Collaborative learning environments are mainly based on constructivist instructional design theories where students construct their own knowledge by interacting with their environment. The so-called virtual communities constitute and approach that facilitates the constructivist learning within these environments. In this context, the learning process consists of authentic participation in the a...

This paper aims to better understand the development of students’ learning processes when participating actively in a specific Computer Supported Collaborative Learning system called KnowCat. To this end, a longitudinal case study was designed, in which eighteen university students took part in a 12-month (two semesters) learning project. During this time period, the students followed an instru...

The study investigates collaborative learning of small groups via text-based computer-mediated communication. We analyzed how two approaches to pre-structure communication influence participation, individual knowledge transfer, the convergence of participation and the convergence of knowledge among peers. We varied the factor scripted cooperation and the factor scaffolding in a 2x2-design. 105 ...

Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online's data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. 47 courses at various faculties of the Open University in Israel and found that the majority (80%) of students contributed only a small amount (20%) of mes...

One of the most important decisions to be made in a face-to-face collaborative learning activity is how groups are composed. These compositions produce different learning and social interaction results. The possibility to change the group member composition in real time and dynamically may permit to level up the learning results and improve the social relationships among the participants. Besid...

Emerging and scripted roles pose an intriguing approach to analysing and facilitating CSCL. The concept of emerging roles provides a perspective on how learners structure and self-regulate their CSCL processes. Emerging roles appear to be dynamic over longer periods of time in relation to learners’ advancing knowledge, but are often unequally distributed in ad hoc CSCL settings, e.g. a learner ...

In this chapter we discuss how recent advances in the field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) have created the opportunity for new synergies between CSCL and ITS research. Three “hot” CSCL research topics are used as examples: analyzing individual’s and group’s interactions, providing students with adaptive intelligent support, and providing students with adaptive technologica...

This paper reports the effect of functional roles on computer-supported collaborative learning. Thirtythree students in ten groups, equally distributed over two research conditions (role versus nonrole), returned an evaluation questionnaire assessing their computer-supported collaborative learning experience. Principal axis factoring revealed a latent variable interpreted as: perceived group ef...

The purpose of the study was to examine how the Interrogative Model of Inquiry (IModel), developed by Jaakko Hintikka and Matti Sintonen for the purposes of epistemology and philosophy of science, could be applied to analyze elementary school students’ process of inquiry in computer-supported learning. We review the basic assumptions of I-Model, report results of empirical investigation of the ...