Collaborative Construction and Inspection of Learner Models

Learners working on the creation of conceptual maps become involved in a creative learning activity that involves “making sense” of new concepts and their relationships through modelling. These models can be seen as representations of the learners’ understanding of a particular topic domain. During subsequent learning activities, students can reflect upon the models they have built. In addition to domain knowledge, models can contain information about learners’ knowledge profiles and social aspects of learning. This paper explores different ways to interact with models in order to support reflection, negotiated assessment, and knowledge awareness. We have developed ConceptLab, a knowledge construction and navigation system that uses XML-based conceptual maps to represent the learner’s view of the domain. ConceptLab has been used by students and teachers as part of an exploratory study carried out in a Colombian elementary school. This paper reports some of the preliminary results of this study.