Collaboration and Cooperation

While I value the learning achieved through both, I also know the energy level required by the teacher to set up a successful project and keep the groups going. Panitz did a good job of differentiating the two, and I can see that collaboration can be an effective tool for online communities. However, knowing that I need to create carefully crafted collaborative projects as well as ensuring that content is provided, students' learning styles and other needs are met, a community is established, and students/parents/ facilitators are kept informed, sounds like it would take a super-human effort! No wonder the Star Wars theme is appropriate! The one bright spot, however, is that collaboration on projects among students may well create the community, allow others to meet various students' needs, and encourage additional communication/peer teaching to somewhat reduce the load on the instructor of the OLC. (After all, while in a face to face class, everyone may hear a question and answer, or it may be discussed more than once allowing multiple opportunities for success, whereas the online teacher may not be able to provide as many repetitions for all students. Having the record in a threaded discussion, or having other members of a group available to explain may promote more learning.) Of necessity, it seems, teachers of online classes may have to give up the complete control of a cooperative learning experience in a face to face class with a more collaborative approach for online classes.