ICT and collaboration

What is collaborative learning and how does ICT fit with it?

Education as instruction

Education as private study

Education as collaboration

Ringelmann effect

Why?

“The ubiquitous finding across many decades of research (e.g., see Steiner 1972,Hill 1982) is that groups usually fall short of reasonable potential productivitybaselines—in Steiner’s terminology, they exhibit process losses.”

? Inhibited by group demands? Social loafing – loss of personal responsibility? Personal recall/reasoning cues “disrupted” by those of others?

Brainstorming: Nominal groups (equal sets of non-interacting individuals usually outperformGroups…..”Production blocking” – inability of more than one group member to talk (think?)At the same timeMix of group discussion can interfere with our ability to get a productive train of thoughtstarted – or derails it when we do“Evaluation apprehension” and “convergence” (via social comparison to low standard of performance

• Why collaborative learning? • Where is it preferable?• Why is it preferable?• Do we learn to collaborate (or only collaborate to

learn)?• How does technology contribute?

Some general questions today:

Possible (process) rewards of dialogue

• Enforced cognitive articulation (Metacognition of process focus)

• Organises “mindfulness” (Piaget)

• Internalised investigative process (Vygotsky)

• Motivation of “affective engagement”

….Two challenging background themes?

-“Internalisation”Nature of useful social exchangesCognitive versus motivational

-“Blending” (orchestration)

“Collaborative learning”: 5 themes

1. Is schooling collaborative?

2. Some evolutionary theory: our social nature?

3. Do learners collaborate?

4. Why ICT might help learners to collaborate

5. Various roles for ICT in supporting collaborators

Theme 1: Is schooling collaborative?

Is this the “right way” to learn

Some history of this ideaA to-and-fro of cultural attitudes on this ….

The radical reason that the present school cannot organize itself as a natural social unit is because this element of common and Productive activity is absent ...there is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning...the only measure of success is a competitive one, in the bad sense of the term - a comparison of results in the recitation or in the examination to see which child has succeeded in getting ahead of others in storing up, in accumulating, the maximum of information

John Dewey

1920s: challenge to learn more collaboratively

1930s Backlash towards “competitive instinct”

“Liberty League” founded by major industries

American Legion inspect school textbooks

Radio : “American family Robinson”

…fear of collectivism

The state of affairs in American culture then is that, while paying respectful homage to cooperative ideals, we go right on with our competitive system and justify it on the grounds that "human nature" is basically and fundamentally competitive and always will be so... Margaret Mead

In the public school we thus find this curious paradox : The basic structure of the system is competitive: but the ideals of cooperation are emphasized...the setup of the school is such that a large portion of the daily activities of the pupils is more competitive than cooperative. At the same time all of the human virtues and attitudies that are favourable to cooperation are stressed.

Leonard Doob

1940s: Collaborative culture of fighting a real war

1960s: Competitive culture of maintaining a “cold” war

• Are we (species) intrinsically collaborative?• How do we (individuals) become collaborators?• How do we (actors) sustain collaborative encounters?

That is: we may not be naturally collaborativewe may learn to become so in growing upwe may need support in being collaborative

Theme 2: Are we “naturally” collaborative?

• Are we (species) intrinsically collaborative?• How do we (individuals) become collaborators?• How do we (actors) sustain collaborative encounters?

Vygotsky…

• Are we (species) intrinsically collaborative?• How do we (individuals) become collaborators?• How do we (actors) sustain collaborative encounters?

• Development as phylogeny: evolving to be collaborative?• Development as ontogeny: growing up collaborative?• Development as microgenesis: acting collaboratively

Vygotsky…

Evolving…. to be collaborative

Ontogeny: “Intersubjectivity” as ….

(…acting to share mental states)

Theme 3: Do learners actually collaborate?

Two examples…

Undergraduates. Primary classrooms.

Psychology class membersengaging socially

Psychology class membersengaging socially

Psychology class members

engaging academically

Psychology class membersengaging socially

Psychology class members

engaging academically

Chemistry class

Chemistry class

Primary classroom

What happens: Not much convincing collabororation…

Galton et al 1980s…. <10% of small groups convincingly CollaboratingOnly the seating has been socialised

Neville Bennett et al : only about 16% of talk was sharingKnowledge

Moreover, when asked, young children don’t particularly likepressures for collaborative work

Yet other studies show its “a good thing”…

Outcome studies:

Slavin: Cooperative learning regimes improve learning attitudesAronson: The jigsaw classroom

These show joint working leading to academic (social) gains

Yet other studies show its “a good thing”…

“Process” studies:

Three psychological reasons for an impact from collaborative learning…

(1) Metacognitive gain of articulating own thoughts(2) Tension: Productive perspective challenges from peer tension in debate (Piaget) (3) Mutual scaffolding of problem solving (Vygotsky)

Resolution of collaborative learning paradox…

Heavy orchestrations of the coordination is necessaryJigsaw methodCooperative “regimes”

? Need to develop “collaborative skill”? (TOM)

Yet note…The intersubjectivity of Bennett’s maths-collaborating primary school groups was up against the abstract nature of the common reference point - mathematics

So … not simply a guidance problem but : a how to construct a better scaffolding problem?

[Externalised cognition] + [Intersubjective management]

Notice here: Coordinating the two “big ideas” of human evolution

[Intersubjective awareness embedded in external structures]

Coordinating the two “big ideas”

Summary of “humans and collaborations”: individuals mobilising intersubjectivity…

…collaboratively…competitively

Some challenges

• Should activity in the “relational space” be taught?

• The effective “blending” of social and solitary investigation

• How can group problem spaces be “resourced” (by ICT)