Group Types in E-Learning Environments -- Study Team, Working Team and Learning Team

For the success of e-learning activities communication, collaborative and cooperative learning are important factors. The need for relationship building, sharing a sense of community and a common goal is an important factor not only in face-to-face but also in computer-supported cooperative learning arrangements. Therefore, a wide variety of groupware tools exists. Meanwhile, technical aspects of computer-supported learning are well documented. Also, there are evaluation results concerning psychological aspects in certain e-learning arrangements. These results mainly address only one or a small amount of selected e-learning activities, but not group processes and group types in a more general meaning. But to implement groupware tools, to analyse groups, and to arrange group settings in e-learning processes, it is important to know, which type of group should be addressed. In this paper, based on nearly ten years of experience with a wide diversity of different e-learning arrangements, theoretical and methodical aspects of three different group types in e-learning are identified and described in detail: Study team, working team and learning team. This provides an overview of the most important group types. The findings will then be exemplified and suggestions are given, which group type match with what purpose (e.g. networking, practical training, theoretical seminar, addressing large numbers of students in basic instruction courses, etc.).