Post 200:The Benefits of Collaborative Writing among College Students

Post 200: The Benefits of Collaborative Writing Among  Online College Students

Collaborative writing assignments across the curriculum can meet many of the theoretical and practical goals of WAC:

• Collaborative groups draw upon the strengths of all their members. Although one student may be stronger in critical thinking skills, another may excel in organizing. By working in groups, students learn from each other while they complete assigned tasks.
• More and more workplace activities involve project teams. Giving students opportunities to work collaboratively on academic projects can help prepare them for the advantages and pitfalls of collaborative work on the job.
• Students working in collaborative groups can take advantage of group members for built-in peer review as they complete writing projects.
• Not least important, collaborative writing assignments usually entail much less grading time for the instructor.

Not all writing assignments can be converted from individual writing tasks to group writing tasks, nor should they all. But at least some writing tasks work best in collaborative groups. (From the WAC Clearing House Website)

In my online English Composition classes, I design peer editing exercises in the forums/discussion forums. Students post their rough drafts into the discussion forum and then students comment/peer edit each other's rough drafts. In this way, students reinforce the core concepts of the Writing Process and how to write a 5 paragraph essay structure. The stronger writers in the class helps the weaker writers improve their rough drafts so the weaker students can get a higher writing grade. Some online teachers don't give any feedback at all in these peer-editing forums and just let students interact among themselves--thus giving writing teachers less grading to do!

Most students enjoy the peer editing part of the writing class because online classes can be quite isolating and interacting with other students problem solving by helping students improve each other's writing creates a community of learning and helps gives students otherwise isolated and alone in the online classroom, a sense of belonging. Students bond with each other and develop trust in the teacher and other students. Most importantly, they develop confidence in their own writing skills as students take ownership of their own learning while the teacher acts as a facilitator in a student centered online writing classroom.