Collaboration in Educational Settings

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Collaboration in Educational Settings

• Nathan Campbell
• Lisa Doan
• Kirill Kireyev
• Malte Winkler

2
Our Research

• Internet
• Overview of technologies, lessons
• Books
• Interviews
• CU faculty members
• Current Technologies
• Observations
• Discourse via Swiki

3
Traditional Instruction

• Sage on Stage
• Limited interaction, participation
• Hard to ask questions
• Cramming for tests
• Shallow understanding
• Low retention rate
• Competitive grading discourages cooperation
• Not taught how to find information
• Material not personally interesting, relevant

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Why Collaboration?

• Solve large problems
• Teaches valuable people skills
• Self-empowerment, responsibility, self-expression
• Attitudes towards learning
• When you teach, you learn
• Synergy of ideas, symmetry of ignorance
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Learning by resolving disagreements

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Collaboration Techniques in the Large Classroom

• What are some methods educators have come up
  with?
• How do they help the student?
• Can technology make these techniques more
  powerful?

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Think-Pair-Share(Lyman, 1981)

• The teacher asks a question, the students think
  about it for a moment and then converse with a
  neighbor
• Breaks up the lecture
• Refocuses the class
• Immediate and explicit feedback on the strength
  or weakness of their understanding

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Concept Test(Mazur, 1997)

• Similar to Think-Pair-Share.
• Students write down an answer with a confidence
  level. Then try to convince their neighbor of
  their answer and then write their confidence
  level again
• Mazur found using this technique significantly
  helped his students test scores

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Debriefing Exams(Cooper, 2000)

• Leverages the communal knowledge of the class
• Exams are handed back in groups of folders
• Each group will work together to help correct the
  exams by asking their peers for the correct
  answer
• In a matter of 15 minutes a large portion of the
  students questions about the exam will be
  answered without having to tax a large portion of
  the instructors time

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The Minute Paper(Wilson, 1986 )

• Have students write a summarizing thought about
  what they have learned
• Uses reflection to deepen understanding of
  subject mater

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Scripted Cooperative Learning (Dansereau, 1992)

• After 20 minutes of lecture have the students
  pair up to go over what has been taught
• One student is the summarizer and the other is
  the checker
• Work together to create visual representation of
  key points learned
• Increases depth of understanding

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Summary of Classroom Collaboration Techniques

• How can we use technology use these techniques to
  make them more powerful?
• Can technology institutionalize these techniques
  to bring these or similar concepts to more
  classrooms?

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Why Computer-aided Collaboration?

• Easy to organize/visualize information
• Special Technological capabilities
• Interactivity, connectivity
• Helps mediate opinions (everyone is heard)
• Work remotely
• Reach out to wider audience
• Contribute at any time
• Store information, discussions for later access
• Fun

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Clickers
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FEEL (DLC 2004)
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Collaborative Applications
Universidad de Vigo, Spain
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Collaborative Applications
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Handheld Applications
Ecosystem
Match-My-Graph
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Handheld/Wireless Applications

• ClassTalk asking questions
• Multiple choice, text, numerical
• ImageMap interactive images
• Maps, graphs, photos
• Probeware physical measurements
• Participatory simulations
• Tracking students movement, position
• Exploratorium interactive museums

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Different Modes of Collaboration
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Interviews Observations _at_ CU

• People
• Gerhard Fischer / Hal Eden (Swiki)
• Sebastian De La Chica (UI design)
• Michael Main (WebCT)
• Carl Wieman (Clickers)
• Amer Diwan

• Technologies
• WebCT
• EDC
• FEEL (DLC 04)
• Swiki
• Moodle
• Clickers

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The Swiki

• Gerhard Fischer
• Allows students to create their own environment
• Allowed for asynchronous communication
• Sebastian De La Chica
• Great for communication
• Very messy if no structure is set up from the
  beginning
• Hal Eden
• Limited extension of the classroom
• Best for small groups

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Professor Michael Main

• WebCT Message Board
• Too rigid structured
• Forced usage
• Unintuitive design
• Data persistence fades after semester
• Collaboration
• 3 modes of work alone, in groups, in groups
  online
• Students should be adept at all of them

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Conversational Classroom

• Amer Diwan
• Students Lead Class Conversation
• Allows for more ideas and discussion
• Conversation must be lead in the right direction
• Key Topics
• Allows professor to get a better understanding of
  students knowledge

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Interviews Observations

• Issues
• Structured vs. unstructured
• Whiteboard vs. message board
• In class vs. online discussions
• Generalizations
• Beaten Path
• Remembering reasoning
• Cycle of Abandonment
• Critical mass for acceptance of technology

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Cycle of Abandonment
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Collaboration Challenges

• Re-structuring educational practices
• Creating supportive environment
• Non-competitive
• Open-ended creative projects
• Re-thinking grading policies
• Free-rider problem
• Scheduling overhead
• Teaching collaboration skills

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Technology Design Questions

• Balance online vs. face-to-face
• How to integrate?
• Structured (WebCT) vs Unstructured (wiki)
• Freedom may be messy, overwhelming
• General vs. specific
• Mediation?
• Support flexibility, evolution
• Users will use in different ways
• Sensitive to context, time

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Making Collaboration Successful

• Shared motivations, common goals
• Adequate incentives
• Positive interdependence
• Symmetry of ignorance
• Diversity of opinions, backgrounds
• Flexibility, opportunities for creativity
• Establishing team goals, deadlines, roles
• Regular synchronous meetings
• Social relationship building