Group items tagged

(Robert Barton) A very informative paper Jesse. I'm unfamiliar with the acronym CSCW. In business, I don't believe there is as much emphasis placed on CL when compared to education. Employees are hired for a specific purpose and if working in a team environment, they may get together once a week, sometime once every two weeks. I work as a ID on a team of 12 (SME's and web developers) developing CBT. We may meet once every 2-3 weeks, as per the project manager. Most times, in business, the team knows what is required to accomplish a goal and they act accordingly. In education, the goals may seem unclear at first. They are ultimately satisfied one assignment at a time.

Bob, I didn't realize you were in ISD? I'm sure you told me at one point. I got the CSCL and CSCW terms from an article we read or a web page I came across. Sorry I can't give you the link. I don't think there is a world of difference between the two. If you think of it, both CSCL and CSCW are collaboration... one just is colaboration on WORK tasks (cscW) and the other is collaboration on leanring tasks (cscL).

(Robert Barton) Your comment regarding "conditions" has me curious. I understand your rationale for omitting it, but can you expound a little more on this topic, or possibly provide a link for further reading?

Bob. Think first of the "conditions" that might need to be in place for f2f collaboration to occure. (Social skills, desk arrangements, willing students). When cooperative learning goes online and becomes CSCL, it seems to me that you only ADD conditions that need to be in place for healthy collaboration to be able to occur. You still need willing participants. You still need social skills to be a certain level in the collaborators. You still need activities arranged to envoke collaboration. On top of this, you need tech support, you need time issues to be ironed out, you need software that really supports rather than detracts from collaboration. Going from f2f collaborative learing, to CSCL... only adds more layers. It's not just moving from one type to another such that both experiences are pretty much just as hard or just as easy to pull off.

(Robert Barton) I believe online simultaneous interaction is possible when participating in a synchronous chat. We've conducted a few and have interacted quite well :). Without researching PIES, has Kagan adapted his theory to include distance education?

Bob, I didn't mean to say that "Simultanious Interaction" was not possible online. You are right that it is possible and we have done some of that ourselves already. What I was getting at was that with my old PIES view of collaborative learning, I didn't have a category of asynchronous collaboration online. Kagan's theory was developed in f2f classes. Think of your typical public school room. In that type of environment, you want as many students simultaniously acting as possible. When you go online, via CSCL, and use an asynchronous medium.. then the word simultanious goes out the window. SO... that means that my theory needed to be a bit more flexible. I needed to be able to take the S out of PIES... or be able to stretch the theory to encapsulate asynchronous environments as well.

I didn't get any messages for this highlighted text. I'm assuming that you made corrections to my sentences. Thanks Heidi :)

(Heidi) I like that you listed conditions that are dependent on the instructor, students, and available technology. I think this is important because in order for collaborative learning to be successful in an online environment I think you probably need a good combination of all 3 - the structure from the instructor, buy-in from the students, and technology that can accommodate group interaction sufficiently!

Thanks Heidi. I'm glad you agree with my opinions. But I strongly believe that the student have to have self-initiative and motivation to drive them to do their best in online learning.

(Heidi) I think that taking time to reflect and synthesize material is important any time a person is learning something new. I agree that the peer assessment activity also allowed each of us to think through our own experiences and involvement in the project and was a great time to reflect. Do you think it is the Peer Assessment or Reflection that is a main condition to collaborative learning?

Come to think of it, peer assessment is just a tool that helps students to rate their peers. The results of these assessment helps to boost their confidence and motivate them to do better. Although it may not be an important factor, it may help to improve the collaboration activities.

I think we should focus our efforts on addressing problems #1 and #10. Move your cursor on top of problem 1 and 10 to read my comments.

I think we should focus our efforts on addressing problems #1 and #10. I analyzed the debate data using my software tool (http://garnet.fsu.edu/~ajeong/DAT) and found the following: 1) 2 of the 19 arguments did not elicit a challenge; 2) only 22 of the 64 challenges elicited a rebuttal or counter-challenge;3) only 5 of the 64 challenges elicited explanations; and only 4 of the challenges elicited suporting evidence. These observations point to some serious weaknesses in the quality of the debate. Move your cursor on top of problem 1 and 10 to read additional comments.

I think we should focus our efforts on addressing problems #1 and #10. I analyzed the debate data using my software tool (http://garnet.fsu.edu/~ajeong/DAT) and found the following: 1) 2 of the 19 arguments did not elicit a challenge; 2) only 22 of the 64 challenges elicited a rebuttal or counter-challenge;3) only 5 of the 64 challenges elicited explanations; and only 4 of the challenges elicited suporting evidence. These observations point to some serious weaknesses in the quality of the debate. Move your cursor on top of problem 1 and 10 to read additional comments. Also, see additional response data in the figure presented at the bottom of the wiki.

I think this should be one of the main problems we need to address in the group projects. The ScoreSheet tab in the ArchivedDebates.xls in the row titled "Interactivity" shows that only 66% of all message elicited one ore more replies (after I ran the CountPostings function to analyze the messages posted in the "Debates" tab). That is a very high level of interaction compared to what I've seen in other debates. The same sheet also shows that there were 17 different threads (or arguments) posted to the debate. Perhaps there were too many arguments, and that the number of arguments did not allow students to thoroughly examine each argument (given constraints in time and effort)? When I ran the "PerformanceReports" function, the Reports sheet under the column "#Daysw/Postings" showed that only 3 of the 20 students made all their postings in one day (not over multiple days across the week). The high level of interaction could be explained by the fact that so many of the students posted their messages over two or more different days?

In other words, I take this as meaning that some students never challenged (or post messages with the label BUT) the accuracy or the veracity of the arguments posted to the debates. Given that the debate is a group effort, should we require ALL students to post at least one challenge? Or can we allow students to choose and perform specific roles - some as critiques, and some as idea builders?

A doctoral student and I did a study to see if poor grammar affected the number and the types of responses posted in reply to messages containing good vs. poor grammar. We did not find any significant effects of grammar on the mean number of challenges posted in reply to arguments stated with poor vs. good grammar. We also did not find any significant differences in the mean number of explanations posted in reply to each challenge presented with poor vs. good grammar. So in conclusion, grammar does not appear to effect level of critical discourse in the EME5457 online debates. See my powerpoint presentation.

When you say consider the personalities of group members, do you mean just being "aware" of what they are or using them to match or team people up?

Well, I think I did not explain myself very clear in my final personal theory paper because I would have busted the 800 words limit "BIG TIME" if I were to do that :) For considering the personalities of grroup members which I have explained in my 1st Personal Theory paper, I meant the considerations that the instructor will have to make while assigning the members to the group (for instance, being a less dominant person, I am considered the "easy-going" type of person. However, I have had experiences in a group setting where there are 2 very dominant individuals who want to be the one to "call the shots". In the end, the learning process and outcome for the group as a whole suffered due to the conflicts that resulted from these 2 individuals with very strong personalities.)

Great tie-in to your personal experiences.

I think in the Army or any uniformed service for that matter, we the individuals that make up the fighting units often have to sacrifice our individualities for the collective purpose.

I completely understand what you are saying and per the article, I can see how it would support your assumption. I would be curious to know whether any bias exists, such as in the study population. The study revealed that the best outcomes came from learners working together and for those who followed a structured study format, but was the entire testing population similar in ability to begin with?

Good point there---I wondered something along the same lines, I guess the operative phrase here is "contribute to", rather than "ensure" or "guarantee".... The article did also state that other studies revealed dissimilar results.... mwirt

Interesting point! I can definitely see learning styles not being too much of a hinderance, as each learner can work in areas they are best in. I can see personality as being much more of an issue, in regards to social aspects and working together. The one I'm not quite sure on is gender...can you please clarify how gender hinders CL?

I apologize...I actually see your study noted above in the Collaborative tasks/methods section that addressed the effects of gender. Thanks!

Ok-- It was also interesting to note the by-now-stereotypical reaction of females in mixed gender groups to be reluctant to perpetuate certain types of responses/conflict for fear of being perceived as "aggressive" or "dominating".... michele w.

I'm not quite sure how the evidence provided here supports the actual assumption about CL. The evidence appears to merely explain objectives, rather than reflect their correlation to effective CL.

The integration of course objectives/goals/outcomes INTO the writing of the learning objectives to reflect expected performances requires that the instructor nearly take his or her course themselves; I tried to say that in my third column there, could use rewording, any suggestions? mwirt