Online Group Work Design: Processes, Complexities, and Intricacies

This paper describes the challenges of designing and implementing online group work. We are responsible for a seven-and-a-half week’s online literacy and bi-literacy graduate course in a Bilingual/English as a Second Language (BLE/ESL) Master of Arts program. One of the tasks includes online literacy circle exchanges where students are encouraged to create discourse as joint dialogues and make substantive and meaningful contributions to topics. We offer three figures that visualize types of interactions and exchanges representing potential behavioristic, social interdependence, and constructivism tendencies. We discuss both practical and theoretical concerns to elicit students’ engagement in a learning process, not just students’ interactions in completing a task. Online collaborative group work is discussed and developed through critical aspects of salient literature providing potential for innovative implementation and further contemplation within the profession and online communities of learners.