Share Paper: Building Collaborative Learning Communities in Online Courses

1. Funda Ergulec, Indiana University, United States

Abstract: In order to understand effective strategies for forming online groups, this instrumental case study examines students’ collaboration experiences and perceptions of a purposeful group assignment and team-building process in an online graduate class in order to gain a better understanding of effective grouping strategies in online environment. The study was conducted in a web-delivered graduate level course in Education department and data were collected in the form of discussion records, student reflections on their collaborative works, and student interviews, as well as the instructors’ reflections.