Collaborative Learning Techniques, Student Learning Outcomes, and Equal Workload within Groups in Different Teaching Modalities

A Faculty Learning Community comprised of four faculty members evaluated their work of implementing collaborative learning techniques (CoLTs) into their graduate and undergraduate courses that included different teaching modalities (traditional classroom, hybrid, and online). Two research questions were examined: (1) Did students perceive that the implementation of CoLTs facilitated their mastery of course-specific student learning outcomes?; and (2) Did students perceive that their group members worked equally? A total of 133 students participated in this study by filling out a survey asking for their evaluation of mastery of student learning outcomes and peer evaluation of group members' collaborative effort. Results show that the implementation of CoLTs facilitated students' perception that they mastered the course-specific learning outcomes and that the workload was equally distributed among their group members. The contributions of current work and the potential use of the student survey used in this study are discussed.