TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Computer Supported
Collaborative Learning:
Pedagogical and Technological Scaffolding
Anders Mørch and Kathrine Nygård
TOOL 5100, 27.02.07
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Outline
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What is CSCL
Approaches and perspectives
Basic concepts
Intersubjectivity and related terms
Methodological concerns
The role of the computer
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
What is CSCL
• CSCL: Computer Supported Collaborative
Learning
• A field concerned with collaborative learning
and how it can be supported by computers
• The role of technology as “mediating artifact”,
i.e. mediation becomes a key concern
• It has been compared to the role of language in
conventional education (e.g. Vygotsky)
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Computational implications
• The computer is as a information
processing device (it is built as such)
– Support design of tools and environments
• From the point of use ICT is mediating
artifact not unlike other tools we interact
with in everyday activity
– Concrete tools (chairs, pencils, screens)
– Abstract tools (language, symbols, ideas)
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Collaborative learning
• Learning in groups and learning through virtual
collaboration
• Involves 2 or more participants
– Usually 2 or more students, but can also be one
teacher and students
• An goal of CL is to reach a learning objective or
take part in in a knowledge creation process that
exceeds the sum of what the individuals can
achieve on their own
• Group cognition (Stahl, 2006)
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Cited shortcomings of CL
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Collaborative learning have been criticized as having
similar problems to those identified in problem-based
learning and cased-based instruction (where learners
work in groups)
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The problem of lurkers (free passengers)
The complexity of modeling real situations
Reaching closure and scaling up
Process becomes more important than outcome
Many of these issues can be addressed by
improvements to CSCL tools and environments
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Factors impacting collaboration
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The nature of the collaborative task: e.g. physics problem
solving vs. editing a school newspaper
The nature of collaborators (peer, teacher-student, studentcomputer, etc.)
The unit of analysis (individual, activity, group, classroom)
The number of collaborators
The previous relationship between collaborators
The motivation of collaborators
The setting of collaboration: classroom, workplace, home
The time period of collaboration: from minutes to years
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Approaches and perspectives in
CSCL
• According to Ludvigsen and Mørch (2007):
• Systemic approach
– Cognitive science perspective
• Dialogical approach
– Socio-cultural perspective
• Both approaches are important to understand and
design for CSCL
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Systemic approach
• The systemic approach gives useful guidelines
for how we can build scaffolds for cognitive
processes like hypothesis generation, data
interpretation, and scientific explanation.
However, this model-based approach to learning
and cognition needs to be supplemented by a
situated approach from a social and cultural
perspective to provide a full account of CSCL.
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Dialogical approach
• The dialogical approach to CSCL provides new
analytic concepts to analyze how students and
teachers interact in collaborative learning. The
dialogic approach gives broader insights and
explanations concerning the development of
traditional skills, and pays particular attention to
skills such as those for communication,
coordination, information sharing, collaboration,
negotiation, critiquing, and decision-making, and
how to design CSCL tools to support these
activities
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Related approaches and
perspectives
• Following Rommetveit
– Monological and dialogical
• Following Hakkarainen et al.
– Monological, dialogical, trialogical
• Following Kaleidoscope EU Network of
Excellence
– The cognitive perspective
– The social and cultural perspective
– The design perspective and computational perspective
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Rommetveit’s distinctions (from F3)
• Monological approach
– Associated with the cognitive science, thought is
monologue with one self
– Thought can be modeled to high accuracy and the
computer is well equipped for thus purpose
– Key proponents: Simon and Newell; Anderson
• Dialogical approach
– Mind embedded in a social context and mediated by a
cultural collective
– Additional proponents: Wertsch; Säljö
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Key trends and characteristics
• A trend toward support of process rather than
outcome, differs thus from cognitive perspective
• Theoretically motivated empirical studies and
methodological informed by design experiments
• Unit of analysis is complex and positioned on an
axis between the individual and the social
• Time scale varies from a few seconds of an
exchange of utterances to a school year
• Internalization, externalization, trajectories
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Basic concepts and terms
• Socio-cultural perspectives
• Socio-cognitive studies
– Piaget; Dillenbourg
• Intersubjectivity and common ground
– Rommetveit; Clark; Baker
• Computational
– Exploring the potential of the computer to support
learning in groups and virtual collaboration
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Socio-cultural perspectives
• Unit of analysis is ‘activity’: individuals acting
together to achieve goals mediated by artifacts and
rules to guide the activity
• Vygotsky’s ‘genetic law’ which says that interpsychological (social) processes precedes intrapsychological (thought) processes is central to this
perspective
• The role of mediating artifacts in these processes,
from everyday physical tools and computers to
abstract tools like language play important roles
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Socio-cognitive studies
• Originated with Piaget and later extended to include
social influences on individual development
• Unit of analysis is individual development in the
context of social interaction, implying two planes:
social and individual
• An issue becomes how to intertwine the two planes
• Studies by experimentation often using by pre- and
post tests to e.g. assess the relative usefulness of
collaborative learning to individual learning
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Intersubjectivity and related
terms (from Rommetveit)
• Intersubjectivity
– Spoken utterances driven by speaker and listener’s
goal of “mutual attunement,” reaching for a shared
social reality (external state of affairs)
– Neither private nor public (objective), but shared by
two or more people who (get to) know(s) each other
• Grounding (e.g. Clark)
– This is related to intersubjectivity but not the same
– Deliberately contributing to creating shared meaning
rather than adaptation in everyday communication
– Shared subjective reality rather than social reality
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Methodological concerns
• Empirical approaches
– Identify existing technology in use in a setting (e.g.
classroom)
– Study technology in use as part of an ongoing practice
– Theoretical understanding of the learning activities
• Design-based research
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Introduce a new technology to an existing practice
Study technology in use and changes in practice
Lessons learned and design principles
Repeat if necessary
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Design-based research
• Pedagogical design
– Technology is only one component out of many
and the focus in on creating use around
technology and developing knowledge practices
• Technology design
– Developing new tools and environments
– Improving existing tools (e.g. CSCW —> CSCL)
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
DBR methodology
• Partnerships among researchers and
educators with the goals of conducting
rigorous and reflective inquiry in
classrooms,
• Testing and refining innovative learning
environments, and
• Defining new design principles based on
previous research
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
DBR theoretical approach
• Suggesting design principles based on
theories of learning
• Applying these principles to the design of
learning environments
• Refining the principles based on empirical
findings and iterating the design experiment
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
The role of the computer in CSCL
• Provide shared spaces (groupware for learning)
• Peer-to-peer (handheld devices for classroom
interaction)
• Mediating artifact (ICT seen from the point of
view of use)
• Design of new functionalities into tools and
environments (e.g. software agents; awareness)
• Innovative new tools
• New collaborative environments
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007
TOOL5100: CSCL
Introduction to CSCL
Examples of CSCL functionalities
• Scaffolding
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Subject domains
Scientific inquiry
Presence of others
Principles of virtual collaboration
• Levels of feedback
– Mirroring, meta-cognitive support, guidance
• Intervention technique
– Pro-active, re-active, passive
Lecture 4, 27.02.2007