Group Cognition as a New Science of Learning :

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a major emerging branch of the learning sciences. It is concerned with studying how people can learn together with the help of computers. Gerry Stahl is a researcher and tenured professor of information science at Drexel University and founding editor of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning published by Springer. He has been active in the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS) since it’s start in 2002. He served as Program Chair for the CSCL’02 international conference and workshops chair for CSCL ’03, ’05, ’07 and ’09. He earned his B.S. in humanities & science from MIT in 1967 and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy at Northwestern University in 1975. Later he achieved M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at the University of Colorado in 1993. From 1996 to 2001 he was a postdoctoral research fellow and a research professor at the University of Colorado. His research focuses on collaborative knowledge building in computer-supported learning environments and on the practices of collaborative small groups of students. In the past decade, he and his research team have explored his theory of “group cognition” and developed software to support collaborative problem solving of school mathematics. His theory of group cognition and his book, Group Cognition: Computer Support for Building Collaborative Knowledge, has had an important influence on CSCL and the learning sciences. He has published almost 200 journal articles, book chapters and conference papers.