This is Part III in a series on supporting collaboration in our classrooms. Also see Part I, A Framework for Student Collaboration, and Part II, Connecting Asynchronously - in any modality!

After students have initially connected at the beginning of the year, they can move into academic collaboration. Conrad and Donaldson's framework lays out a few stages for helping students learn to collaborate - but you can use these activities in any order that makes sense for your classes. Again, these are all out-of-classtime activities - perfect for asynchronous classes or homework. Finally, try starting small with this list - maybe one or two items. Although there's lots of good ideas here, trying to change too much at once can feel overwhelming.

Good tech for these phases might include Canvas' Discussion Group feature, social annotation via Hypothes.is, Video discussions via Flipgrid, or a Google tool to work on a shared document.

Phase 2: Communicate. This phase focuses on helping students just connect with each other academically. The instructor is still very much the engineer of the interactions - the students are just practicing exchanging ideas and perhaps coming to a consensus. In this phase, students could be put in very small groups - 2's or 3's - to facilitate communication. Here's some activities to try:

Shared reflection
Brainstorming
Group critique or analysis of an assigned work or case study
peer review/feedback
Exploring one perspective or aspect of an issue in research

Phase 3: Collaborate. After students have practice communicating with each other, they're ready for small group projects. In this phase, students may solve a problem or work to synthesize different pieces of information together. They should still get guidance on how to collaborate, like help with creating team contracts , talking about how they will communicate, or setting group roles (see these and more group work suggestions). These groups should still be small; leverage existing relationships by combining previous pairs into groups of 4-6. Here's some activities to try:

Content discussions. Read more on setting up Discussions here; often the best prompts have no right answer, or ask students to defend an opinion or draw from personal experience.
Research and teaching the class about a small, discrete topic
Preparing for a whole-class debate or role-playing activity
Creating an authentic product

Phase 4: Co-Facilitate. In this phase students lead the learning by choosing and researching topics, presenting information to the class, facilitating whole-group discussions, or doing project-based learning. May be most appropriate for upper level or advanced students.

Alternatively, students could each individually contribute to a whole-class project. This could work well for an asynchronous class, where collaboration can be challenging. Examples of this might be creating a whole-class FAQ (frequently asked questions) sheet, where everyone contributes a question and answer, or whole-class feedback, where students post work in progress and get help from peers. A third example might be a curated resource list, where students post vetted or annotated resources in a shared space.

At the end of the semester, Conrad and Donaldson recommend guiding students through some reflection on the skills they've learned, including interpersonal and self-knowledge skills, and thinking about how they might leverage them beyond the class.

Thanks to SSU Professor Valerie Diggs, whose question sparked this topic, and to all the educators on Twitter who contributed ideas!

Image source: Conrad and Donaldson's framework on Phases of Engagement in an online classroom

Graphic description of Conrad and Donaldson's Phases of Engagement in an online classroom