Abstract:

In the last year, many countries including Malaysia were forced to lock down to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many learners and educators had to suddenly move their courses online, which caught them by surprise. By doing so, an important challenge that arises is the low student participation and engagement. This may be caused by the lack of interaction opportunities provided to the learners in a poorly designed online environment. To improve learners’ participation and engagement, group-based learning, specifically, cooperative learning was introduced into the course. The study hopes to enhance the human interaction experience during their online course.

The study used a mixed method approach to data collection as it allows the researchers to focus on issues more deeply and accurately. A cohort of students in a computer science course was used in this study, consisting of various cultural backgrounds. A 5-point Likert scale survey and open-ended questions were administered to the students online, to study their attitude and perceptions based on the components of cooperative learning, mainly positive interdependence, individual accountability, interpersonal skills, group processing and promotive interaction. In addition, the students were also asked on their experience learning online, as nearly all of them had never gone online for a full university course before this.

The results of the study found that the students enjoyed learning online in a cooperative manner. They felt through working in groups, they were able to help each other out with the problems they faced together. They were accountable to each other and were responsible to contribute to the team as a whole by understanding of each other’s roles in the assignment. They were open to each other suggestions through open communication. By listening to one another, conflicts were able to be resolved and misunderstandings avoided. By working cooperatively, even in an online environment, many groups were able to form the team spirit needed to complete their tasks. They were able to interact with their course mates and to make friends, indicating that this learning environment did provide the human-to-human connection that they were looking for.

There were also some negative aspects during the study. A few groups felt that some members were not pulling their own weight and were pushing their responsibilities to other group mates. Some teams also had technical issues to deal with while learning online such as connectivity as well as low quality of sound and video. This was expected as many were caught off guard during the pandemic and did not have adequate broadband at home. Some had to rely on their low -bandwidth phones as hotspots instead.

Overall, integrating cooperative learning in an online learning environment proved to be a success to enhance learners’ participation and engagement. As such, the study hopes this approach will continue post-pandemic and to move towards a hybrid model, as the next new normal in teaching and learning.

Keywords:

Learner engagement, learner participation cooperative learning, online learning, online interaction.