Summary of part II and III in: Gerry Stahl, Group Cognition' Computer Support for collaborative know

1
Summary of part II and III in Gerry Stahl, Group
Cognition. Computer Support for collaborative
knowledge

• Kathrine A. Nygård
• Tool 5100, 22.05.07

2
Central concepts(Relating to the 2. C and L in
CSCL)

• Collaboration and group cognition
• Learning (as social practice) a sociocultural
  view builds on the assumption that learning has
  to do with how people appropriate and master
  tools for thinking and acting that exist in a
  given culture or society (Wertsch I. Säljö,
  1998149).
• Knowledge building knowledge as a product
• Intersubjectivity
• Communicative space between subjects. Shared
  understanding of the situation (joint
  meaning-making is the term used by Stahl for
  this)

3
A diagram of knowledge building processes.
Opportunities for Computer Support (Renates
slide)
4
Collaborative Knowledge Building

• Computer support should
• Provide workspace for articulation, interaction,
  development and approaching consensus of ideas
• Afford, facilitate and encourage multi-phased
  community processes
• Provide a medium for formulate, represent and
  communicate ideas at various phases
• Preserve ideas and various formulations for
  reviewing, reflection and communication
  independent of time/place

5
Meaning making

• Culturally defined, social act
• Orientation toward an audience
• Mediated through artifacts

6
Multi theoretical approach in contribution
towards a paradigm in CSCL (a visionary view)

• Four themes, supplementing each other and
  offering integral contributions to the theory
• Collaborative knowledge building
• Group and personal perspectives
• Mediation by artifacts
• Interaction analysis

7
Mediation by artifacts

• Mediation something happens by means of, or
  through the involvement of a mediating object
• We control our actions (behavior) through the
  mediation of tools and signs
• Artifacts Meaningful objects created by people
  for specific uses (signs/language, pens, digital
  tools)
• Artifacts as cultural building blocks
• The artifacts are to cultural evolution what the
  gene is to biological evolution (Wartofsky I
  Engeström 1999)

8
Interaction analysis

• How do people rediscover meaning in artifacts?
• Do artifacts embody meaning or do they embody
  meaningful traces of human activity? .. Meaning
  is not in the artifact rather it is in the total
  situation that includes artifacts, minds and
  social practices (240)
• Bakhtin An utterance is meaningful only in
  relation backwards, to previous utterances and
  forward to emerging or anticipated utterances
  (audience)
• Heidegger meaning is situated within the
  extended dimensions of human temporality
• Engeström The activity as the unit of analysis
• Builds upon ethnomethodology (Garfinkel) and
  converstion analysis (Sacks) Essential tool
  Video
• Interpreting data on the micro-level in relation
  to the larger discorse and activity

9
Example 1SimRocket

• Data from a 68 sec. long extract a
  collaborative moment
• Analyzing the dialogue in a small group working
  together on solving a problem
• This is a co-located CSCL setting
• The interpretation of the artifact and
  interaction with it on an equal basis with the
  dialogue
• Problem Come up with a pair of rockets that can
  be used experimentally to determine whether a
  rounded or a pointed nose cone will perform
  better (on the basis of a list)

10
Interaction analysisUnderstanding utterances

• Indexical utterance The meaning of the
  utterances rely on the context in which they are
  said with implicit references to elements in the
  situation
• Elliptical utterance Refers to what is said in
  the past
• Projective utterance Refers to a desired future
  state

11
Extract from the collaborative moment
Confusion/The Repair

• 12210 Chuck But its not the same
  engine
• 12211 Jamie Yeah, It is
• 12212 Brent Yes it is,
• 12213 Jamie Compare two n one
• Brent Number two

12
Research goals

• Different aspects of digital competency
• Childrens knowledge about rockets in the
  rocket-age
• Ability to carry out experiments One variable
  while everything else is constant
• Learning about new software-tools
• Ability to understand the embedded meaning of the
  software

13
Embedded meaning in the software

• In our example The structure of the list
• In general the computer software program is an
  artifact that embodies inferred, referred,
  derived and stored intentionality
• (supporting the L in CSCL)
• Could you think of examples of what would be
  software artifacts embodied intentionality?

14
Classifying artifacts

• Artifacts are human made and have an embedded
  meaning
• Physical artifacts
• Material /meaning in the physical world
• Symbolic artifacts
• Tied to activities in the world Oral and written
  language (symbols)
• Computational artifacts
• To be effective in use the user must uncover the
  embedded meaning
• Cognitive artifacts
• Internalization of skills into mental tools

15
The structure of the rocket-list

• Four variables Nose-cone(2), Number of fins (2),
  Surface texture (2) and rocket engine (4)

16
Same, Different and Compare

• Understanding accrues when the groups
  understanding changes from a model of standard
  configuration to one of pared configurations
• Everyday concepts are used to develop working
  knowledge of scientific experimentation (holding
  variables constant)
• Meaning making on two levels
• Group Building shared meaning through discourse
• Individual The participants individual
  interpretation of the discourse (in the group
  interaction)
• group learning understood as an basis for
  individual learning. In addition to providing the
  cultural background, motivational support and
  interaction it is also a mechanism for ensuring
  individual learning (responding to the argument
  that group learning is irrelevant because of the
  temporality of the groups unities)

17
Sketching a theory of building collaborative
knowing

• Influenced by Marlene Scardamalia and Carl
  Bereiter (1996), who were the originators of the
  term knowledge building in context of CSCL
• Focus on brief episodes of group discourse which
  builds meaning (to be interpreted by members and
  sedimented in artifacts) as a way of
  understanding collaboration as different from
  individual learning
• The theory frame suggested is grounded in
  empirical studies

18
Understanding the situated data

• 4 Phases
• Breakdown in understanding
• Collaborative moment
• Efforts in reaching shared understanding
• Reaching shared understanding
• The situatednes of the utterances Explicated
  trough interpreting the discourse (as a whole)
• Teacher role Creating a productive context for
  discourse
• Learning to communicative interaction in a small
  group

19
Explicating tacit knowing

• Tacit knowing Being able to do but not to
  explain your actions (Michael Polanyi, 1966)
• Tacit (practical) knowing has epistemological
  priority over explicit (theoretical) knowing
  (Heidegger, 1996)
• Interplay between tacit and explicit knowing (the
  current focus of attention)
• Interpretation is making something explicit
• Discourse is interpretation (making explicit)
• Meaning expressed through the network of
  consecutive utterances within the context
• Vygotsky Internalization/Externalization

20
Building collaborative knowing as a cyclic process

• Relates the group process to individual flow
• The affordances of artifacts
• Social interaction as producing, reproducing and
  habituating the group (interactive unit),
  individuals (roles and mental subjects) and
  situation (network of artifacts)
• Focus on micro-processes
• In relation to the larger cultural-historical
  context we are a part of

21
Meaning and individual interpretation (1)

• Vygotsky Internalization/externalization
• Ex. mother and small child the evolution of
  gestures into speech and speech into thought
• Pointing as a shared artifact
• Shared language (social)
• Egocentric speech
• Inner speech
• Thought

22
Meaning and individual interpretation (2)

• Cognitive artifacts internalized forms of
  cultural artifacts with its origin in the
  interpersonal world
• The world A cultural situation including a
  totality of meaningful artifacts
• Human understanding based on the tacit
  pre-understanding of this world (Heidegger)

23
Scientific implications

• Externalization Learning is made visible through
  the creation and use of artifacts
• Scientific objectivity
• Intersubjective validity meaning as shared and
  rigorous interpretation
• Multiple researchers from individual perspective
• Professional and methodological training

24
Meaning and individual interpretation (3)

• Relations between meaning and interpretation is
  central for understanding the mediation of small
  group interaction
• Meaning making as collective vs psychological
  process
• Reciprocal relationship between meaning (as
  shared product of knowledge building) and
  interpretation (as recognizing meaning of
  artifact- individual interpretation)
• Artifact as retainers of intersubjective meaning
  (what would be an example?)
• Mediated cognition

25
Shared meaning - critical view

• Group meaning is constructed by the interaction
  of the individual members (doing their own
  interpretations)
• Shared knowledge
• Overlapping
• One individual sharing her knowledge with others
• Group knowledge achieved through discourse
• Acquisition metaphor vs Participation metaphor

26
Different perspectives on knowledge construction

• Collaborative knowledge building (Bereiter)
• Social psychology (Resnick, Levine, Teasley)
• Distributed cognition (Hutchins, Salomon)
• Situated cognition (Schön, Suchman etc.)
• Situated learning (Lave Wenger)
• Zone of proximal dev. (Vygotsky)
• Activity theory (Cole, Engeström, Kaptelinin,
  Nardi)
• Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel)

27
The Virtual Math Team (VTM)

• Collaborative problem-solving of mathematics
  problems online (Math forum Web site)
• Chatrooms small groups of about 4. based on
  interests
• Discusses a given math problem for one hour
  without supervision (Interaction is logged)
• Can later submit problem - receive expert
  feedback
• Follow-up over time (analyzing)
• Micro-analytic study in virtual setting

28
Aims and hypothesis

• Analyze concrete situations of collaboration and
  student interaction in building knowledge
• Overcoming some of the shortcomings from
  SimRocket
• Over time in multiple sessions
• No supervisor participation
• Online communication is fully logged
• Collaborative learning H0
• A small online group of learners can on
  occasions and under favorable conditions - build
  collaborative knowing and shared meaning that
  exceeds the knowledge of the groups individual
  members (359).

29
Theoretical concepts

• Communities of practice (Lave Wenger, 1991)
• Legitimate, peripheral participation
• Boundary objects
• Boundary objects are objects which are both
  plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the
  constraints of the several parties employing
  them, yet robust enough to maintain a common
  identity across sites. They are weakly structured
  in common use, and become strongly structured in
  individual-site use. These objects may be
  abstract or concrete (Star Grisemer, 1989393).
• Intersubjectivity (Rommetveit, 1992) and
  meaning-making
• What would be illustrations of these concepts
  from 1) Stahls book, 2) your group projects?

30
Methodology

• Ethnomethodology (EM) (Garfinkel, 1967)
• Suggestion for method in CSCL
• Resemblance to grounded theory
• Bottom up-approach theoretical analysis grounded
  in empirical data
• Video analysis as premise
• Interaction analysis (Jordan Henderson 1995)
• Discourse analysis / Conversational analysis

31
5 policies for EM

• Data are
• Everywhere Member-methods
• Visible Rules for hum. practice, tacit practice,
  group negotiation
• Grounded Empirical categories, bracket out
  preexisting theory
• Meaningful Mediated everyday interaction in
  spesf. Activities with others makes sense
• accountability
• Situated Understood in light of that situation
• indexical