Associate Professor, Ph.D., Jeppe Bundsgaard, School of EducationUniversity of Aarhus

jebu@dpu.dk ∙ www.jeppe.bundsgaard.net

PracSIPPractice Scaffolding Interactive platform

PracSIP

• A ground-breaking concept of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

• A Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform

What is the problem of traditional education?

• I don’t want to! • Motivation

• What’s the use?• Meaningfulness

• How shall I use it?• Transfer

• I forgot what I learned yesterday!• Retention

Solution: Community of practice?

o Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger

o A group of individuals participating in communal activity, continuously

o creating their shared identity through o engaging in and contributing to the practices

of their communities and thereby o developing a shared repertoireo Experts guide novices who are legitimate

peripheral participants

Why? Epistemic Frames!

o Communities of practice develop epistemic frames (Shaffer 2006):• Different ways of knowing, of deciding what is worth

knowing, and of adding to the collective body of knowledge and understanding of community

o Epistemic frames are competences in practice• Eases transfer & retention• Meaningfulness is inherent in practice

o To learn to think like professionals of many kinds promotes pluralism

Challenges of Communities of practice in school

o There are no experts to guide the noviceso The practice might be to difficulto The repertoire of the practice isn’t always

at hando The goals of the community of practice

are not necessarily compliant with the educational goals

Further Challenges: Lesson learned from Project Based Learning

• ChaosThe teacher spends to much time organizing

• StructureStudents has a hard time knowing what to do next

• Inclusion or exclusion?Students who don’t know how to perform project

based learning, are easily lost

• Educational goalsOften end up subsumed the product goals

Proposed solution

o PracSIP:o Practiceo Scaffoldingo Interactive platform

What a PracSIP does

oScaffold practice by• Organizing the collaboration• Structuring the processes• Putting relevant tools of the shared

repertoire at the participants disposal.

• Reduce complexity of the practice

• Focusing on the aspects of the community of practice which actualizes learning-appropriate goals

• Supporting knowledge and skills from the curriculum

Making it relevant for school

A PracSIP Ekstra Bladet: The Editorial Officeo Support a journalistic community of practice from decision

of the newspaper profile to the deadlineo Newspaper production online o Product printed in 1000 copies in colors on real newsprint

Glimpses from practice

Structuring students’ workPhases:profileplanning researchphoto focuswritingLayoutDeadline

Organizing collaborationo Organizes the

process from start to finish

• Students create articles,

• divide tasks among them … and

• set deadlines … o The students know

what to doo The teacher has an

overview and can take action when and where it is needed

Supporting development of skills and knowledge: Interactive assistants

o An interactive assistant

o Has a specific task as it's starting point

o Leads the student through the task

o The computer structures – the student thinkso The computer doesn’t have all the answers –

no ”multiple choice”

Interactive assistants II

o The computer asks carefully thought out questions, and the student carry on the thinking on this basis

o Integrates the student’s response in the next question

o Presents subject related concepts and methods integrated in the work with the task

Other tools from the journalistic shared repertoire

PracSIP

o Scaffolds the practice by:• Organizing collaboration• Structuring students’ working process• Putting tools from the repertoire of the

community of practice at the disposal of the students

o Integrates educational content

o Tear down school walls:Authentic communication situations

Does it work?

Ethnographical study• Ethnographical study of four classes working with

The Editorial Office. • Conclusion: When working with The Editorial Office

teachers and students acquire access to a journalist practice, and both students and teachers can function as mediators and bring, re-negotiate and integrate authentic border objects from this practice to their own [classroom] practice. This makes possible peripheral and stand in experiences of what it will say to participate in a journalist practice, and it creates the opportunity for new experiences of what it means to participate in a journalist practice, and understanding of what is valued competencies.

(Henderson 2008, p.95, my translation)

Study of Interactive assistants

• Qualitative study: Interactive assistants scaffold (in some cases) an IDRE (Initiation, Discussion (cf. Wegerif 2004), Response, Evaluation) structure of students interaction

• Quantitative study: Students perform above average (3 teachers assess students work), students regards Interactive assistants as a help (44.1% yes, 36.5% yes and no, 19.4% no, n=299).

Fougt 2009

Ongoing work: Framework for Evaluation of Design for learning

• Potential learning potential– Which competences (or skills and knowledge) can

ideally be developed working with a giving platform (design for learning)?

• Actual learning potential– How is the platform used, how does it participate

in the classroom context?

• Actual learning– What is the learning outcome

(Bundsgaard & Hansen, work in progress)

Next PracSIP project

o Future Cityo Students acting as city planners to solve

the problems of Slam City (and of the climate change)

o Organization of collaboration and structuring of the processes

o Students play Sim City to get inspired and to simulate the complexity of city planning

Investigating problems and learning science with interactive assistants

Producing a presentation of Future City to be presented in the showroom

City Slam

• Cup tournament where the participating classes compete one on one with two other classes acting as judges (online).

• 6-8 classes participate in the final competition to be Future City of the year.

Future City

• Scaffolding simulated authentic activities

• Socially motivating

• Knowledge and skills from the science curriculum developed in context

– That is, Future City is

• a Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform

Referenceso Bundsgaard, J. (2009): Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform. In:

Proceedings from CSCL 2009.o Bundsgaard, J. (2005): Bidrag til danskfagets it-didaktik [Contributions

to the Educational Theory and Practice of IT in the Danish Subject]. PhD dissertation. Odense: Forlaget Ark. www.did2.bundsgaard.net

o Fougt, S. (2009). Didaktisk design af Interaktive assistenter. Master Thesis. Copenhagen: DPU.

o Henderson, L. (2008). Praksisfællesskaber i undervisningen. Master Thesis. Copenhagen: DPU.

o Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

o Schnack, Karsten (2000): Faglighed, undervisning og almen dannelse, in: Hans Jørgen Kristensen og Karsten Schnack (eds.): Faglighed og undervisning. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

o Shaffer, D. W. (2006). Epistemic frames for epistemic games. Computers & Education 46(3), 223 - 234.

o Wegerif, R. (2004). The role of educational software as a support for teaching and learning conversations. In: Computers and Education 43, p. 179-191.

www.ekstrabladet.dk/skole ∙ www.futurecity.dk jebu@dpu.dk ∙ www.jeppe.bundsgaard.net