dc.description.abstract | A core issue in Computer-supported collaborative learning is “Where does learning take place?” Along with the current trend in CSCL, this study focused on the learning process of an online scientific inquiry-based group to identify the “critical moments” of promoting the group inquiry progress among the group members. By analyzing the case study from an online community (LAIN) is to explore the picture of a small group knowledge construction. We analyzed the log data of the group discussion to understand the relationship between the development of scientific concept and the group members’ dynamic interaction in order to identify the critical moments.
This study tries to develop an analytic approach to re-identify the critical moments. The definition of the “critical moments” in our study is getting better condition to advance the group progress for achieving the final group inquiry goal. By comparing with the traditional approach, our approach focuses on the “whole” situated-context and dynamics process of the group discussion rather than a single “part” during the group discussion, and shows the unit of analysis in “a larger context” or “a series of the related events” rather than in some “small pieces” or “isolated incidents”. The main points in this analysis are including the “from beginning to end” process, situated-context, time dimension, and relevance. The analytic steps in this study are as the followings: first, to pick the sequential episodes of promoting the inquiry progress is under the situated-context perspective; then, to capture the subject matter, to track the evolution of the group discussion, to recognize a set of intersubjective-interactive components and the positive turns in the group members’ close discussion. It is worth noting that we analyzed the above-mentioned-analytic steps in the cumulative composition of interpretative acts.
Identified the critical moments by the above definition and analysis approach has the following findings. The results identify four critical moments, including to establish the group norms, to create the mutual accomplishment, to make the art of collective dialogue, and to develop the division of labors in a group. At the same time, we could reconsider the dynamic changes of the role play (for example, positive learner, lurker, or mentor), rejudge individual’s contribution among the group members, refresh the definition of the “collective interaction”, and show the interaction between the mentor’s scaffolding and the peer’s collaboration. Finally, the collective interaction among participants: the group members developed the partial and complementary activity to advance the group progress.
Based on the situated-context perspective, we could describe and interpret each posting of the group discussion in the local practice meaning and reconsider the contribution of postings in the online knowledge co-construction. Our study also found that the group members discussed with each other in the intersubjective interaction is the key to promote the inquiry-based learning quality. In contrast to tradition approaches, this study expanded the picture of an online group knowledge co-construction. So some methodological considerations about online-group knowledge co-construction were discussed. | en_US |