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

knowledge

Kathrine A. NygårdTool 5100, 22.05.07

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, 1998:149).

• 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)

A diagram of knowledge – building processes. Opportunities for Computer Support (Renate’s slide)

Ch. 9

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

Ch. 11

Meaning making

• Culturally defined, social act

• Orientation toward an audience

• Mediated through artifacts

Ch. 11

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

Ch. 11

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)

Ch. 11

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

Ch 12

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)

Ch. 12

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

Ch. 12

Extract from the collaborative moment: Confusion/The Repair

1:22:10 Chuck =But it’s not the same engine

1:22:11 Jamie Yeah, It is =

1:22:12 Brent Yes it is,

1:22:13 Jamie [Compare two n one

Brent [Number two

Ch. 13

Research goals

• Different aspects of digital competency – Children’s 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

Ch. 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?

Ch. 13

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

Ch. 13

The structure of the rocket-listFour variables: Nose-cone(2), Number of fins (2), Surface texture (2)

and rocket engine (4)

Ch. 13

“Same”, “Different” and “Compare”

• Understanding accrues when the group’s 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)

Ch. 15

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

Ch. 15

Understanding the situated data

• 4 Phases:1. Breakdown in understanding2. Collaborative moment3. Efforts in reaching shared understanding4. 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

Ch. 15

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

Ch. 15

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

Ch. 16

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

Ch. 16

Meaning and individual interpretation (2)

• Cognitive artifacts: internalized forms of cultural artifacts with it’s 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)

Ch. 16

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

Ch. 16

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

Ch. 17

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

Ch. 17

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)

Ch. 17

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

Ch. 17

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 group’s individual members (359).

Ch. 18

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, 1989:393).

• Intersubjectivity (Rommetveit, 1992) and meaning-making

• What would be illustrations of these concepts from 1) Stahl’s book, 2) your group projects?

Ch. 18

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

Ch. 18

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