All courses require some amount of projects where learners have the option to work in teams. Group work achieves an important pedagogical goal: To have systems architects work together to solve a problem (aside from other upsides like networking value, etc.).
Group work on projects can be as flexible as the learner desires in terms of both group size and meeting time. While no synchronous meeting time is required, many groups use their own virtual collaboration tools such as Skype, Google Hangout, and WebEx to meet. Other teams leverage the collaboration tool in the course to connect.