discussions are in smaller groups.  I find it difficult to keep up with 30 different initial posts when discussion pieces are not broken out into groups.”

“The smaller group allows you to read more of the responses and allows you to become familiar with some people in the course.”

Small group strategies

Below are some ideas for leveraging the strength of small group discussions beyond the common “post once, respond twice” types of discussions.

• Be strategic in forming your groups. Although you can have groups created automatically, it may be more strategic to form groups manually. Here are some ideas:
  • Using the introductions to gather data on your students, you may group students who share something in common (i.e. career field, interests, expertise) or form groups of students from different backgrounds to provide different perspectives, depending on your objectives for the discussion.
  • Timeliness is important for every discussion. Form groups based on student availability by creating a survey asking students when they typically post.
• Let the small group produce a deliverable, not just discuss. For example:
  • Assign students to work in small groups on a problem set, case study, data set, etc., then present their strategies and solutions in the whole class discussion area. In a large group discussions, students can compare their strategies and solutions.
• Students can participate in multiple small groups for each discussion in a jigsaw discussion.
  • In a Perspective Jigsaw discussion, students discuss the main question in their own group and then react to other groups’ discussions.
    1. Create a case study/authentic problem related to the concept.
    2. Choose several different possible perspectives to the problem.
    3. Assign each small group a different perspective to discuss.
    4. In their discussion area, students work in small groups to solve the problem from their assigned perspective.
    5. Each group shares how they solved the problem (i.e. write a summary, create a presentation, create an infogram, etc.)
    6. Other groups are given a chance to review, compare, and respond to the other groups’ solutions.
    7. The instructor wraps up the exercise by finding the connections between the solutions presented.
  • In a Problem-solving Jigsaw, students develop expertise in one group, then bring that information back to another group as the “expert.”
    1. Assign each group a topic to develop expertise.
    2. Give the groups time to research the topic in-depth
    3. Re-shuffle the groups so that there is one member from each of the original groups in each new group.
    4. Now have each group analyze and solve a problem concerning the topic with their peer “experts”.
    5. Each group shares how they solved the problem (i.e. write a summary, create a presentation, create an infogram, etc.)
    6. Other groups are given a chance to review, compare, and respond to the other groups’ solutions.
    7. The instructor wraps up the exercise by finding the connections between the solutions presented.

Akcaoglu, Mete, & Lee, Eunbae. (2016). Increasing Social Presence in Online Learning through Small Group Discussions. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(3), 1-17.

Standford University. (n.d.). Sample Small Group Exercises. Retrieved September 14, 2018, from https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/teaching/small-groups-and-discussions/sample-small-group-exercises

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Ashaun Adler

I’m Ashaun Adler and I am an Instructional Designer for iDocs. I attended Iowa State University and earned a Master’s Degree in Curriculum & Instructional Technology and a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education.

My passion is developing instructional activities that make complex ideas simple and interesting to learn.

Outside of work, you can probably find me working on a craft project or learning something new. I enjoy trying new recipes, taking long walks, and playing board games.

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