Päivi Häkkinen

Specifying computer-supported collaboration scripts

Collaboration scripts facilitate social and cognitive processes of collaborative learning by shaping the way learners interact with each other. Computer-supported collaboration scripts generally suffer from the problem of being restrained to a specific learning platform. A standardization of collaboration scripts first requires a specification of collaboration scripts that integrates multiple perspectives from computer science, education and psychology. So far, only few and limited attempts at such specifications have been made. This paper aims to consolidate and expand these approaches in light of recent findings and to propose a generic framework for the specification of collaboration scripts. The framework enables a description of collaboration scripts using a small number of components (participants, activities, roles, resources and groups) and mechanisms (task distribution, group formation and sequencing).

Web-based Cases in Teaching and Learning - the Quality of Discussions and a Stage of Perspective Taking in Asynchronous Communication

The aim of this study is to examine the quality of asynchronous interaction in web-based conferencing among pre-service teachers. Because all successful communication presumes perspective-taking skills and reciprocal understanding among the participants, we study whether the students are able to reach in reciprocal interaction and thus create educationally relevant high-level web-based discussion. The research project has its foundation in socio-constructivist learning theories, one of the most important principles of which is the idea of apprenticeship in thinking. To create a learning project in web-based conferencing we developed pedagogical practices, which enhance higher-level networked communication and make use of theoretical and expert knowledge. The study combines the power of asynchronous conferencing with peer and mentor collaboration to electronically apprentice student learning. The subjects of the study are pre-service teachers in the United States (N ?=?40) and Finland (N ?=?30) who use an asynchronous web-based tool called Conferencing on the Web (COW) to collaborate in creating joint case-based descriptions in different areas of teaching and learning. The results point out different levels of web-based discussion. Three kinds were found: higher-level discussion, progressive discussion and lower-level discussion. More specific analysis of the quality of each discussion level focused on perspective taking in communication. The results support our hypothesis that higher-level perspective taking was related to higher-level discussion.

E‐learning at work: theoretical underpinnings and pedagogical challenges

Purpose – First, to explore the application of e‐learning as a medium for workplace learning, as a form of adult learning and organisational learning from a theoretical point of view, second, to review empirical studies on recent solutions to pedagogical problems encountered in workplace learning in general and in e‐learning in particular, and finally, to consider the challenges facing the further development of e‐learning solutions targeted at the workplace.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews theories of adult learning, workplace learning and organisational learning and brings out main pedagogical implications of these theories from an e‐learning point of view. Some empirical studies in which electronic networks and communication tools have been utilised in workplace learning are also described.Findings – The development of successful e‐learning solutions for the use of work organizations requires integrating research knowledge from different sources: theories of the learning organization, so...

Conceptualizing the Awareness of Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of a Global Virtual Team

Innovative organizations are increasing their use of distributed teamwork, but there are several difficulties in reaching shared understanding between the team members in these settings. A lack of awareness of other team members’ working processes is one of the drawbacks that a virtual team may face while attempting to collaborate on a shared task. In this study virtual teamwork was supported with a specific working model. The aim was to investigate virtual team members’ awareness of collaboration. One global team (N=19) within a single organization worked as a distributed team in a shared web-based workspace for three months. The data were gathered by means of questionnaires, log-files of the shared virtual workspace and collected company documents in order to find out how team members perceive their collaboration. Based on qualitative data analysis, three different aspects of collaboration awareness were identified: an awareness of the possibility for collaboration, an awareness of the aims of collaboration, and an awareness of the process of collaboration. The results presented in this paper give guidelines for discussing what the awareness of collaboration means in the context of distributed collaboration.

Epistemic cooperation scripts in online learning environments: fostering learning by reducing uncertainty in discourse?

Using online learning environments in higher education offers innovative possibilities to support collaborative learning. However, online learning creates new kinds of problems for participants who have not previously worked with each other. One of these problems is uncertainty which occurs when participants do not know each other. According to the uncertainty reduction theory, low uncertainty level increases the amount of discourse and decreases the amount of information seeking. Therefore, uncertainty may influence online discourse and learning. This study investigates the effects of an epistemic cooperation script with respect to the amount of discourse, information seeking and learning outcomes in collaborative learning as compared to unscripted collaborative learning. The aim was also to explore how and what kind of information learners seek and receive and how learning partners react to such information exchange. The participants were 48 students who were randomly assigned to groups of three in two conditions, one with and one without an epistemic script. The results indicate that the epistemic script increased the amount of discourse and decreased the amount of information seeking activities. Without an epistemic script, however, learners achieved better learning outcomes. The results of two qualitative case-based analyses on information seeking will also be discussed.

Mechanisms of common ground in case-based web discussions in teacher education

Previous studies suggest that before participants in web-based conferencing can reach deeper level interaction and learning, they have to gain an adequate level of common ground in terms of shared mutual understanding, knowledge, beliefs, assumptions, and presuppositions (Clark & Schaefer, 1989; Dillenbourg, 1999). In this paper, the purpose is to explore how participants establish and maintain common ground in order to reach deeper level interaction in case-based web discussions. The subjects in this study consisted of 68 preservice teachers and 7 mentors from 3 universities, who participated in a web-based conferencing course for 8 weeks. The written discussion data were analyzed by means of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The results suggest that in order to establish common ground, it is essential that the participants, especially as fellow students, not only show evidence of their understandings through written feedback, but also provide support to their peers in their replies. Presenting questions also signals the willingness of participants to continue the discussion, which is essential for maintaining common ground.

Sharing and Constructing Perspectives in Web-Based Conferencing.

Abstract This study investigates the quality and nature of virtual interaction in a higher education context. The study aims to find out variables that mediate virtual interaction, particularly the emerging processes of sharing and constructing perspectives in web-based conferencing. The purpose of this paper is to report the results on different levels of web-based discussions with parallel findings on the amount of sharing perspectives. The findings of two empirical studies are compared, and thereby also the impact of the pedagogical model designed between these two studies is evaluated. Possible explanations for why some discussions reach higher levels and include more perspective sharing than others are also searched for. Particular attention is paid to the qualitatively distinct ways in which individual students interpret their participation in virtual interaction and the impact of group working on their own learning. These findings lead us on to discuss specific processes by which participants could better understand each other, create joint goals and construct meanings in virtual interaction.

Challenges for Design of Computer-Based Learning Environments.

After several decades of learning research and the reactions of cognitive psychology to this research, educational psychologists and training designers developed prescriptive model for the systematic design of instruction (Derry and Lesgold, 1994). This model, called Instructional Design (ID) or Instructional System Design (ISD), consists of knowledge, terminology and procedures that are widely accepted by professionals within the instructional design culture (eg, Dick and Carey, 1990; Gagne and Merrill, 1990). Designing instances of instruction or planning and preparing to instruct can be considered a subset of designing. Instructional design is directed toward the practical purpose of learning; the instructional design process aims at creating new instructional materials or systems with which students learn (Rowland, 1993). The process of instructional design attempts to develop an understanding of the conditions and desired outcomes of instruction, and to use all of this in specifying methods of instruction (Reigeluth, 1983). With the rising interest in more open, often computer-based learning environments, traditional definitions of instructional design need adaptation and more sophisticated models of design have been called for (Hannafin and Land, 1996; Lowyck and Poysa, 2001; Reigeluth, 1996 and 1998). This paper presents a review of the basic foundations and more recent challenges of the main instructional design traditions.

Collaborative processes during report writing of a science learning project: The nature of discourse as a function of task requirements

The aim of this article is to specify how different aspects of task assignments are related to different types of student discourse during the report writing phase of a science learning project. A group of four ninth-grade students of the Finnish comprehensive school (about 15-year-olds) participated in a project work involving laboratory experiments, reading literature, and analysing and reporting research findings. The empirical data were collected through videotaping and interviews in authentic classroom settings. The results indicated that construction of shared, high-level understanding was quite rare in this case of small group interaction. As one of the main reasons for this, we suggest that the learning tasks were defined in a way that did not encourage shared reflection and high-level discourse. The students’ task was mostly to answer fact-seeking questions made by their teacher to guide the report writing, which promoted recollection rather than reasoning. In order to facilitate high-level discourse and learning, more attention should be paid to the kind of processes that task assignment triggers. The findings are discussed in the framework of how teachers could formulate their task assignments to promote high-level discourse.

Designing and analyzing collaboration in a scripted game for vocational education

This study attempts to combine the technological possibilities of 3D-game environments and collaborative learning scripts. The study is a design experiment (N=64) with multiple data collection and analysis (quantitative and qualitative) methods. The aims were twofold: The aim was to develop a game environment to simulate issues of work safety in a vocational context and to answer the following questions on the basis of an empirical study: (1) What kind of activities did the scripted game environment generate among the players? (2) How did the least and the most successful groups differ in this respect despite the same scripted game environment? Findings indicated that scripted game environment enriched the learning activities by enabling aspects that would not have been possible in traditional classroom settings. The scripted game environment also helped the players proceed in the different phases. However, the groups differed in terms of results in the test, collaboration processes, and the type and quantity of discussion. Especially discussion differed between the groups with highest and lowest test scores.