#Communication – Sarah's Education Blog

selective focus photography of person using smartphone

Hello everyone!

Today I am going to be talking about a communication app called Mattermost.

I was introduced to this app through my EDCI 336 course at UVic. Mattermost is a self-hostable online chat service that brings all your team communication into one place. As a class, we are able to talk together through our course back channel. It really helps us to chat about class work and other relevant information pertaining to our course.

Additionally, as a cohort, we have set up other channels for each of the classes we are in this semester. Using Mattermost has been such an effective way of collaborating with each other and discussing assignments, courses, etc.

Using Mattermost has also been an efficient way of managing group projects. We have found ourselves having so many group projects this semester and we are able to keep track of them all by creating private channels with members of our groups. Here, we can discuss ideas and plans for our projects in one confined place.

Because of the effects of COVID-19 on this school year, we have all of our courses online. As a result, we have not been able to all meet up all together as our cohort. Some of us see each other on Wednesday’s during our school observations, however, this is only half of our class. Mattermost has been our cohort’s way of building a community with each other. We will continue this in the new year with creating additional channels that align with our next courses.

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Today in EDCI 336, we participated in an EdCamp. An EdCamp is where you can move from room to room when you feel like it, and participate in the topic you choose. Linked here is the post about our EdCamp with all the rules and room topics.

people sitting down near table with assorted laptop computers

The room I decided to go to first and ended up spending my whole time in, was about “how to use group work in the classroom.”

We started off not really knowing what to do, talk about, or the process of how this EdCamp worked. But eventually, one person stepped up and began the conversation by asking a question about our experiences with group work. This was the starting point of our conversation that carried on very nicely through many different topics in this category.

Here is our rooms google doc that we contributed to, and below I have listed the notes I took regarding group work.

How to use group work in the classroom:

Cons:
- Easy to do what you’re comfortable with and not help with every aspect
- Ensure an even workload
- Can’t split off and have 2 people focusing on different topic
- Hard to talk with interrupting and talking over since it’s hard to hear online

Ways to combat these:
- Frame group work that everyone’s in it together, and work as a team (unit)
- Have an open communication line between group members
- Assign each person a different role in the group – all contribute equally

As a teacher, would you use group work?
- Group work is a good way to build soft skills (leadership, teamwork, etc)
- Build connections

How to grade group work?
- Base on group, but individual assessment – anonymous
- Not all people work well together – get feedback on group members and on self assessment
- Could have groups could create a document on what specifically each person contributed to the project
- Ensuring to allot time for group work to be done in class – observe and talk with students on what they’re working on and where they’re pulling their weight
- At the start of a project, have each group create a plan/document where students can identify what each person’s role is in the group

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Tag: #Communication

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