Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

Sequencing Collaborative Activities in an Online Graduate ProgramKatsuaki Suzuki
Kumamoto University, Japanksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Junko Nemoto
Kumamoto University, Japan
nemoto@kumamoto-u.ac.jp

Atsue Takeoka
Kyushu University, Japan
atakeoka@kumadai.jp

Akiko Takahashi
Kumamoto University, Japan
atakahashi@kumadai.jp

Yoshitaka Shibata
University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan
Kumamoto University, Japanyshibata@med.uoeh-u.ac.jp
Abstract: This paper describes a successive group work sequencing in an online graduate
program. Various collaborative work methods have been intentionally introduced in multiple
courses under a Story-centered Curriculum in order for the students to become graduallyaccustomed to collaborative online activities that increase levels of complexity and intensity. It
is discussed the factors of group activities that determine complexity and difficulty levels may
include the size of a group, nature of submission of the group work (as a group or byindividuals), visibility of others’ work in progress with the use of different tools available, andmaking peer comments option or requirement, among others. Students' reactions to thecollaborative activities in the online learning environment have been positive, with some
implications for improvement of the design of collaborative activities in the future. A set ofdesign principles is called for in the future research to guide designing introduction andimplementation of online group activities of others, and to refine our own practice.
Keywords: sequencing, group work, collaboration, visibility, online graduate school(This page is used for the printed version of the proceeding. The body should start from the next page)Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

BACKGROUND
Kumamoto University’s fully online Graduate School of Instructional Systems (GSIS) was established in2006 to produce e-learning specialists with the core competencies in instructional design (Suzuki, 2009). Its grounddesign has been firmly based on the latest concepts of instructional design and technology, in order to practice what
it preaches. For example, curriculum was derived top-down from the expected competencies of the graduate, in termsof e-Learning Consortium Japan’s requirements for e-Learning Professional’s certifications. For instructional
strategies, such ground rules were adopted by all professors in the program; (1) not to use the online lecture, recorded
or live, as the main method of information provision, (2) not to use closed-book final examination, but to assess thestudent works with multiple open-book assignments, and (3) to use asynchronous discussion boards as the mainmode of communication, in which process can openly be shared among students taking the same course. Everymeasure has been incorporated in the design and implementation of its program to set up and maintain a high level of
instructional quality so that the program itself can be regarded a good example of what e-learning design canaccomplish (Suzuki, 2012).
When it was decided to improve the program with a Grant from MOE Japan in 2008, Story-centered
Curriculum (SCC) was selected to guide the reform (Suzuki, et al, 2009). SCC is an extension of Roger Schank’s
instructional design theory called Goal-based Scenarios (GBS). Whereas GBS is a model for designing simulations
for learning higher-order skills by doing and making mistakes in a virtual environment, SCC is to be used for
curriculum-level design by providing an architecture for higher scalability without losing the “learning by doing”
nature of GBS. SCC unites multiple courses, usually taken concurrently within a given semester, by introducing firsta cover story from a real-world situation common to multiple courses, in which graduates of the program would be
expected to work as professionals. Within such an authentic context, the students would act as if they were already insuch a situation, but with assistance and information from faculty when needed.
The implementation of SCC at GSIS has been accepted positively both by professors teaching various
courses within the program, and by students who have experienced the new style of online learning (Suzuki, et al,2009). It has also given us, as the designers of the graduate level education, ample opportunities to try out new ideas
and shape them, using the design-based research framework (Nemoto, et al, 2010; Nemoto & Suzuki, 2011). One of
the challenges that we have faced has been how to sequence various types of group activities in our curriculum. In
SCC, we have more control over the sequencing of weekly units from multiple courses, by aligning to the overall
story line, as opposed to any regular curriculum where each course progresses one session per week. Thus, after we
set the sequencing the learning contents to have cumulative effects to one another, we sought for arrangement ofvarious group activities across courses to have intentional sequence for gradual introduction to various ways of group
activities without giving too much burden on the side of students.
It has been shown in the literature of collaborative and active methods that group activities can be both
key to the success of online learning programs and the most difficult challenge to the online learners. For example,
Johnson & Johnson (2007) stated that collaborative learning “tends to increase achievement, positive attitude,
healthy development, positive relationships with team members,” and “provides a sense of belonging, theopportunity to explain and summarize what is being learned, shared mental models, social models, respect andapproval for efforts to achieve, encouragement of divergent thinking, and interpersonal feedback on academic
learning and the use of the technology (p. 402).” Despite of the premise of collaborative activities, however, thelearners may be hesitant to engage in group activities. Simonson et al (2012) pointed out that “although a significant
body of research supports the use of collaborative learning and its benefits, many instructors and an even greaternumber of students prefer not to engage in such activities (p.282),” because of logistical difficulties and the problem
of free riders. They caution that it is best to design with these students’ attitude in mind, so that “ultimately thesevaluable work skills will be a practical addition to any students’ abilities (p. 282).”
Thus the purpose of this paper is to describe our experiences in introducing group activities in order forthe students to become gradually accustomed to various collaborative online activities with increasing levels ofcomplexity and intensity. It is also discussed what has been the students' reactions to the collaborative activities in
the online learning environment. It was also aimed to discuss the factors of group work activities that determine
complexity and difficulty levels, trying to propose a set of design principles to guide introduction of online group
activities.

Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

GROUP ACTIVITIES IN GSIS’S SCC: THE FIRST SEMESTERThe first thing our new students encounter is our online asynchronous orientation course (Nemoto &Suzuki, 2011), where they are introduced to the use of various tools and functions of our learning management
system including discussion board. In the first session, each student is asked to introduce him/herself to the cohort ofusually less than 20 peers (18 in 2012 cohort), by creating a new thread in a discussion board. For example, within amonth prior to 2012 cohort entering to our program, a total of 31 postings and replies were made by 21 participants,
including one professor and one teaching assistant. With no specific request was given to reply to others, only three
students replied to the postings of others; other replies were made by the professor and TA. The orientation course
ends with an introduction to SCC, where they are fictitiously hired by an e-Learning vender to improve the quality of
their service as their mission (Suzuki, et al, 2009). They are told that they are expected to complete weekly workorders from Mr. Nakamura, their hypothetical boss, for which they are supported by various courses offered by
GSIS.
The first course of the SCC is “Introduction to e-Learning,” where four individual papers are required as
assignments (or work orders from Mr. Nakamura), together with 15 small tasks needed to complete the assignments.
No group work is required in tasks and assignments; all were individual works in this course. However, replying to
the postings in discussion boards becomes a requirement in this course; all the students must make at least one reply
to any postings for each task, and at least two for any postings of drafts to be submitted as assignments. When theassignments are submitted by a student to the professor, it is also required to attach notes of revisions that have been
made by adopting comments from peers. As the result, for the first task in “Introduction to e-Learning” in 2012, a
total of 60 replies were posted to 28 postings (including 10 students who were not in the 2012 cohort) with nopostings from the professor and TA. The average number of replies from the 18 students in 2012 cohort was 2.50
(SD=1.47), producing a total of 45 replies. For the 5 th task to submit and exchange ideas for the draft of the firstassignment in Week 1, a total of 125 replies were posted to 27 drafts (including 8 students who were not in the 2012
cohort) with no postings from the professor and TA. The average replies from the 18 students in 2012 cohort was
5.06 (SD=2.87), producing a total of 91 replies.
The second course is “Instructional Design I,” which starts in Week 4, just after completing the firstcourse “Introduction to e-Learning” during the first three weeks. Three individual assignment papers are required inthis course representing three major steps in creating a paper-based instructional material (proposal, design review,and formative evaluation report), together with 15 small tasks to support the process. Although no group paper
submission is required, the students are required to work in a trio to critique each other’s drafts for all the threesubmissions. When students submit their draft proposals as task 4 to a discussion board, trios are to be formed
automatically, from the first three students making the first trio, and so on. So, a total of six trios are created for 2012
cohort. Although it is open to submit a critique to a posting outside of the trio that one belongs, it is required to makecomments to the other two students within the trio. Checklists are made available to support the process of mutual
evaluation, and approval of the other two members is required to submit assignments to professor, before he judges
the overall quality to decide if the submission gets a pass or “revise and resubmit” status.
The third course in intellectual property and the fourth course in information technology are mainly on
individual basis, due to the preference or the professors, which may also reflect the nature of the contents. By
reflecting two professors’ teaching preference and/or strategies, the fourth course has both aspects of individual
works that are invisible to other students in the class and that are open to others, depending on the tools used in thecourse. Discussion boards make progresses of others open, while the use of submission tools directly from students
to professor does not inform others of the progress being made.
The fifth and last course in the first semester deals with business and management aspects of e-learning.
Because it is taught by three lecturers from outside, this course has three assignment papers, together with one
positioning paper at the outset of the course, and one reflection paper at the end, all to be done by individual students.
There are some mixtures of tools in this course by instructors; the first one uses both submission tool an discussion
boards with no requirement in mutual comments, the second one use both submission tool and multiple choice quizwith no visibility of others’ activities, and the third one uses submission tools and a group work at the very end,
where 3-4 students are assigned to a group to critique each other’s works within the group. The final lap-up group
work for this course for preparing a reflection paper divides students into two groups, each having either viewpointof a provider or a customer, so that each member of each group makes comments to a proposal created by the otherteam, in a discussion board.

Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

It was not due to the overall pre-planning, but due to professors’ preferences, that our students experiencea diverse set of communication tools and types of collaboration in the first semester. We value mutual commenting
to each other, because it provides opportunities to apply what they are learning to different cases. We also value
openness of peer works shared among all students in the class, because it provides opportunities for observational
learning vicariously. The absence of those features in some courses may have enriched the experiences of ourstudents with other possibilities to compare to our valued way. It was designed with intention, however, that heaver
types of collaborative group activities were put on hold until in the second semester. Basically what is included in thefirst semester is all individual work, to avoid overloading the beginning students. Still, they are to experience
commenting to each other’s works, as well as revising their own works according to suggestions from peers, whichin term should serve a basis to build their capacities for more advanced collaboration in the second semester.

GROUP ACTIVITIES IN GSIS’S SCC: THE SECOND SEMESTERThe second semester is structured differently in that, while each week has one particular assignment froma course given to the students in the first semester, they are given all the course information at the outset of thesecond semester and decide on their own their schedules for the entire 15 weeks. This change aims to allow more
control over planning of their learning to assist them to become self-regulated learners. The core course of the second
semester, “Practicum in e-Learning I,” involves group activities throughout the semester to deal with a client
professor who feels a need to blend his/her course (Nemoto, et al, 2010). Thus, decisions as to when to prepare forpresentations to the client, and when to work on group tasks of other required courses, must be made in harmony as agroup. Each student then must plan for other individual tasks (they may take different elective courses) to create an
overall study plan for him/herself.
Under a story that the student is now hired as an intern (a fictitious position) by the Institute of e-Learning
Development (IeLD) at Kumamoto University (a real organization), they form teams of 3-4 students, each to be
assigned to a client professor. Their mission is to help the client solve his/her problems by reading a request for
proposal and course syllabus, asking qualifying questions, studying IeLD’s policy and good practices, creating a
prototype of e-learning elements, and proposing and negotiating a solution of blended e-learning into the client’s
face-to-face course. Each team is expected to work closely throughout the semester as a group, with intern advisors(professors in GSIS) to get support at various stages before contacting the client. Each team is also expected to work
collaboratively with other teams to exchange work-in-progress and learn from each other. Five products(assignments) are required in this course, all of which are created and submitted as a team, except for the last productof an individual reflection report. Each team needs to divide work to be positively interdependent to each other,somebody taking leading role to set up deadlines for contribution from its members, as well as schedules forsynchronous meeting over SKYPE.
There are two other required courses in the second semester that call for group activities: “Instructional
Design II” and “Practice of Distance Education.” The professor teaching “Instructional Design II” wants to form
groups of about six students, so we proposed to combine two teams of “Practicum in e-Learning I” to constitute agroup for this class. Because this course requires changes in group configurations from the first half to the second
half of the course, we proposed not to destroy the teams of “Practicum in e-Learning I,” but to combine different setsof teams for the second half; from A+B and C+D to A+C and B+D, for example. This was intended to keep the teamof “Practicum in e-Learning I” as the core of all group activities in the second semester, not to lose collaborative
group atmosphere by changing group members from one course to another randomly. The same principle wasapplied when the professor of “Practice of Distance Education” asked for dividing the entire class into two large
groups; we proposed to keep all group members of “Instructional Design II” to be in the same large group, altering
the combinations to form different halves for the second large group activity. This was one of the proposals added tothe management of SCC in 2012, by taking students’ opinions of 2011 cohort that they suffered from random
groupings in concurrent courses. In 2012, different groupings existed to meet the requests from professors asking
different group sizes, but the core teams are always kept unchanged for more stability, as a compromise.
The types of group activities are different between the two required courses in the second semester. In“Instructional Design II,” with groups of six students, each group is given a request for proposal to analyze, research,and create a plan as a group in a closed discussion board, which can only be seen by group members. When a group
creates a draft plan, they submit it to an open discussion board. In the open discussion board, each team gets
comments from students from other groups: at least one comment to a selected group is required. In the third stage,Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

each group goes back to their closed discussion board for analyzing comments from peers. However, the final
proposal is created and submitted to the professor individually, taking both group discussion and peer comments into
considerations. In the second half, where a more in-depth proposal is requested, all submissions are to be done
individually with peer support within the group. On the other hand, “Practice of Distance Education” used a larger
grouping where a leader is named by the professor to each group to submit a group report by summarizing the group
discussion. At least three postings are requested from each member before the dead line date, so that the leader canstart summarizing a total of 30 – 40 postings. Individual reflection comment is also required for each member
regarding his/her contribution to the group report. The same format is used twice with different leaders and different
group configurations in the first half of the course, which is followed by a lecture by a part-time instructor (aprofessor of a different institution). No group activity is required in the second half of the course.
A year-long journey of peer collaboration under a successive group work sequencing described above issummarized in Table 1. The complexity and types of collaboration are different among the courses in the second
semester, it is oriented more toward group activities than the first semester. Students are always busy schedulinggroup meetings, taking various roles within the groups and commenting to each other’s works. It is a burden forstudents, besides learning the contents of those courses, but considered important to become able to handle thisnot-so-easy task of collaboration, through their own learning experiences, in order to become e-Learning specialists.

Table 1. Peer Collaboration under Successive Group Work Sequencing
Week
0

Semester 1

1-3
4, 6, 95, 7, 8
10-12

1-15

Semester 2

13-15

Course titleGroup
reportGroup
activity

Mutual comments indiscussion boards

Individual report

Orientation

None

None

Optional

None

Introduction to
e-Learning

None

None

1+ reply required in all
sessions

Instructional Design I

None

Trios

Required within trios
using checklists

None

None

No use of discussion
board

Directly submitted
to the professor

None

None

1st half: Optional;
2nd half: No use
Not mentioned (3sessions); Required (2sessions)

Directly submitted
to the professor

Required within groups
in all sessions

One reflection
report at the end

Intellectual Property
and Private Rights in
the Network Society
ICT Learning Support
Systems
HRD Business
Management

None

Practicum in
e-Learning I

Five
products

Instructional Design II

One draft
proposal

Practice of Distance
Education

Two inthe first
half

Special Research Ⅰ(research
methodology)

None

Role playdiscussion(1/3)
groups of 3
- 4 working
with aclientgroups of 6
working on
different
cases
two large
groupsNone

1+ reply required in allgroup sessions; 1+
reply required to othergroups' draft (twice)3+ postings requiredfor group discussion(twice)Optional in the first 5
sessios; 1+ reply
required in all othersessions

Revision noterequired to reflectpeer comments
Revision noterequired; OK frompeers required tosubmitDirectly submitted
to the professor

Directly submitted
to the professor (4reports)
Group leaders
submit reports
twice
Revision noterequired to reflectpeer comments

Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

STUDENTS’ REFLECTIONS TO THE GROUP ACTIVITIESNine students out of 18 who were in the cohort of Year 2012 and experienced SCC took an optionalcourse (one credit) for reflecting their experiences of SCC and learning the design theories and implementation
intention behind the scene, as a part of their training to become a provider of such a curriculum. Of the nine who
took the reflection course, five students answered to the reflective activity by posting an opinion(s) to a task
regarding the collaborative group activities. The other four had withdrawn from or discontinue the course before thisparticular activity. A transition graphic shown in Figure 1 was used with some explanation of our intent insequencing the group activities in the first two semesters, in order to help reflect the learning experiences.

Figure 1. A Diagram showing Sequencing Group Activities with Increasing Complexity

Student A was very happy to know that the group activities are sequenced with gradually increasing levelof difficulties, when our design intention was unclosed in a reflection activity. He thought it was because of
curriculum design with this successive sequencing of group activities that he could perform well in the last and themost difficult collaborative group work. He was accustomed to online group activities as he has gone throughvarious types of collaboration before it came to the hardest one. He suggested providing a little more support to begiven at initial stages, in the form of fail-safe information, stating what to do when a group activity would not run
smoothly. It would be like a scaffolding; gradual fading out of support as students’ experiences accumulate during
the year. He mentioned it may conflict with the “learning by doing and learning by making mistakes” philosophy ofthe program, but initial failure could be so critical for a student so that failures should be saved to the later time when
the students become more endurable.
Student B expressed her positive feeling toward the collaborative group activities that she was able towork in accordance with her own learning style, and that relaxed to enjoy the diversity of opinions and perspective
due to different professional backgrounds of peers. She felt it was easier in the second semester when group products
were required, because the outcome goal was clear. This was contrary to our prediction in that it would have requiredin depth collaboration among group members to create group product, than merely commenting to each other’s
individual works to be submitted individually. She was not sure if her comments to peer’s works were valid and to
the point, when she made comments to the works of peers, and sometimes felt her comments were at a superficial
level, just to check if all the required points were covered. However, when a minimum quality standard was specified
and notified to the students in an assignment, she could feel good to have contributed to peer’s works, by checking
her comments against the standard. This is a very natural reaction as they were still the ones who were in the processof learning, confirming the importance of providing evaluation scheme or prescribed checklist to secure the validityof mutual comments among students. She noticed through this experience that when such a scheme is not available,
the first thing to do in the group work is to discuss the evaluation criteria, before getting into the critiques ofindividual works.

Suzuki, K., Nemoto, J., Takeoka, A., Takahashi, A., & Shibata, Y. (2013.8.10). Sequencing Collaborative
Activities in an Online Graduate Program. A paper presented at ICoME 2013 (International Conference onMedia in Education), Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.

Two students reacted positively for the small size grouping. Student C suggested a gradual expansion of
the group sizes with pairs as its core so that responsibility of each student can be made more apparent and place lessburden on scheduling group synchronous sessions on SKYPE; he suggested to have pair work first, paring two pairs
to form groups of four, then finally larger groupings of eights or twelve’s. Student D felt 10 students in a group was
too big to consolidate diverse opinions in this asynchronous distant environment, and it was an “intentionallydesigned good experience” to realize it didn’t work with a large number of students in a group. Student A reacted bysaying that he noticed the same core grouping was used in multiple courses, which makes group activities easier thanhaving different grouping for each course. It was one of the improvements that we tried in 2013, based on student
opinions an observations from the previous year.
Student E raised a question as to how the use of different communication tools for collaborative work
would have made a difference, after tried out only discussion boards and heard about Google Docs for compilinggroup opinions in the large size grouping (10 in a group). Although uses of different tools were spontaneously
initiated in some groups with a member who was more familiar with the variety of emergent collaborative tools, itremains to be our future task to determine which tools should be mandatorily assigned and/or made available asoptions.

CONCLUSIONS: LESSON LEARNED AND IMPLICATIONS
It has been discussed in this paper that, by gradually increasing the complexity of collaborative works inan online graduate school, the students’ capacity of collaboration may increase to become more capable online
learners. Various aspects of collaboration may affect the complexity, including the size of a group, nature ofsubmission of the group work (as a group or by individuals), visibility of others’ work in progress with the use ofdifferent tools available, making peer comments option or requirement, among others. Johnson & Johnson (2007)
pointed out that not all groups are collaborative; putting some students in a group does not guarantee thatcollaboration will take place. To reach the full potential of the group, “five essential elements must be carefully
structured into the situation; positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, promotive interaction,
appropriate use of social skills, and group processing (p. 406).” It is our future task to examine in depth how thoseessential elements are evolving, and may evolve in a better way, by changing the design of each of collaborative
activities and the sequence of them. We also need to propose a set of design principles for others designing similar
online collaborations in the future, toward a model of the sequencing collaboration in an online learning
environment.

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