Piia Näykki

How Pictorial Knowledge Representations Mediate Collaborative Knowledge Construction In Groups

Abstract This study investigates the process of collaborative knowledge construction when technology and pictorial knowledge representations are used for visualizing individual and groups’ shared ideas. The focus of the study is on how teacher-students contribute to the group’s collaborative knowledge construction and use each other’s ideas and tools as an affordance for their jointly evolving cognitive systems. The context of the study is a teacher-student (N=13) educational technology course. The data involved students’ videotaped face-to-face group activities (mind-mapping with paper and pen and mind-mapping with a Mobile Mind Map Tool and pictorial knowledge representations) as well as stimulated recall interviews. The data-driven qualitative content analysis revealed that students were engaged in knowledge level and transactivity level activities and they processed their own ideas as well as others’ ideas in their group interactions.

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.

Four Stages of Research on the Educational Use of Ubiquitous Computing

In this paper, the Gartner Groups hype cycle is used as the basis for categorizing and analyzing research on the educational use of ubiquitous computing. There are five phases of the hype cycle: the technology trigger, the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment, and the plateau of productivity. Research on the educational use of mobile technology is divided in this paper into four stages: (i) a period of mobility and personal digital assistants (PDAs); (ii) the era of wireless internet learning devices; (iii) the introduction of social mobile media; and (iv) a ubiquitous future. In addition, three empirical case studies are used as examples of these developmental stages. These case studies demonstrate the diversity of contexts, methods, and technologies used, ranging from the workplace to nature trails, from inquiry learning to collaborative knowledge building, and from PocketPCs to smartphones. The four stages of educational use in the context of the hype cycle and the case studies together emphasize that pedagogically grounded instructional design is needed to put emergent technologies to effective use to promote learning skills, namely self-regulated learning and collaboration, and to prepare people for the 21st century learning society.

Monitoring makes a difference: quality and temporal variation in teacher education students’ collaborative learning

ABSTRACT The aim of this process-oriented video-observation study is to explore how groups that perform differently differ in terms of the number, quality, and temporal variation of their content-level (knowledge co-construction) and meta-level (monitoring) activities. Five groups of teacher education students (n = 22) were observed throughout a 3-month course. Video recordings (33 hours) of face-to-face group interaction (n = 12,931 speech turns) and pre- and post-tests of students’ knowledge were collected. The results show that the well-performing group was more engaged in high-level knowledge co-construction and monitoring activities. The well-performing group was also capable of maintaining a higher level throughout the tasks, whereas the lower performing groups’ knowledge co-construction and monitoring activities was reduced during the course.

Facilitating Socio-Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Monitoring in Collaborative Learning with a Regulation Macro Script--An Exploratory Study.

This study examines student teachers’ collaborative learning by focusing on socio-cognitive and socio-emotional monitoring processes during more and less active script discussions as well as the near transfer of monitoring activities in the subsequent task work. The participants of this study were teacher education students whose collaborative learning was supported with a designed regulation macro script during a six weeks environmental science course. The script divided the group work into three phases, namely: the orientation phase, intermediate phase, and reflection phase. The script was put in use by prompting questions that were delivered to the students on tablets. Question prompts instructed groups to plan their collaborative processes, and to stop and reflect on the efficiency of their strategies and outcomes of their learning process. The data were collected by videotaping the groups’ face-to-face work and analysed by focusing on verbalised monitoring interactions. More active and less active script discussions were differentiated in terms of the length and the quality of discussion. The results show that the macro script was used more thoroughly at the beginning of the group activities for orientation than for coordinating the progress or reflecting on the performance. Active script discussions involved more monitoring activities, especially providing socio-emotional support. Once socio-emotional support was stimulated in the more active script discussion, it tended to follow-up during the task work. It can be concluded, that the groups appropriated the script differently in different situations and with varied success. The implications of facilitating socio-cognitive and socio-emotional monitoring in collaborative learning are discussed.

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.