Brigid Barron

When Smart Groups Fail.

In this study I investigated how collaborative interactions influence problem-solving outcomes. Conversations of twelve 6th-grade triads were analyzed utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods. Neither prior achievement of group members nor the generation of correct ideas for solution could account for between-triad differences in problem-solving outcomes. Instead, both characteristics of proposals and partner responsiveness were important correlates of the uptake and documentation of correct ideas by the group. Less successful groups ignored or rejected correct proposals, whereas more successful groups discussed or accepted them. Conversations in less successful groups were relatively incoherent as measured by the extent that proposals for solutions in these groups were connected with preceding discussions. Performance differences observed in triads extended to subsequent problem-solving sessions during which all students solved the same kinds of problems independently. These findings suggest that the quality of interaction had implications for learning. Case study descriptions illustrate the interweaving of social and cognitive factors involved in establishing a joint problem-solving space. A dual-space model of what collaboration requires of participants is described to clarify how the content of the problem and the relational context are interdependent aspects of the collaborative situation. How participants manage these interacting spaces is critical to the outcome of their work and helps account for variability in collaborative outcomes. Directions for future research that may help teachers, students, and designers of educational environments learn to see and foster productive interactional practices are proposed.

Interest and Self-Sustained Learning as Catalysts of Development: A Learning Ecology Perspective

Adolescents often pursue learning opportunities both in and outside school once they become interested in a topic. In this paper, a learning ecology framework and an associated empirical research agenda are described. This framework highlights the need to better understand how learning outside school relates to learning within schools or other formal organizations, and how learning in school can lead to learning activities outside school. Three portraits of adolescent learners are shared to illustrate different pathways to interest development. Five types of self-initiated learning processes are identified across these case portraits. These include the seeking out of text-based informational sources, the creation of new interactive activity contexts such as projects, the pursuit of structured learning opportunities such as courses, the exploration of media, and the development of mentoring or knowledge-sharing relationships. Implications for theories of human development and ideas for research are discussed.

Conducting Video Research in the Learning Sciences: Guidance on Selection, Analysis, Technology, and Ethics

Focusing on expanding technical capabilities and new collaborative possibilities, we address 4 challenges for scientists who collect and use video records to conduct research in and on complex learning environments: (a) Selection: How can researchers be systematic in deciding which elements of a complex environment or extensive video corpus to select for study? (b) Analysis: What analytical frameworks and practices are appropriate for given research problems? (c) Technology: What technologies are available and what new tools must be developed to support collecting, archiving, analyzing, reporting, and collaboratively sharing video? and (d) Ethics: How can research protocols encourage broad video sharing and reuse while adequately protecting the rights of research participants who are recorded?

Learning Ecologies for Technological Fluency: Gender and Experience Differences

The concern with a “digital divide” has been transformed from one defined by technological access to technological prowess—employing technologies for more empowered and generative uses such as learning and innovation. Participation in technological fluency-building activities among high school students in a community heavily involved in the technology industry was investigated in a study of 98 high school seniors enrolled in AP-level calculus. Findings indicated substantial variability in history of fluency-building experiences despite similar levels of access. More and less experienced groups were defined based on their breadth of prior experience. Males and females who were classified as more experienced utilized a broader range of learning resources and were more likely to learn from out-of-school classes and distributed resources such as online tutorials and reading material. Gender differences emerged with respect to participation in certain activities such as computer programming, even when controlling for overall breadth of experience and an analysis of course-taking history helped explain why. Four times as many males as females had taken a programming class. Analysis of reasons for taking courses indicated that the majority of females who chose to take programming did so with the encouragement of family members. Both confidence and interest were related to experience, though the relationship differed for males and females. These results are discussed with respect to a multi-context framework for the development of technological fluency.

Interest and the Development of Pathways to Science

In this chapter we review two lines of work that trace the ways interest in science is triggered in everyday activity and then, once triggered, is extended and deepened. We take an ecological view of interest development, exploring social, cognitive, cultural, and material resources that contribute to a pathway from interest to disciplinary expertise and engagement. The chapter brings together two complementary lines of empirical work. In the first line of work, Crowley, Knutson, and colleagues conducted 2-hour retrospective life-history interviews with adult scientists and engineers asking about their early disciplinary interests and the ways those interests developed and were supported throughout life. In the second line of work, Barron, Martin, and colleagues prospectively followed youth engaged in science and technology to identify ways their interests were supported and extended across everyday, informal, and formal boundaries. We first present examples from each of these two lines of work, and then a cross-study synthesis that points to new questions about interest development. Our findings suggest that individual interests in science often emerge before high school, and as learners become passionate about a particular interest, they increasingly seek out and create opportunities to learn by engaging parents and peers, taking on new projects, enrolling in programs or visiting informal learning settings, and/or pursuing resources in books or online.

Assisting and assessing the development of technological fluencies: insights from a project-based approach to teaching computer science

University-school partnerships hold great promise for establishing innovative computer-science curricula and investigating how students learn and appropriate technologies for their own use. Here we highlight an interdisciplinary design work and describe a novel approach to the assessment of student growth.

Creating Within and Across Life Spaces: The Role of a Computer Clubhouse in a Child’s Learning Ecology

The clubhouse environment described above has its origins in concerns about equitable access to tools, people, and ideas that support the development of technological fluency—defined generally as the capacity to express oneself using a broad range of computing tools (Resnick & Rusk, 1996) and to adapt technology to advance one’s own goals. Digital technologies offer children and adolescents rich opportunities to design and create artwork, movies, games, animations, interactive robots, and other artifacts. Online communities that reflect “cultures of participation” (Jenkins, 2006, 2009) allow creators to share their work, receive feedback, and expand their social networks. Informal collaborative relationships develop as learners share knowledge and codevelop interests. It has been suggested that participation in these informal collectives nurtures important twenty-first-century capacities such as collaboration, knowledge of how to build social networks, manage information, direct one’s own learning, engage in design, and capitalize on opportunities for distributed cognition and the building of collective intelligence. Design activities, including information gathering, creative thinking, prototyping, improvisation, and tinkering, are thought to provide potential pathways to these crucial twenty-first-century capacities (Balsamo, 2010).

Citizen Science: Connecting to Nature Through Networks

Citizen science projects represent an important example of mass collaboration at a global scale where nonscientists can contribute to science research across geographical locations. To more broadly and deeply capitalize on the potential for citizen science to invigorate inquiry-based science at school, we need to better understand how and why citizen science opportunities are taken up by particular teachers. In this chapter, we offer a framework for the analysis of conditions that influence voluntary participation in citizen science efforts. The framework is developed with empirical data from a longitudinal case study. The framework focuses on four dimensions that contributed sustained and evolving participation: (1) alignment between the citizen science opportunity with personal interests and teaching goals, (2) access to a networked community with curricular resources and a technical infrastructure, (3) an integrated indoor and outdoor classroom space that promoted place-based inquiry opportunities, and (4) a set of collaborative practices and networked opportunities that created conditions for an expanding set of partnerships. We close with a discussion of how the design of the socio-technical dimensions of citizen science efforts might be informed by both ethnographic and quantitative studies.

Continuing motivation for game design

In this paper we share experiences from a 2-week game-design project using the introductory programming environment AgentSheets with middle school students (6-8 grades) during a summer computing course at a public middle school in northern California. We examine factors that influence students. desire to continue working with the software, looking at similarities and differences between boys and girls, students with high or low levels of prior experience, and variables which we hypothesize might contribute to continuing motivation. Our findings suggest that programming in the context of game design can be of interest to a broad range of students, not only those who already are engaged in technological activities.

Advancing understanding of learning in interaction: how ways of participating can influence joint performance and learning

An enduring issue for CSCL researchers involves developing methods of assessing collaborative interaction and tracing the quality of collaboration to learning outcomes. One critical question for research is whether we can identify relational and/or interactional resources that are important for generative collaboration. In this presentation, we will share research that examined the relationship between student interactions, group success, and subsequent individual performance on the same and a related problem solving measure.