The International Handbook of Collaborative Learning

Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Clark Chinn, Carol Chan, Angela O'Donnell, Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Clark A. Chinn, Carol Chan, Angela M. O'Donnell

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136869549
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Bildung
• Categoria: Bildung Allgemein

Collaborative learning has become an increasingly important part of education, but the research supporting it is distributed across a wide variety of fields including social, cognitive, developmental, and educational psychology, instructional design, the learning sciences, educational technology, socio-cultural studies, and computer-supported collaborative learning. The goal of this book is to integrate theory and research across these diverse fields of study and, thereby, to forward our understanding of collaborative learning and its instructional applications. The book is structured into the following 4 sections: 1) Theoretical Foundations 2) Research Methodologies 3) Instructional Approaches and Issues and 4) Technology.

Key features include the following:

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• Comprehensive and Global – This is the first book to provide a comprehensive review of the widely scattered research on collaborative learning including the contributions of many international authors.

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• Cross disciplinary – The field of collaborative learning is highly interdisciplinary drawing scholars from psychology, computer science, mathematics education, science education, and educational technology. Within psychology, the book brings together perspectives from cognitive, social, and developmental psychology as well as from the cross-disciplinary field of the learning sciences.

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• Chapter Structure – To ensure consistency across the book, authors have organized their chapters around integrative themes and issues. Each chapter author summarizes the accumulated literature related to their chapter topic and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the supporting evidence.

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• Strong Methodology – Each chapter within the extensive methodology section describes a specific methodology, its underlying assumptions, and provide examples of its application.

This book is appropriate for researchers and graduate level instructors in educational psychology, learning sciences, cognitive psychology, social psychology, computer science, educational technology, teacher education and the academic libraries serving them. It is also appropriate as a graduate level textbook in collaborative learning, computer-supported collaborative learning, cognition and instruction, educational technology, and learning sciences.

I

Theoretical Approaches

1

Information Processing Approaches to Collaborative Learning

Noreen M. Webb

University of California, Los Angeles

The potential of small-group collaboration to promote student learning is recognized by educators, researchers, and policy-makers alike. Confirmatory research evidence began appearing decades ago (e.g., meta-analyses by Johnson, Maruyama, Johnson, Nelson, & Skon, 1981; Slavin, 1983a,b). Since then much research has focused on clarifying the mechanisms by which working with peers produces positive learning outcomes. This chapter addresses the question from an information-processing perspective; that is, how students can learn by actively processing information while collaborating with others. In particular, this chapter focuses on the relationship between the dialogue among students and processes tied to cognitive change. The first part of this chapter describes the overt communication processes and internal cognitive processes that may be associated with positive learning outcomes. The second section describes debilitating processes that might prevent learning. The final section describes approaches that have been used to promote beneficial processes and inhibit detrimental processes.

Mechanisms that may Promote Learning

A number of overt communication processes during collaboration may trigger internal cognitive processes that are associated with learning. During group collaboration, students may present their ideas, and thereby convey information to others (e.g., when solving a problem, completing a task, or summarizing material); they may explain to their group mates to help the latter understand the material or learn how to complete the task; or they may justify their ideas in response to challenges, questions, disagreements, or perceived conflicts or discrepancies. Both the speakers and the listeners involved in these overt communication processes can learn by engaging in a number of internal cognitive processes. First, students may activate and strengthen their understanding of material they have already learned. Second, they may fill in gaps in their understanding, thus repairing mental models that may be correct globally but are fragmented or incomplete with gaps of missing knowledge (Chi, 2000). Third, they may correct misconceptions in what Chi (2000) terms flawed mental models, which may include local mistakes or global inaccuracies. In all of these internal processes, learners actively construct their own learning by generating new relationships among pieces of information they already know, by linking new information to information they have previously learned, and by changing their thinking in light of new information they encounter (cf. Wittrock, 1990).

Both preparing to present ideas and presenting the ideas may promote learning on the speaker’s part. In the process of formulating an explanation or idea to be presented, students must transform what they know into communication that is relevant, coherent, complete, and accurate so that others can understand it. During this preparation, students may rehearse information they already know; identify the salient features of the problem or task; prioritize, reorganize, and clarify information to make it more coherent; see new relationships and build new connections between pieces of information or concepts; generate multiple ways of representing information and make explicit the links among different representations; monitor their own understanding and develop a metacognitive awareness of their own misconceptions or gaps in understanding—and seek new information to correct those misconceptions or fill in gaps in their understanding; and strengthen connections between new information and previously learned information, all of which may help these students to develop new perspectives and deeper understanding (Bargh & Schul, 1980). Presenting ideas may elicit many of the same processes, especially when the presentation exposes contradictions or incompleteness of ideas that are recognized by the explainer or are pointed out by others.

To communicate most effectively, those presenting material or explaining to others must take into account the level of understanding and extent of knowledge of their listeners. Having to tailor explanations to listeners’ comprehension may push speakers to construct more elaborate conceptualizations than they would otherwise do (Chi, 2000). First, anticipating the listener’s level of comprehension may promote such activity on the part of the explainer (Benware & Deci, 1984). Second, responding to evidence of listeners’ comprehension (e.g., as conveyed through listeners’ questions) may force explainers to generate revised or novel explanations (Roscoe & Chi, 2007).

Listeners may engage in processes analogous to those carried out by presenters. When comparing their own knowledge with what is being presented, listeners may recognize and fill in gaps in their own knowledge, recognize and correct misconceptions, see contradictions that cause them to seek new information (e.g., by asking questions), and generate new connections between their own ideas, or between their own and others’ ideas. They may generate self-explanations that help them internalize principles, construct specific inference rules for solving the problem, and repair imperfect mental models (Chi, 2000; Chi & Bassock, 1989; Chi, Bassock, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989). To promote learning, then, listening must be active. The benefits will accrue when learners apply the information received to try to solve the problem or carry out the task themselves (Vedder, 1985).

Presenting and listening to information shared during the context of peer collaboration may be especially effective compared to other contexts such as explaining to or listening to adults (e.g., teachers), because peers share a similar language and can translate difficult vocabulary and expressions into language that fellow students can understand (Noddings, 1985). Moreover, learning material at the same time as other students may help them tune into each other’s misconceptions, so they may give more relevant explanations than adults can (Vedder, 1985). And learners can control the pace of group discussion to better understand information and explanations offered.

The information-processing perspective on learning in collaborative groups is not independent of other theoretical perspectives discussed in this volume. First, for example, in sociocognitive conflict theory based on a Piagetian perspective (Piaget, 1932), conflict arises when there is a perceived contradiction between the learner’s existing understanding and what the learner experiences in the course of interacting with others. Learners may respond to this perceived contradiction and disturbance to their mental equilibrium by taking into account their own perspectives while considering others’ incompatible viewpoints, reexamining and questioning their own ideas and beliefs, seeking additional information to reconcile the conflicting viewpoints, and trying out new ideas (De Lisi & Golbeck, 1999; Forman & Cazden, 1985). They may carry out these processes as a result of hearing contradictory information or opinions, or through confronting others’ ideas and justifying their own positions.

Second, in sociocultural theory based on a Vygotskian perspective (Vygotsky, 1978), through a process sometimes called scaffolding or guided participation, a more skilled person enables a less competent person to carry out a task that the latter could not perform without assistance. By actively listening to the more competent person, explaining what he has heard, and applying the new information to the task at hand, the less-proficient student can practice, develop, and internalize skills so that they become part of his individual repertoire.

Third, in a perspective that may be termed coconstruction of knowledge, students contribute different pieces of information or build upon others’ explanations to jointly create a complete idea or solution (Hatano, 1993). By acknowledging, clarifying, correcting, adding to, building upon, and connecting each other’s ideas and suggestions, students may collaboratively build and internalize knowledge and problem-solving strategies that no group member has at the start (Hogan, Nastasi, & Pressley, 2000).

Empirical Evidence

Indirect evidence about the mechanisms in collaborative settings that may promote learning comes from correlational research linking explanations and learning outcomes. The strong relationship between explaining and achievement in collaborative groups has been well documented (Webb & Palincsar, 1996; more recently by Howe et al., 2007; Veenman, Denessen, van den Akker, & van der Rijt, 2005). Moreover, giving complex explanations (e.g., reasons elaborated with further evidence) has been shown to be more strongly related with learning outcomes than giving less complex explanations (e.g., simple reasons; Chinn, O’Donnell, & Jinks, 2000). Tutoring studies also corroborate the importance for tutor learning of giving elaborated explanations, such as conceptual explanations (e.g., discussing how an answer does or does not make sense; Fuchs et al., 1997), and explanations that integrate concepts and draw upon prior knowledge to generate new inferences (e.g., generating novel examples and analogies; Roscoe & Chi, 2008).

In contrast to the positive relationship between giving explanations and learning outcomes, research on the relationship between receiving explanations and achievement is inconsistent (Webb & Palincsar, 1996). In support of Vedder’s (1985) hypothesis that in order for receiving explanations to be effective, students must have and use the opportunity for practice by attempting to apply the explanation received to the problem at hand, engaging in constructive activity after receiving an explanation (e.g., reworking the problem, paraphrasing the solution strategy) has been found to be positively related to achievement, whereas receiving or hearing an explanation without carrying out constructive activity is not (Webb & Mastergeorge, 2003; Webb, Troper, & Fall, 1995).

More direct evidence about mechanisms that promote learning comes from analyzing collaborative dialogues for indications that students are engaging in the cognitive processes described above. For example, Roscoe and Chi’s (2008) coding of explaining episodes in which students explained to other students about the basic structure, location, and function of the human eye revealed instances of students drawing upon their prior knowledge and making additional new connections with prior knowledge, generating novel examples and analogies, generating new inferences that went beyond the text material they were studying, rethinking their ideas, and repairing perceived errors and misconceptions. Explainers’ metacognitive statements were especially useful for signaling when students were making new connections and building their understanding (e.g., “This is something that I didn’t really get before”; Roscoe & Chi, 2007, p. 336). Other analyses of group discussions show how the group’s challenge of an explainer’s incomplete or incorrect ideas may cause the explainer to reexamine her prior knowledge, to formulate and test predictions based on her incorrect mental model, and to use information provided by her peers in response to her predictions to revise her ideas (e.g., a student revising her overly general concept of camouflage as an animal defense mechanism to a more accurate understanding that an animal will change its color to match only those in its natural background; Brown, Campione, Webber, & McGilly, 1992, pp. 177–178).

Debilitating Processes

Despite the potential benefits of collaborative work, researchers have documented a number of debilitating processes that inhibit positive outcomes. Students may fail to share elaborated explanations, may not seek help when they need it, may disengage from interaction or suppress other students’ participation, may engage in too much conflict or avoid it altogether, may not coordinate their communication, and may engage in negative social-emotional behavior that impedes group functioning.

Failure to Provide Elaborated Explanations

The tendency of students to present ideas with little elaboration is well documented (e.g., Galton, Hargreaves, Comber, Wall, & Pell, 1999; Meloth & Deering, 1999). For example, when tutoring their peers, students tend to restate, paraphrase, or summarize text information with little elaboration (a “knowledge-telling bias”; Roscoe & Chi, 2008), unless they are trained to give elaborations (e.g., King, Staffieri, & Adelgais, 1998). Untrained tutors may provide elaborated explanations (e.g., creating analogies, drawing inferences, making new connections) only when their tutees ask deep questions about content not provided explicitly in the text (Roscoe & Chi, 2008). In some cases, the lack of elaboration may be due to students modeling their communications on teacher discourse that consists of giving unlabeled calculations, procedures, and answers to mathematics problems instead of labeled explanations or explanations of mathematical concepts (Webb, Nemer, & Ing, 2006).

Failure to Seek and Obtain Effective Help

Some listeners may be students who are having difficulty with the material and need help. They may not be able to correct their misconceptions or fill in gaps in their understanding if they fail to seek help when they need it and fail to obtain effective help when they do seek it. Students may fail to seek help for many reasons (Nelson-Le Gall, 1992). Students may lack the metacognitive skills necessary to monitor their own comprehension and so may not realize that they don’t understand the material or can’t perform the task without assistance, or they may watch their teammates solve a problem or accomplish a task and assume that they can do it too.

Even if students are aware that they need help, they may decide not to seek it for fear of being judged incompetent and undesirable as a work mate, they may not want to feel indebted to those giving the help, they not want to be seen as dependent upon others, or they may not believe they are self-efficacious—that they can do well in school and can control learning through their own efforts (Newman, 1998; Schunk, 1989). A reluctance to seek help may be associated with a performance-goal or relative-ability-goal orientation, in which students are focused on looking good compared to others, performing better than others, being publicly recognized for their superior performance, and having others judge their competence positively (Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001). These students are especially concerned about how others view them and will avoid help seeking because they feel it signals a lack of competence. (Students with a mastery-goal orientation, in contrast, are focused on learning, improving their progress, and mastering the task, and, because they are less focused on external evaluation, help seeking does not threaten their self-perceptions about their abilities.) Similarly, students who are concerned with their social status (especially if they don’t feel socially competent) may avoid help seeking because it exposes them to evaluation and scrutiny by others and threatens their self-worth (Ryan et al., 2001).

Students may believe that help-seeking is undesirable as a result of classroom norms that call for students to remain quiet and work alone, or classroom norms that value performance over learning, or sex-typed norms that view help-seeking as more appropriate for females than males. Or they may have received antagonistic or unsatisfactory responses to previous help-seeking attempts. Students may also believe that no one in the group has the competence or resources to help, or that they themselves lack the competence to benefit from help provided.

When students do seek help, they may select helpers who are nice or kind, or who have high status, rather than those who have task-relevant skills (Nelson-Le Gall, 1992). Or students may not have effective strategies for eliciting help. In particular, the kinds of questions students ask often have important consequences for the kinds of responses they receive. Requests for elaborated help that are explicit, precise, and direct, and targeted to a specific aspect of the problem or task are more likely to elicit explanations than unfocused questions or general statements of confusion (Webb & Palincsar, 1996). Asking precise questions makes it easier for other group members to identify the student’s misconceptions or nature of their confusion and to formulate appropriate and precise responses. Detailed requests for explanations may also signal to the group that the help-seeker is motivated to learn how to solve the problem, already has at least some understanding of the problem that enabled him to pinpoint a specific area of uncertainty, and will profit from the explanations provided, making it more likely that the group will put forth the effort to provide elaborated help (Webb, Ne...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction What is Collaborative Learning?: An Overview
• Part I Theoretical Approaches
• Part II Studying Collaborative Learning
• Instructional Issues and Approaches to Collaborative Learning
• Part IV Technology and Collaborative Learning
• Index