TOOL5100 CSCL

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TOOL5100 - CSCL

• Empirical studies and interaction analysis

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Presentation 23.03.06

• Hara, N., Kling, R. (1999) Students
  Frustrations with a Web-based Distance Education
  Course
• Hakkarainen, K. Palonen, T. (2003). Patterns
  of Female and Male Students' Participation in
  Peer Interaction in Computer-supported Learning

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Content Hara,n.,Kling, R.(1999) Students
Frustrations with a Web-based
Distance Education Course

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Background
• Methodology
• StudentsFustration in an Online Course
• Understanding Studnets Perspectives
• Discussion
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• Recent cutting-edge technology enable
  universities to implement distance education to
  reach a diverse population and to provide open
  learning environments 24 hours a day 7 days a
  week
• In addition they form a critical pressure point
  for challinging the dominant assumptions and
  characteristics of existing traditonally
  organized universities in the 21st century
  (Hanna, 1998)

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Introduction cont.

• Nipper (1998) indentifies three generations of
  distant education
• The first provided mostly through paper-based
  instructions
• The second through integraded multimedia (ex
  courses via television)
• The third through two-way communications media
  (ex video- conferencing)

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Introduction cont.

• The literature about distance education is
  dominated by enthusiastic studies and accounts
• But some studies report the importance of
  studentsisolation in distance education course
• Original research question was How do the
  students in B555 overcome their feelings of
  isolation in a virtual classrom to create the
  sense of a community of learning?

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Introduction cont.

• But after the first interviews where students
  reported major fustration of various aspects and
  futher investigation of the literature they
  desided to shift the focus of the study
• New research question How do studentsfrustratio
  ns in a Web-based distance education course
  inhibit their educational oppertunites? How do
  students deal with these frustrations?

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Literature review

• Research indicates that the achivments and
  satisfaction of student is almost the same in
  both traditional cassroom and distance education
  (Johnstone and Krauth, 1996)
• Opportunities for students away from campus
• Little focus on the students perspective, more on
  the students outcomes (Ahern and Repman, 1994)
• Research on the use of the World Wide Web lack
  disciplined scholary articles.

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Literature review cont.

• Hidden phenomenon
• Higher education are facing a challenge
• The expectations for technology to transform the
  education are high
• There have been an unrelenting cycle of
  technology in classrooms since the 1920s, where
  technology was introduced by enthusiastic
  advocates, such as administrators and
  researchers, only to fail because teachers lacked
  equipment, time and training (Cuban, 1986)

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Literature review cont.

• Little research on distant education, and the
  research that was found was mostly positive, and
  do not indicate probems in social context
• But important to study failures as well as
  successes, so that we can understand the
  limitations of each technology as well as its
  capabilities. This provided that we understand
  the people we are trying to educate and what kind
  of education we are trying to give them (Simpson,
  1985)

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Background

• Study site
• B555 was a graduate course whose syllabus
  characterized it as designed to give
  participants a broad view of computer-enhanced
  language learning and the place of the World Wide
  Web
• in the language lerarning classrom
• It was taught through a Web site
• The site contained reading materials, activities,
  dicussion questions and additional readings
  organized along eight themes.
• The main menu used the metaphor of a traditional
  classrom, so the students could be situated in
  their familiar environments

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Background cont.

• The Students and the Instructor
• - In 1997, B555 enrolled 6 masters students
• 4 of the students had minimal experience with
  computers, 1 was very familiar with computers
  she was also familiar with the courses content.
  And 1 student was taking the course far away from
  the university, so had no direct access to the
  university facilities
• The Instructor was a Ph.D candidate and an
  international student
• She was experienced English teacher but was her
  first experience teaching by distance education
• Instead of altering the Web site, she tailored
  the instructions by sending weekly e-mail
  messages

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Metodoloy

• Data collection
• They choose to use a case study methodology
  because they found it necessary to develop a
  thick description (Geertz, 1973) of a virtual
  classrom
• The inquiry was an instrumental case study
  (Stake, 1995) based on a need for a general
  understanding of students in distance education

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Metodoloy cont.

• Data collection cont.
• Three different methodologies was used
• Observation Online classrom discussion was
  observed to grasp how the instructor facilitated
  the dialogue among the students. And it was
  observed how each student interacted with the Web
  site
• Interview Was conducted immediately after the
  students had finished their tasks on the Web
• Document review Examination of various types of
  documents realted to B555, including the course
  syllabus, reading assigment, and the cataogs
  course description. And the instructors personal
  log

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Metodoloy cont.

• Data analysis
• The data was simultaneously analyzed
• The analysis was triangulated in terms of
  methodologies, people and time (Silverman, 1996
  Stake, 1995)
• Congruence as well as inconsistency were
  cautiously examind in order to present multiple
  perspectives

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StudentsFrustration in an Onlline Course

• A Virtual Field Trip
• SchMOOze University is a virtual university for
  people studying English as a second or foreign
  languange, which uses metaphors of locations
• The observation and interviews showed different
  kind of frustrations, such as no feedback if you
  did something wrong, no instructions for
  alternativ commands, and technical problems
• But the trip also gave positive experience for
  one of the students. He was excited about the
  technology, and the involvement of real feelings

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StudentsFrustration in an Onlline Course cont.

• Working Alone at Night
• One of the students was working alone after
  midnight in the campus computer lab
• Had not recived the the assignment specifications
  from the instructor and felt confused
• To much information
• Had doubts about the professional development of
  the B555 Web site

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StudentsFrustration in an Onlline Course cont.

• Interactive Communication Tool E-Mail
• The students and Instructor generated quite
  intensive online discussions through e-mail
• On the surface the the volume of the online
  discussions indicated a lively class
• But there where underlying problems, such as the
  students did not read the other students postings
  before writing their own e-mails. The lack of
  time to keep up with the amount of postings. And
  the new way of using e-mail made the work time
  consuming
• It appeard that the students were competing with
  each other, or felt a duty to produce a notable
  number of e-mails

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Understanding Students Perspectives

• No Physical Existence, No Feedback
• - Feel a sense of competitiveness, since there
  are no feedback about the contribution done.
  Unsure about the Instructors expectations.
• No immediate assistence from the Instructor when
  help is needed
• The literature caution that the lack of
  communications cues is a disatvantage of CMC
  because people cannot use any non verbal cues,
  such as gesture and facial expressions

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Understanding Students Perspectives

• Technological Problems
• No personnel to provide technical support
• Inappropriate prerequisite statement
• The instructor also felt fustrated because she
  knew about the students problems, but couldnt
  help them
• Pedagogical Issues Ambiguous Instructions
• Vage instructions for the assignments
• Lack of the teachers support and clarification
  of her instructions

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Understanding Students Perspectives cont.

• Pedagogical Issues Ambiguous Instructions cont.
• The web site was developed for the same course
  only offered in a traditional classroom. Some
  hyperlinks were no longer accessible
• Dealing With Fustrations
• Talked to classmates and friends, supported each
  other
• Experience for later
• However, two students droped out of the course
  because they didnt overcome their fustrations

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Discussion

• From the interviews and the observations it
  appared that there were two foci of fustrations
  among the students, the first was on the
  technological problems and the second was on the
  course content and the instructurs practices in
  managing her communications with the students
• The Instructor belived that she had reduced the
  students fustrations during the semester, but
  this was shown not to be true, as the student
  only had expressed some of their fustrations to
  the Instructor

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Conclusion

• Most articles about distance education emphasize
  the positive aspects
• Only a few scholars examine important limitations
  and pervasive problems
• It is time to seriously consider the actual
  experience among students in distance education
  courses an to critically discuss the phenomena of
  distance education
• It is also question if technology can improve
  pedagogy with little specia effort

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Conclusion cont.

• In this case it is easy to place the burden of
  the studentsfrustrations on the Instructor. But
  the Instructor was chosen by the department chair
  who had expierience with online courses.
• Even expirienced administrators can also
  misperceive the kinds of pedalogical shifts that
  are required from face-to-face teaching
• It all end out to the need for more research that
  is designed to to teach us how to use the
  appropriate use of technology and pedagogy to
  make distance education benefical for students

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Content - Hakkarainen, K. Palonen, T. (2003).
Patterns of Female and Male Students'
Participation in Peer
Interaction in Computer-supported Learning

• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion

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Introduction

• An advanced information society is taking shape,
  in Western countries, in which knowledge will be
  the most critical resource for sosial and
  economic delvelopment and where self-organized
  teams and networked activities, more and more,
  will characterize the emerging type of work
• Educational institutions are required to find
  better pedagogical methods that guide students to
  collaborate for advancment of their ideas.
• Lethinen and his colleagues arguedd that one of
  the most promising approches to improving
  learning and instruction with the help of modern
  information and communication technologies is
  provided by the Computer Supported Collaborative
  Learning (CSCL)

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Introduction cont.

• In the beginning educators was worried that CSCL
  would reduce the social interaction
• Was a breakthrough of network and mobile
  technologies, which facilitate a synchronous
  social interaction
• These innovative learning enviroments are likely
  to improve quality of education as well as the
  equality of educational opportunity by fostering
  female studentsparticipation in
  computer-supported learning

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Introduction cont.

• The objective of the study was to intensivly
  examine the patterns of female and male
  studentsparticipation in computer-supported
  collaborative learning in two classrooms
• There are significant differences between male
  and female students in their attitudes towards,
  knowledge about, or use of computers (Durnell
  Thompson, 1997, Hakkarainen et.al, 2000, Scott,
  Cole Engel, 1992)
• Male students are generally more enthusiastic
  about the use of information and communication
  technologies
• Female students experience computer phobia or
  tend to minimize the use of their computers

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Introduction cont.

• Mixed gender pair perform less well than
  singel-gender pairs (Fitzpatrick Hardmann, 2000)
• There are some evidence that new pedagogical
  methodes, such as cross-age tutoring and peer
  tutoring , may facilitate the development of
  female studentscomputer skils (Bromfield, Clarke
  Lynch, 2001)
• Male students are intrested in using ICT
  redardless of the nature of the application,
  while young girls are very intresting in
  interactive technology that encourages
  collaborative learning, solving of comlex social
  dilemmas, intensive writing and flexible pursuit
  of problem solving

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The Study

• The patterns og male and female
  studentsparticipation in collaborative learning
  were studied by comparing inguiry processes in to
  computer-supported elementary school classrooms
• The technical infrastructure was provided by the
  Computer-supported Intentional Learning
  Environments (CSILE)
• CSILE is a network environment for buliding,
  articulating, exploring and structuring knowledge

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The Study cont.

• Three features of the learning environments are
  essential
• Students themselves are responsible for producing
  all knowledge entered in the system
• A shared virtual database that allows the users
  to produce knowledge, categorize it by using
  their own kewords, conduct searches for finding
  relevant knowledge, and connecting linkages
  between associated ideas.
• The design of CSILE relies of a pedagogical model
  of progressive inquiry (Hakkerainen, 1998
  Scardamalia Berieter, 1994, 1996) taht have been
  developed together with innovative teachers. A
  crucial aspect of this kind of inquiry is
  studentsengagement in collaborative effort aimed
  to improve shared ideas and thoughts instead of
  merely attempts to assimilate bodies of
  pre-existing knowledge

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The Study cont.

• The study examined the epistemic nature of
  written comments provided by the student
• Focus on analyzing the pattersn of CSILE
  students participation by applaying a method of
  social network analysis
• Examined the relations among students commenting
  on each others productions within CSILEs
  databse
• Examined the degree of centralization of the
  studentsinteraction

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Method

• Participants Classrooms A and B
• Classroom A, 19 female, 9 male
• Classroom B, 10 female, 20 male
• Study material The CSILE database
• Qualitative analysis of teh studentswritten
  comments posted to the database within one
  academic year
• The comments was first partitioned into ideas
• Then the comments were classified according to
  type of communicative idea (agreement, neutral or
  disagreement)

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Method cont.

• Study material The CSILE database cont
• - Communicative ideas within a comment were
  analyzed by specifying the object of inquiry
  Linguistic form, Research question, research
  methods, information, explanation, other or
  unspecified

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Results
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Results cont.
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Results cont.

• Patterns of interaction
• The analysis indicated that CSILE
  studentsnetwork of interaction was rather dense
  in both of the classroms
• Also indicated that the students preferred to
  communicate within their own gender group. This
  was stronger in classroom A than classroom B

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Results cont.
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Results cont.

• Interaction in classroom A was less centralized
  than in classroom B
• Table 5 presents means and standard deviations
  for centrality of classroom A and B
  studentsparticipation as function of their
  gender

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Results cont.

• Analysis indicates that within classroom A,
  female studentspattern of participation differd
  considerably from that of male students

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Discussion

• Classroom A studentspeer interaction focused on
  advancing the students own explanations wheras
  classroom B students pursued more traditional
  learing tasks
• Classroom A Gaining theoretical understanding.
  Female students carried out the main
  responsibility for pursuing deeper kind of
  inquiry
• Classroom B Acquiring factual knowledge and
  empirical generalizations
• Female students dominated discourse interaction
  within classroom A wheras male students dominated
  interaction within classroom B

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Discussion

• The relative intensity of female and male
  students participation appeared also to be
  associated with the kind of pedagogical culture
• Collaborative advancement Encourage female
  students
• A special effort is often needed to engage female
  students,since male students often dominate
  discourses (as seen in classroom B)
• Key for sucessfull implementation of CSCL
  (especially for females) build a supporting
  social infrastructure around the technical
  infrastructure
• Focus not only on collaborative technology but
  also examine soscial settings that support the
  meaningfull implementation and use of technology
• To conclude essential to build a culture of
  collaborative learning supported by the whole
  organization and structure of pedagogical
  activities (as in classroom A) rather than being
  added to prevailing practices (Classroom B)

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Questions?