Chen, Wenli

Cognizant that a critical 21st century skill is the capacity to do rapid collaborative knowledge building (RCKB) in a dynamic setting, we are interested to introduce practices for RCKB into classrooms. Through RCKB, students also have opportunities to learn and articulate their understanding in a deeper way than traditional classroom lessons. We describe a research project in which together with teachers, we initiated lesson activities that enact RCKB for science lessons. Towards that goal, we envisaged 10 principles for RCKB in the design of lessons, and worked with teachers to co-design lesson plans and apply these principles. Reporting on our initial pilot study, we document some effects of our intervention package in terms of traditional and non-traditional assessments of learning gains. We started with 6 weeks of initiation activities (a.k.a. “Paper Scribbles” or PS sessions) in the classroom using sticky paper notes, which was followed by another 10 weeks of activities in a school computer laboratory with the use of the Group Scribbles (GS) software technology. We share our lessons learned in this study, discuss implications for socio-technical instructional design of successful rapid knowledge building activities in the classroom, and suggest avenues for improvement and further research.

同侪互评作为过程写作的一个重要过程，一直受到关注。然而，探讨第二语言学生的同侪互评中对写作成果影响的研究为数不多。因此，本研究以第二语言学习理论与建构主义理论为理论依据，以“五益模型”为教学指导原则，探讨小学生在电脑支持的协作学习（CSCL）环境下，通过同侪互评的方式来进行知识建构的过程与学习成果之间的关系。本研究采用定性与定量的混合研究方法，以新加坡小学五年级的32位学生为研究对象，对其前后测作文进行对比，以及对不同阶段的互评帖子与作文之间的关系进行分析。结果显示同侪互评对于学生的写作成绩的提高具有积极的促进作用，同时也发现不同的小组文化对于学生的知识建构质量与作文成绩具有一定的影响力。

This paper analyses the role of different communication modes in students’ collaborative learning in a Primary Grade 5 blended learning environment in Singapore. Small groups of students interacted face-to-face over a CMC technology called Group Scribbles (GS) to jointly complete a learning task. We analyzed the construction and evolution of the interactions through analyzing the artifacts that are produced by a group of students - in the verbal talk, gestures, and sketches drawn and text inscribed in GS. F2F and GS interactions intertwined to support collaborative learning. The findings from this study could inform the design of integrating and reinforcing the strengths of both communication modes when introducing CSCL in a F2F classroom.

The importance of peer feedback in collaborative argumentation has been well-established. However, little is known about the extent to which peer feedback is associated with the quality of collaborative argumentation. Particularly, there is limited evidence for how specific types of feedback is related to argumentation quality. This study investigated peer feedback against four dimensions of collaborative argumentation quality (clarity, multiple perspectives, selection of evidence, and elaboration and depth). Collaborative argumentation quality was also compared against peer feedback types (appropriateness, specificity, and elaboration). In this design-based research (DBR), a class of 40 secondary Grade Three students in Singapore participated in three cycles of argumentation and peer feedback activities using the AppleTree online learning environment, each cycle consisting of five collaborative learning phases scripted by the Spiral Model of Collaborative Knowledge Improvement (SMCKI): Individual ideation, group synergy, peer critique, group refinement, and individual achievement. Scaffolds of sentence openers and reflections were added in Cycles 2 and 3. Quantitative analyses comparisons of argumentation and per feedback quality across three cycles revealed that except for the multiple perspectives dimension of argumentation quality, students performed significantly better in forming their argumentations and giving peer feedback. Additionally, the quality of argumentation improved significantly over the three cycles when accounting for peer feedback types as correlates, and vice versa.

Learning is interweaved into and across students’ everyday life activities. Technology that is used to support learning should be integrated with everyday life in the same way that learning occurs in everyday life: seamlessly. Mobile technologies, with their reduced size and ease of use, provide the potential to extend students’ learning spaces and enrich the learning experiences in their daily lives where they move between locations, switch from one topic or context to another, and interact with different social groups. This paper proposes mobile technology-supported seamless learning and presents learning scenarios from our research to illustrate how learning occurs seamlessly across time and places mediated by mobile devices.

介绍了一种基于三益模型的协作脚本是如何被 然科学课上的一组学生所采用的。协作脚本被置于AppleTree 系统中,学生们经历了 4 个阶段的协作学 活动: 个体构建、组内构建、组间评分和组内提炼。共有 33 名新加坡中四年级学生参与了这项研究。对学生的行为和认知进行定量和定性分析,解释了学生对协作脚本的脚本的使用情况以及影呴协作脚本使用的因素。学生的概念知识水平、课堂文化和时间是影呴学生使用协作脚本的重要因素。

Online collaboration is considered as one of the effective strategies to improve students’ argumentation skills. This strategy reduces the effects of production blocking and evaluation apprehension on group performance. There are currently few studies that examine the role of students’ characteristics in argumentation skill improvement via online collaboration. During a fifty-minute argumentation lesson conducted by the secondary school English language teacher, students learned to construct argumentation by establishing ideas, claims, and evidence in an attempt to address contemporary issues via an online collaboration system. Prior to the lesson, students completed a motivation scale and preference for group work scale and an argumentation writing task. A similar argumentation writing task was also completed by the students after the lesson. Overall, this study demonstrated that explicit instruction in argumentation skills via online collaboration has positive effects on student’ argumentation skills gains, especially on students with a high preference for group work. Results showed that students’ extrinsic goal orientation negatively predicted their argumentation skills, whereas students’ task value and preference for group work positively predicted their argumentation skills on the posttest. The implications of the findings on the teaching practices of argumentation skills are discussed.

This study sought to understand how leadership in the use of ICT for teaching and learning is distributed among school leaders. The results confirm that the leadership of school ICT reforms is distributed, which suggests the importance of nurturing and supporting various school leaders, and highlights the importance of the leadership role played by heads of departments in school ICT reform. The findings also suggest that teachers in primary schools are using ICT more frequently than teachers in secondary schools.

A collaborating group is increasingly viewed as a cognitive unit, the workings of which need to be understood independent of its effects on individual learning. We are beginning to understand how groups operate as a cognitive unit that learns, solves problems, and/or constructs new knowledge, but still lack adequate conceptual frameworks and analytic strategies to deal with different dimensions of group cognition. This problem is particularly acute in small group interaction mediated by technologies. While various technological tools are used to support small group interaction, we do not understand clearly yet how group understanding emerges from this process. In this paper, we examined the development of group understanding when the group discourse is mediated by the construction of technological artifacts.

Little research has examined second language (L2) learning from a Knowledge Building (KB) perspective. Most KB research is conducted in the context of science or mathematics learning which focuses on idea development and refinement. This paper proposes to investigate students' L2 learning using a KB approach, drawing upon our school-based research work which examines how L2 students learn and practice language skills through a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) tool called GroupScribbles. We hope to develop a theoretical framework with empirical evidence from a real classroom context to explore how KB unfolds in L2 learning.