At this year's Open edX® conference, which took place virtually Abstract -Technology participated as co-organizers, sponsor and as presenter. We gave an inspiring talk about the relevance and importance of collaborative teaching and learning approaches in the field of online learning and how to implement them with Open edX® platform.

The Speakers:

Ilaria Botti, Instructional Designer at Abstract Technology

As Education Project Manager and Instructional Designer, Ilaria Botti takes care of project for SMEs, public and private as well as for non-profit organizations. She enjoys working with people, striving to enhance their attitudes, and helping to discover and develop their talents and skills. She takes care of people's development and organize dissemination events. She curates, chooses and promotes digital contents.

Stefania Trabucchi, CEO of Abstract Technology

Stefania Trabucchi joined Abstract in 2015 as Co-Founder and CEO and is mainly responsible for learning technologies. As part of her role as Managing Director, she has gained a wide range of experience as a trainer in the field of in-house training for employees. Her responsibilities include the evaluation of new, future-oriented teaching and learning technologies, as well as the support and consulting of customers regarding the development and optimization of learning platforms.

The Presentation

Why is collaborative learning so important?

Team spirit has become a major trend, and not just in the field of e-learning. The entire  human culture is designed for life and survival in a group. Whether family, friends, or colleagues - people don't like to be alone. Not even when learning. This makes it essential to create collaborative opportunities and methods in virtual teaching.

Collaborative learning can have many benefits and a positive impact on the success of learners. In the following image, we have mapped Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the virtual learning needs and compared them with the values.

With collaborative exercises and components, not only the learning success can be increased, but also the motivation and participation of each course participant. However, knowledge transfer alone is not enough to create effective courses. 

A successful learning experience results from the combination of multiple factors that can be summarized in one equation: 

Knowledge + Skills + Environment + Motivation = Performance. 

Only when all the factors of this equation relate to each other and are actively used to obtain knowledge, one can call it an effective course.

The following image shows the impact on a student's learning success if one of the factors is not used.

What types of interaction can be used?

At an early stage, course developers and instructional designers must be aware of which components are most suitable for teaching and transferring the particular learning content and which form of collaboration or interaction is most likely to address and engage the respective course participants.

In our presentation, we present a variety of components that we have organized according to the different types of interaction and that can be easily integrated and used in courses of an Open edX® platform.

Watch the recording of our conference talk on YouTube 

The Sample Course

You want to download the example course shown in the talk and explore it on your own Open edX® platform?

Click here