You may assign group work as an asynchronous course activity. This can be done with both discussion forums and assignments. Both resources can serve as a medium for group work. Be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded. 

Collaboration in Discussion Forums

• Discussion: Students can discuss in text and see only posts by their group mates. Smaller group discussions can help students feel more seen and more responsibility to contribute. You may even wish to assign or have students choose specific roles each person will fill within the group.
  
• Peer Review: Small groups like pairs or trios can work well for empowering student peer review of drafts or projects.
• Assignment Planning: Discussing in a group forum can allow student groups to share ideas, resources, and plan for assignments or presentations.

Collaboration on Assignments

• Single Submission: When groups are assigned in Moodle and an assignment uses Separate Groups mode, only one member of the group needs to submit to the assignment. That submission will count as the submission for all group members.
  
• Shared Grades: In an assignment using Separate Groups mode, any grade assigned to one group member's submission automatically applies to all other group members. If you need to adjust an individual member's grade, you may go to the Gradebook and override the group grade with your adjusted score.
  
• Pairing Group Grades and Individual Grades: If you wish to give partial credit for the group's overall performance, but also grade students' individual contributions, you may want to create one assignment for the group submission and group grade, and a separate assignment for the individual grade. That way both parts can use different rubrics and grading criteria.

You may consider assigning real-time group work as a synchronous course activity. This can be done with both Zoom and Office365. Both resources can serve as a medium for group work. Be sure to clearly communicate to students the schedule and expectations for participation, especially if and how any synchronous activities are graded. 

Collaboration on Zoom

• Discussion: Students can verbally discuss course work over Zoom, either in the main room or using break-out rooms.
• Accessibility:  Zoom does not offer live captioning. If your students could benefit from activities that do not rely on audio or video, consider assigning group work over Office365.

Collaboration on Office365

• Real-time collaboration: Most Office365 apps support collaboration. Students in groups can all work on the same file at the same time.
• Accessibility: Office365 collaboration does not require verbal communication or visual presentation to function well for group work. Microsoft Teams has an automatic live captioning capability for Teams meetings.

—From Leslie Morris, M.Ed. at Medical University of South Carolina

1. Do a Trial Run: A day or two before your first session, invite another faculty member or staff member to do a trial run with you.  Share your screen, go through your slides, use the chat feature, try all features of the program.
2. Enlist a Helper: Invite a fellow faculty member or staff member, or even a student, to be your "tech support" during your first session.  Have that individual address any tech issues a student may have in the chat board or via email so that you don’t have to interrupt your lecture.
3. Establish Norms: Think about norms and establish them on Day 1.
1. Take the first 5 mins to do a technology check with students and ensure all are ready.
   1. Introduce your tech support person.
   2. Explain how to access the tech support person (chat or email).

1. Take the next 5 mins to discuss norms:
   1. Will participants stay muted throughout the session?  If you’d like students to interact, let them know how and when it’s ok to unmute and discuss or ask questions.
   2. What’s the expectation for the chat board?  Do you want students to use it?  How often will you address questions that may pop up in the chat board?
   3. What about breaks?  How will you know students have returned from a break?  A quick formative question in the chat will let you know all have returned