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“Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product” (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012, p. 486). Collaborative learning has been mentioned many times as an effective method to acquire English and boost the interaction among students. This helps students to gain higher grades, enhances their self-esteem, and reduces classroom anxiety (Millis, 1996; Johnson & Johnson, 2001, as cited in Robert, 2004). In addition, collaborative learning also helps to develop social assistance for learners and establishes a positive atmosphere for cooperation (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012). When it comes to distance learning, it is challenging to maintain regular interaction among learners, which may discourage learners from acquiring new knowledge. Therefore, collaborative learning plays a crucial role in connecting learners or engaging them in the online learning process.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has been spreading throughout the world at an alarming speed, which poses high demands on social distancing. This leads to the obligation of long-term online or distance learning, and Vietnam is no exception. Previous periods of social distancing show that it is not easy to keep the interaction among learners, teachers, and content in online learning because of technical difficulties, lack of face-to-face communication, or hardship in controlling teamwork (Bączek et al., 2021). Likewise, Nguyen (2020) pointed out “the isolation of online learners,” in which the online learners are separated from the active communicative learning atmosphere as well as from the teacher’s observation and control in traditional classes. Meanwhile, “a sense of community” and “social presence” have been proven to be key face factors developing both the quality of learning and the motivation to study (Haythornthwaite & Andrews, 2011, pp. 111-112). Showing the same concerns, McMurray & Dunlop (1999) also emphasized the significance of interactivity in distance education and mentioned the concept of “sense of isolation,” which is considered inherent in online education.
Therefore, the main objective of this research is to address the problem of the isolation of online learners, to create a sense of belonging to the learning community or their social presence together with new knowledge acquirement. The project of making comic books, a form of collaborative learning, may help online learners be motivated to gain new knowledge. Another reason is no empirical research has offered evidence of improving collaborative learning by designing comic books. This research is also conducted to explore challenges during the online process of cooperative learning by making comic books. Thanks to this, several solutions may be offered for students to overcome the state of isolation in online learning and learn online more positively.
The research was conducted in 5 completely online classes at Van Lang University for 15 weeks, during the social distancing due to the widespread of Covid -19 viruses. Action research in which questionnaires and focused group interviews were used as the research instruments were employed to find out the answers to the above problems. This research paper is significant because it highlights the effectiveness of collaborative learning by making comic books as well as boosts the concord among students in online classrooms. Additionally, the research paper also clarifies some obstacles students may encounter during the online comic book project, from which some solutions were offered for the next action plan and were shared with other teachers of the same interests.