Online Study Groups

Purpose of Study Groups

• When I studied law, oh so many years ago, I found "study groups" to be very successful. In fact, one of my study group members is now a Judge of the Superior Court in San Fernando, California (naturally because she studied in our "study group") Study Groups were fun. Thus I embarked upon this grandiose project.
  
  
  • First I asked students to do it voluntarily in the Fall 2000 semester - that did not work - because, as educators, we all know students need motivation and pure "force" to overcome the equal and opposite natural forces of the universe of "procrastination"
    
    
  • Then I made it a requirement in all of my classes in Spring 2001
    
    
  • I centered the tasks around a series of class hypotheticals. The actual model of the "hypothetical" was adopted from the Free Speech Website of Prof. Jean Godwin of Northwestern University. She teaches a very interesting class in legal argumentation in the Department of Communication Studies. Special Thanks to Prof. Godwin. Hats off to her for her excellent materials and concepts.
    
    
• How did I construct the "online Groups"
  
  
  • I had worked a little with student groups, and knew that there are "slackers" in each group. So I decided to give points for both a group "posting", and points for an individual "posting" to a Hypernews Group Discussion Bulletin Board
    
    
  • I have found the use of the "threaded discussion" promotes group discussions, and increases the writing proficiency skills of my students over time. I have used Hypernews Discussions in my classrooms over the last seven semesters (since May of 1998) and they have been very successful - I recommend them, and the software is free and you can download the software on to your server. consult your computer tech persons.     (here is the information on system information on hypernews)
    
    
  • I randomly assigned 3-4 students to groups. I did this to avoid setting up "clicks" and to provide more a more "diverse" experience. I set up the groups and hypotheticals in each of my five classes this semester - Law 1 (Business Law), Law 16 (Evidence Law), Law 12 (Torts Law), Law 11 (Civil Litigation), Law 10 ( Intro to Law).
    
    I tried to make the hypotheticals interesting to capture the attention and imagination of the students - ranging from students required to submit to a dog sniffing their back packs for drugs, to whether an "invocation at a football game constituted a "school prayer" - and whether a child who was conceived and diagnosed as having a genetic kidney disease that came from the sperm donor could sue the sperm bank seeking to discover the sperm donor's identity, and whether a wife, whose former husband, a doctor, and the bookkeeper concealed from wife, certain community assets related to the practice, which caused wife to forego spousal support, and may wife now sue for punitive damages or is she precluded because of the marital settlement agreement she signed in the family law court.
    
    

Group Work

The first task of the group was to select a group name and a group motto

• The groups seemed to enjoy and function easily in this first task. I had most of the classes do this first task in person and in class, and not "online". Once they set up their groups, I established a series of  hypernews posting bulletin boards, and emailed each group member their posting bulletin board. Here is the list of all of the posting bulletin boards for all five classes.
  
  
• The groups then met and started to work on the hypotheticals. Some of the groups were highly functional. See this posting as an example. However, the majority of the groups were "dysfunctional".
  
  Here are some of the reasons given in feedback questionnaires:
  
  • "I thought they (referring to the "hypotheticals" were just too hard"
    
  • "too time consuming"
    
  • "time conflicts - could not arrange to meet either in person or online"
    
  • "probably needed more class time allotted for having groups meet to discuss the hypotheticals"
    
  • "groups just don't seem to work at the community college level"
    
  • "I find it hard to rely on others to complete their portion of the assignment in the group project" - maybe if we downsized to two students per group then this problem would not occur
    
  • "Finding time to just attend the class is a big enough of an ordeal not to add to it an additional variable of having to coordinate a meet time with a group of people who also have no time."
    
  • "Part of the problem with meeting on-line is that not everyone has computer access to the net at all times."
    
  • "The in-class study groups can work. In fact, I think they are valuable. Everyone has something to offer, and can learn from everyone else. Also, the best way to really understand something is to teach it to someone else."
    
  • I would allow people to group according to when they had available time and then assign them to a chat room"
    
  • "this is a hit or miss assignment"
    
  • "I would assign dates and times (30 minutes to an hour) for a chat room for each "study group." and would monitor the chat rooms for each specific time period in order to evaluate who was "chatting"
    
  • "I liked researching for the answer.. .I met people in the class".
    
  • "I would have let people pick there own study groups"
    
  • "Most of the time I like working alone."
    
  • "the group I had never answered my e-mail"
    
  • "Instead of just reading the book and answering questions, the hypothetical had us use what we have learned to analyze a situation and conclude who we think should win the case."
    
  • " I like the legal hypothetical because they allow for personal interpretation", and the idea of posting individual and group conclusions provides the opportunity for class discussion, creative arguments and calls for analytical thinking".
    
  • "There should have been more time spent on class discussions and there should be a class effort to correct legal opinions of other students who might have had misunderstood the legal concept behind the hypo."
    
  • Instead of 4 students in the group the maximum number should be 3. However, I would prefer working within the group of two. The groups need to post the sources of the legal research "online" for common viewing and the posting of the individual opinions would speed up the hypo results. "In class" should be limited only to discuss the conflicting opinions."
    
  • "I would design the groups in pairs of twos"
    
  • "It was fun because it was like we were pretending to be lawyers/paralegals and it gave us some insight into what we will have to go through once we finish our program."
    
    

Conclusions

• Although the "internet and email are ubiquitous" students still have connectivity problems

  Students still, as a group are not fully connected to the internet and email, and have problems using and connecting to make an "online study group possible". Also the same problems of "time and space" which plague getting together, seem to work against online study groups. This actually surprised me, since I thought that the "new technology would prevail, and allow students to "get together" in spite of their busy schedules.
  
  

• The groups should be smaller and more focused
  
  Students should be paired off in twos, and the task more focused. Possibly the students should be allowed to choose their own groupings.
  
  
• More time spent in class, and coordination with other materials learned and studied during the semester
  
  The assignment of hypotheticals cannot be an "isolated" experience, but must be planned, and integrated as a whole with the curriculum during the semester. This will make it a more meaningful experience for the student. Also by including it within "class time" you take it out of the "group work" and "legitimize it as part of the "classwork".

David Jordan
April 2001