Collaborative Learning

Synchronous group activities

Our research shows that students learn more and generally prefer to work with other students to complete in-class activities. We also want to continue providing students with the opportunity to interact and collaborate with their peers. In previous versions of this course, students completed class activities during lecture. Last semester I offered these activities following both asynchronous and synchronous schedules, but unfortunately this arrangement resulted in many logistical problems to students, and consequently staff as well.

In Spring 2021, students will complete these group activities during zoom meetings on Tuesdays, either during lecture time at 2pm, or at two additional slots at 9am or 8pm.


GA zoom links:


For the first group activity, that takes place on the second week of classes (February 2nd), we will only have the 2pm section. Just for this first GA, we will randomly assign students to breakout rooms in groups of 3-4 students. Attendance is not required.


Group formation:

Students will be able to select their own groups, under the constraint that each group should have 3-4 students. We will open a survey on January 28 that will ask students to submit their group selection, and also their preferred time to meet (one of the three options above). This survey will be closed on Friday February 5th at midnight. In case you don't know anyone in the class, you will have the opportunity to meet other students during the first week of classes (when we will be assigning students at random to breakout rooms during lecture time), and also during the randomly group assignment for the GA1. You can also use CampusWire to find teammates.

Students that are not included in any group after the survey is closed will be randomly placed at a group. Make sure to at least submit your preferred time to meet. Otherwise, the default time will be the lecture time at 2pm.

Starting from week 3, students will be assigned to breakout rooms using the pre-defined groups. The groups will be fixed from weeks 3-8 (corresponding GA2-GA7) and then again from weeks 9-15 (GA8-13), with the option that groups can elect to stay the same for both cycles.


PrairieLearn group assignments:

Students in each group will work together to complete an assignment delivered using a combination of PrairieLearn and Jupyter notebooks. The assignment (and corresponding) score is shared among all the members of the group that attended the zoom meeting.

The score for the GA will be computed based on attendance, completion and participation.


Attendance + Completion (9% of the grade):

Attendance: We will be collecting attendance using the Zoom report. In order to get the attendance points, students need to be in their assigned zoom meeting for at least 45 minutes. You will be able to find your attendance scores for each weekly GA on compass2g, under the label GA#_attendance. This grade will be 100% if you attended the zoom meeting or 0% otherwise.

Completion: This is the PrairieLearn score you get from completing your GA assessment. You will be able to see this score in PrairieLearn under the label GA#, given in percent (0-100%).

How the completion and attendance scores generate your final GA score:

Since all students in a group receive the same GA score (GA#), regardless if they attended the activity or not, we will compute the final weekly individual GA score using the following formula:

GA#_score = GA#_attendance * (40% + 0.6*GA#)

Thus if you did not attend the zoom meeting, you will receive a 0 score for that week. We will update your individual score GA#_score to compass on a weekly basis. There will be a total of 13 Group Activities (GA), and the lowest two scores will be dropped. They will combined contribute to 9% of your final grade.


Participation (2% of the grade):

Students in each group will have assigned roles to facilitate collaborations. You are expected to be a helpful member of your team and participate in a variety of team roles. There are three team roles: manager, recorder, and reflector.


  1. Recorder: Responsible for being the main “driver,” entering most of the answers in PrairieLearn. However, other members of the team can also contribute by completing some of the notebook cells. The recorder is also expected to share their screen during the zoom meeting. This will help facilitating the discussions, and also provide a venue for staff members (that will be rotating between rooms) to interact with the teams.
  2. Manager: Responsible for coordinating efforts of the team and making sure that all team members are contributing. For example, if a team member is silent for a while, it is the manager’s role to check in on the team member. The manager needs to make sure members of the team are working together to construct their answers. This is NOT a divide-and-conquer activity! The manager will also be the one to first create the PrairieLearn assessment, and share the "Join code" with the other members of the team. The manager is responsible for completing the survey regarding the role assignments for that week.
  3. Reflector: Responsible for making sure that all team members understand what’s going on. For example, the reflector might ask whether each team member understands the problem before moving on to the next problem. The reflector is responsible for completing a short survey at the end of each group assessment, including questions about team participation and the content of the activity.

During each cycle (half-semesters with fixed groups), students are expected to participate in each of the group roles at least once, and teams are encouraged to rotate these roles each week. At the end of each cycle, students will receive the following score via compass2g:

cycle# = (manager_participation + recorder_participation + reflector_participation)/3

where role_participation is 100% if the student participated in that role during the cycle, and 0% otherwise. There will be a total of 2 scores for participation (two cycles), and no drops. They will combined contribute to 2% of your final grade.