Achieving collaboration in e-learning

Group work in e-learning systematically develops the so-called soft skills: active listening, clear written and oral expression, giving and receiving feedback, assertiveness, negotiation and conflict management. Since digital channels filter out some of the non-verbal signals, the skills of explicit articulation and metacommunication become especially important, so it is necessary to agree on communication rules such as responses within a certain number of hours and emergency channels, the use of structured feedback forms and the valuable habit of summarising and sharing notes after each meeting.

Meetings using videoconferencing tools allow for practice of short, clear presentations and facilitate discussion through asking questions, paraphrasing and linking members' contributions. Asynchronous channels such as forums and document comments encourage practice of argumentation and a writing style adapted to the audience.

Group roles serve as training positions for specific skills. Systematically introducing rubrics for communication, such as criteria for active listening, substantiating claims with sources and encouraging others, makes expectations transparent and known in advance.

Additionally, digital traces of student group activities such as recordings, transcripts and comment history, and changes to shared documents, allow for self-assessment and shared evaluation of communication. Practicing netiquette, taking care of accessibility through subtitles or preparing materials with increased contrast (and thus readability for students with disabilities), and clear message structures foster both professionalism and humanity in the digital environment.

Examples

Feedback workshop 

At the beginning of the semester, the groups undergo a short training session using a videoconferencing tool chosen by the teacher and practice giving feedback (e.g. in SBI form) through role playing. The session ends with micro-exercises of giving feedback on short video presentations of colleagues with a joint reflection on tone and clarity. The training is structured in three steps: demonstration by example, guided exercise in small groups and application to your own work. Each trainee receives a checklist that includes checking the concreteness of the feedback, the balance of the positive and corrective part, and a suggestion for the next step. The meeting is recorded for self-assessment, and wording that encourages collaboration is extracted from the transcript, for example questions that open possibilities instead of closing the discussion. At the end, a common language and tags to be used in the comments in the documents are agreed on, so that the feedback is transparent and consistent throughout the semester.

Argumentation forum

Every week, students conduct a structured discussion in the e-course forum activity. Post A contains a thesis and at least two sources, post B is a constructive response with a summary and one new source, and post C is a summary of that discussion with a proposal for further necessary steps for the group. Moderators (students) rotate every week. The moderator of the week opens the topic with a clear framework and a reminder of the citation rules. The rubric scores the relevance of the source, clarity of the argument, connection to previous discussions, and proposed action. To avoid repetition, before posting, the system requires the author to include a sentence referring to at least one previous post. Every 14 days, the discussion texts are exported and transferred to a shared document on Google Docs and jointly commented on and further edited for use as an example for future generations.