Most distributed and virtual online environments for and pedagogies of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) neglect the social and social-emotional aspects underlying the group dynamics of learning and working in a CSCL group. These group dynamics often determine whether the group will develop into a well-performing team and whether a sound social space emerges. Using a theory-based CSCL framework, two studies evaluated whether two tools, Radar and Reflector, supported cognitive, social and socio-emotional aspects of team development, encouraging promotive interaction and group processing in the teams. While not affecting product quality, tool use did lead to groups who perceived their team as being better developed, as having higher levels of group satisfaction and lower levels of conflicts. The results support that promotive interaction and group processing was increased by using Radar and Reflector.
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Pierre Dillenbourg has proved by many articles and speeches to be a hands-on expert on the subject of collaborative learning. He started in 1976 as an Elementary school teacher; he graduated in 1996 in educational and psychological sciences and became PhD in artificial intelligence. At the moment Pierre Dillenbourg is working at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, partly as a member of the board of directors. I happened to meet him for an interview at the Surf Education Days which were held on the 15th and 16th November in 2005.
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Researchers in CSCL have used a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods to track students' cognitive involvement during collaboration. However, neither individual method suffices the need to capture the dynamic evolvement of students' epistemic engagement in CSCL. We developed Epistemic Synchronization Index (ESI) to quantify students' epistemic engagement and evolvement. ESI reveals the knowledge elaboration process of groups, and it helps researchers as well as teachers to distinguish epistemic involvement between members within one group.
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This paper will discuss the process of the MA program ePedagogy / Visual Knowledge Building during the first semester of the academic year 2005 – 2006. This MA program is a joint venture between the Universities of Helsinki, Hamburg and INHOLLAND. This publication will discuss and evaluate the concrete steps (in terms of learning process) during this first semester. In particular the role of the eTutor will get special attention. This publication is based on the principle of action research. Hart & Bond defines action research as “it is a form of reflective inquiry which enables practitioners to better realise such qualities in their practice. The tests for good action research are very pragmatic ones. Does it improve the professional quality of the transactions between practitioners and clients/colleagues? This action research approach is being realised upon three main sources. As an eTutor and member of the staff of this program I weekly filled in an “Evaluation Log” in which the following questions are centralized: 1. What happened (this week) 2. Significant experience 3. Reflection 4. Actions Secondly I used a little survey which was being used by the staff to evaluate the first semester. All the three Universities filled in a form with the following questions concerning the education and organisation: Education 1. What do you consider most hindering in your teaching? 2. What do you consider most beneficial in your teaching? 3. What kind of teaching methods do you prefer in this program? 4. Do you think the course offers are attractive for the target group? 5. How do you evaluate student’s engagements and motivation in your courses? 6. What can / should be improved in terms of collaborative learning activities and processes? Organisation 1. In what specific context do you spot organisational constraints? 2. Does your organisation recognise and support the MA program? 3. What is your short-, mid- and long term vision on this program? Thirdly an important source for this action research approach was the International Seminar which was hold in the middle of February 2006. In this seminar the changes based on the questions of the questionnaire were discussed and implemented. The theoretical framework in this publication is based on the dissertation of Karel Kreijns (Sociable CSCL Environments). In this dissertation he discussed the collaborative cognitiveand epistemic performance in a CSCLE. The social presence theory takes a central position in this dissertation. In this paper the pitfalls and barriers concerning a sociable CSCLE are being discussed and evaluated. This paper describes, the interventions the staff took, in order to improve the educational context of the program. From this perspective we looked very carefully to the barriers and pitfalls in our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). We found evidence for the fact that a good CSCLE consists at least a good balance between Content, Community and Pedagogy. In the program we emphasised our focus (too much) on content and (too) little on community and pedagogy. The community was poor because of the fact that we used three content learning systems, which didn’t stimulate the group processes. Pedagogy was too much based on individual eTutor behaviour. In January 2006, after the courses were ended, the Universities organised a little survey. In this survey was shown that we have to some interventions to improve the learning process. At the International Seminar in February 2006 eTutors and students discussed the problems. The following interventions are being considered and implemented: 1. The use of three Virtual Learning Environments should be decreased. Especially the INHOLLAND / Blackboard system doesn’t reflect the open source philosophy. Besides this the accessibility of this system is not very easy for foreign students 2. The collaborative aspect should be increased, by emphasising the interdisciplinaryand international co-operation. The formation of international subgroups is implemented.
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There is a wealth of research on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is neglected in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research. CSCW research is concerned with contextual factors, however, that may strongly influence collaborative learning processes as well, such as task characteristics, team formation, team members’ abilities and characteristics, and role assignment within a team. Building on a critical analysis of the degree to which research on CSCW translates to CSCL, this article discusses the mediating variables of teamwork processes and the dynamics of learning-teams. Based on work-team effectiveness models, it presents a framework with key variables mediating learning-team effectiveness in either face-to-face or online settings within the perspective of learning-team development.
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Poster presentation, Conference Proceedings of ijCSCL2015 (International Conference of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning), Gothenburg, Sweden, June 2015.
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The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of gender and gender pairing on students’ learning performances and knowledge elaboration processes in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). A sample of ninety-six secondary school students, participated in a two-week experiment.Students were randomly paired and asked to solve several moderately structured problems concerning Newtonian mechanics. Students’ pretest and posttest performances were analyzed to see whether students’ gender and the gender pairing (mixed or single-gender) were significant factors in their problem solving learning in CSCL. Students’ online interactions were also analyzed to unravel the dynamic process of individual knowledge elaboration. The multilevel analyses revealed that a divergent pattern of knowledge elaboration was a significant predictor for students’ learning achievement, and in mixed-gender dyads students’ knowledge elaboration processes were more inclined to diverge from each other. Moreover, females in single-gender dyads significantly outperformed females in mixed-gender dyads. But this was not the case for male students.
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This case study illustrates the sequential process of the joint and individual knowledge elaboration in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The case comprised an Internet-based physics problem-solving platform. Six Dutch secondary school students (three males, three females) participated in the three-week experiment. They were paired based on self-selection. Each dyad was asked to collaborate on eight moderately structured problems concerning Newtonian mechanics. Their online interactions, including their textual and pictorial messages, were categorized and sequentially plotted. The three dyads showed three different collaboration patterns in terms of joint and individual knowledge elaboration.
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In summarizing the research on collaborative learning, the quest for the holy grail of effective collaborative learning has not yet ended. The use of the GLAID framework tool for the design of collaborative learning in higher education may contribute to better aligned designs and hereby contribute to more effective collaborative learning. The GLAID framework may help monitor, evaluate and redesign projects and group assignments. We know that the perception of the quality of the task, and the extent to which students feel engaged, influences the perception of students of how much they learn from a GLA. However, perceptions alone are only an indication of what is learned. A next step is to study exactly what those learning outcomes are. This leads to a more difficult question: how can we measure the learning outcomes? Although a variety of research underlines the large potential of collaboration for learning outcomes, the exact learning outcomes of team learning can only be partly foretold. During collaborative learning students could partly achieve the same or similar learning outcomes, but as each individual learning internalizes what is learned from the collaborative learning by his/her given prior experiences and knowledge, the learning outcomes of collaborative learning are probabilistic (Strijbos, 2011), and therefore attaining specific learning outcomes is likely but not guaranteed. If learning outcomes are different per individual and are probabilistic, how can we measure those learning outcomes? Wenger, Trayner, & De Laat (2011) regard the outcomes of learning communities as value creations that have an individual outcome and a group outcome. This value creation induced by collaborative learning consists, for example, of changed behaviour in the working environment as well as the production of useful products or artefacts. Tillema (2006) also describes that communities of inquiry can lead to the design of conceptual artefacts: products that are useful for a professional working environment.
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Aan mij valt vanmorgen de eer te beurt deze lectorale rede uit te spreken. U verwacht van mij waarschijnlijk dat ik – als “hogeschoolbrede” Lector eLearning - het nu ga hebben over alle verworvenheden en geweldige mogelijkheden van de nieuwe informatie- en communicatietechnologieën (ICT) en wat die nu, en in de nabije toekomst, betekenen voor het onderwijs binnen Hogeschool INHOLLAND. Als dat zo is, dan moet ik U toch een beetje teleurstellen: ik ben natuurlijk wel enthousiast over de onophoudelijke stroom aan nieuwe ontwikkelingen op dit terrein, maar ik ben tegelijkertijd ook realist genoeg om te weten dat veel mensen enorme moeite hebben om de noodzakelijke praktische, emotionele en ideologische stappen die daar nu eenmaal bij horen, daadwerkelijk te zetten. Stappen die ze in staat stellen alle prachtige mogelijkheden ook werkelijk te benutten en daarmee het onderwijs te vernieuwen en te verbeteren. Begrijp me niet verkeerd: ik twijfel geen seconde aan Hogeschool INHOLLAND en haar eLearning-missie. Integendeel, ik ben hier komen werken, omdat ik geloof in de kracht en ambities van deze nieuwe instelling, om een bruisende leer- en werkgemeenschap te realiseren met optimale ICT-faciliteiten1 en goede ondersteuning in bijvoorbeeld onderwijsontwikkeling en kwaliteitszorg.2 INHOLLAND loopt voorop in haar streven naar en de realisatie van de inzet van ICT als motor voor didactische vernieuwing. Maar hier vindt, net zoals dat elders in onze “kennismaatschappij” noodzakelijk is, een geweldloze revolutie in doen en denken plaats om daadwerkelijk te komen tot onderwijs waarbinnen de student zélf zijn studie inricht en uitvoert, daarbij begeleid door docenten die als eTutoren weten hoe ze dat moeten doen. Over dat proces van eStudent tot Kenniswerker en over hoe INHOLLAND dan zal veranderen van opleiding- en ICT-gestuurd naar studentgeleid, wil ik het vandaag vooral hebben.
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