Conclusion
The changing workplace continues to challenge educators to properly prepare students
for the environment they will face upon graduation. Here we have examined
specifically the growing presence of virtual collaboration in today’s work world and the
implications for students. It is clear that educators must consider opportunities to help
prepare students for virtual collaboration.
Providing students experience collaborating in a virtual environment in a course
can help them develop the skills and abilities necessary to collaborate in a virtual work
environment. An important component of the process is to require the students to
reflect upon the experience so that they take the time to determine the collaborative
strategies that were effective as well as those that did not work. Reflection is an
important part of learning from experiences and is particularly important as students
work to develop new abilities. Giving students an opportunity to experiment, that may
include some failures or at least some challenging moments, can allow them to develop
skills that make them competitive in the workplace.
Further, if one becomes skilled at collaborating virtually, there is reason to believe that
such ability could cross over into improved teamwork abilities in face-to-face
environments (Ubell, 2010). While we did not explore this transfer of skills with the
students in this project, logic suggests that learning how to manage conflict and
communicate effectively without non-verbal cues and other advantages of face-to-face
communication can help improve one’s abilities when those cues are available. Therefore,
providing students with an opportunity to collaborate in a virtual environment within the
safety of the university setting can benefit students in more than one way.
The rapidly changing workplace will require students to communicate and collaborate
in a virtual environment. However, it is uncertain if most students will be prepared for the
unique demands of this setting. While today’s students generally learn technology tools
quickly, they do not necessarily learn how to use technology effectively to collaborate.
Therefore, educators must provide opportunities that allow students to collaborate
virtually in the classroom in order to prepare them for the future.