Another aspect of constructivist teaching is collaborative learning. Many teachers have an understandable fear that distance learning students will be alienated from one another, but the teachers I interviewed are making an effort to encourage students to collaborate. Cynthia Selfe claims that "computers facilitate group writing, conferencing, and peer review" (32), and my research shows that if the technology is used effectively this statement holds true. The most common form of collaboration found on the syllabi is peer response, but there were two courses that assign group writing projects. One teacher divides the class into "small electronic groups" which "write a group report and electronically share the information with the class, which may include creating Web pages with hypertext links to your findings" (Montecino English 302). Another teacher requires students to form groups that meet throughout the semester: "Each student will be a member of a reading/writing group; the groups may decide to meet in person or on-line" (Crouch English 302).

Nearly all of the teachers require peer response in the form of chat room or bulletin board "workshops," another form of collaborative learning. 75% of the courses have some form of peer response. For those teachers who said they had less collaboration in their distance learning classroom, it was often just a matter of figuring out the technology. As one teacher put it:

There is much more collaboration in the traditional classroom environment....I want to have more collaboration in the virtual environment but have not yet found the proper tool. The next time I teach the DL course...I intend to use a collaborative writing tool over the web. It promises to provide my class with a virtual workspace in which we can write and revise together. (Sheftman)

 

Currents in Electronic Literacy Fall 1999 (2), <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/fall99/melzer/>