Kati Mäkitalo-Siegl

Educational Perspectives on Scripting CSCL

This chapter discusses different educational approaches to collaboration scripts. When carefully designed, scripts can push learners to that kind of situations in which meaningful interaction can take place. However, many conditions need to be met for this to happen in authentic classroom contexts. One of the biggest educational challenges in instructional design of computer-supported collaboration scripts is to better integrate them into wider social planes such as overall classroom activities. Scripts could also be considered as contextual and situated resources in collaborative learning environments. Furthermore, a challenge for future research is to explore how external scripts can be gradually replaced by individual self-regulation. In order to face many of these challenges, longer-term follow-up studies should be conducted in research on collaboration scripts.

Preparing teacher-students for twenty-first-century learning practices (PREP 21) : a framework for enhancing collaborative problem-solving and strategic learning skills

Abstract With regard to the growing interest in developing teacher education to match the twenty-first-century skills, while many assumptions have been made, there has been less theoretical elaboration and empirical research on this topic. The aim of this article is to present our pedagogical framework for the twenty-first-century learning practices in teacher education. We will first review the current status of policy frameworks for the twenty-first-century learning skills. Based on our previous work and current understanding in the field of learning sciences, we will next elaborate the processes and strategies for collaborative problem-solving skills and strategic learning skills to specify current, rather general claims presented regarding the discussion on twenty-first-century skills. We will also provide concrete case examples facilitating strategic learning skills, collaborative problem-solving skills, and the skills to use information and communication technologies in contexts of our previous studies.

Insights into Finnish first-year pre-service teachers’ twenty-first century skills

This study focuses on Finnish pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their twenty-first century skills, especially their learning strategies, collaboration and teamwork, as well as knowledge and attitudes related to ICT in education. The target group consist of 263 first-year pre-service teachers from three universities. The results outline how pre-service teachers perceive their twenty-first century skills, the relationships between different areas of these skills, and the differences among pre-service teachers in terms of perceived skills. The results indicate that the pre-service teachers perceive themselves as skilled learners in terms of learning strategies used as well as collaboration and teamwork. When it comes to understanding how to use ICT in education, they perceived their level of knowledge lower. The strongest variation between respondents was seen in the areas of knowledge and attitudes related to the use of ICT in education.