This paper discusses collaborative learning and its use in an elective course on ethics in engineering. Collaborative learning is a form of active learning in which students learn with and from one another in small groups. The benefits of collaborative learning include improved student performance and enthusiasm for learning, development of communication skills, and greater student appreciation of the importance of judgment and collaboration in solving real-world problems such as those encountered in (...) engineering ethics. Collaborative learning strategies employed in the course include informal small group discussions/problem solving, role-playing exercises, and cooperative student group projects, including peer grading. Student response to these techniques has been highly favorable. Realizing the benefits of collaborative learning is a challenge to both teachers, who must give up some control in the classroom, and students, who must be willing to take greater responsibility for their learning. (shrink)

Collaborative learning has recently achieved very significant results. It still suffers, however, from several issues, including the type of information that needs to be exchanged, the criteria for stopping and how to choose the right collaborators. We aim in this paper to improve the quality of the collaboration and to resolve these issues via a novel approach inspired by Optimal Transport theory. More specifically, the objective function for the exchange of information is based on the Wasserstein distance, with (...) a bidirectional transport of information between collaborators. This formulation allows to learns a stopping criterion and provide a criterion to choose the best collaborators. Extensive experiments are conducted on multiple data-sets to evaluate the proposed approach. (shrink)

Interpersonal physiological synchrony has been consistently found during collaborative tasks. However, few studies have applied synchrony to predict collaborative learning quality in real classroom. To explore the relationship between interpersonal physiological synchrony and collaborative learning activities, this study collected electrodermal activity and heart rate during naturalistic class sessions and compared the physiological synchrony between independent task and group discussion task. The students were recruited from a renowned university in China. Since each student learn differently and (...) not everyone prefers collaborative learning, participants were sorted into collaboration and independent dyads based on their collaborative behaviors before data analysis. The result showed that, during group discussions, high collaboration pairs produced significantly higher synchrony than low collaboration dyads. Given the equivalent engagement level during independent and collaborative tasks, the difference of physiological synchrony between high and low collaboration dyads was triggered by collaboration quality. Building upon this result, the classification analysis was conducted, indicating that EDA synchrony can identify different levels of collaboration quality. (shrink)

There is a general tension between the individualised nature of current assessment practices in higher education and a collaborative approach to learning. This results in many dilemmas for educators as they try to balance academic integrity concerns and student preferences with social or collaborative assessment practices, including peer assessment, group assignments and direct assessment of teamwork or collaboration. This paper argues that focussing on singular assessment tasks or experiences tends to lead to marginal effects. Rather, we suggest (...) that the collaborative must be normalised within course structures: experiences of groupwork, peer learning and other forms of working with others should be commonplace and expected. We look to curricula to provide students with assessable tasks from many rich collaborative experiences, avoid issues of perceived and actual inequity and allow for risk and possible failure. We suggest that grading as presently enacted inhibits collaborative processes and that trust needs to be recognised as central and core to collaborative approaches. The challenges of assessing social and collaborative learning require holistic course wide attention that communicates to both students and colleagues that learning necessarily goes beyond the individual. (shrink)

This paper presents a theorisation of collaborative activity that was developed in the research field known as “collaborative learning”, in order to understand the processes of co-elaboration of meaning and knowledge. Collaboration, as distinguished from cooperation, coordination and collective activity, is defined as a continued and conjoined effort towards elaborating a “joint problem space” of shared representations of the problem to be solved. An approach to analysing the processes of co-construction of a joint problem space is outlined, (...) in terms of inter-discursive operations, together with approaches to defining different forms of cooperative activity. In conclusion, the specificity of this approach to defining collaboration is discussed in relation to other fields of research. (shrink)

This paper presents a theorisation of collaborative activity that was developed in the research field known as “collaborative learning”, in order to understand the processes of co-elaboration of meaning and knowledge. Collaboration, as distinguished from cooperation, coordination and collective activity, is defined as a continued and conjoined effort towards elaborating a “joint problem space” of shared representations of the problem to be solved. An approach to analysing the processes of co-construction of a joint problem space is outlined, (...) in terms of inter-discursive operations, together with approaches to defining different forms of cooperative activity. In conclusion, the specificity of this approach to defining collaboration is discussed in relation to other fields of research. (shrink)

In recent years, several Vygotskian computer-based learning activities (VCBLAs) were designed in the context of (mathematics) education and implemented on Moodle platform. However, Moodle does not allow users to visualize all chats on a single browser page, and they are forced to open multiple browser windows and switch among them very frequently. This paper describes the features of a plugin for Moodle, called “Quick Chat,” which allows to manage in a single browser window both the narrative flow of a (...) VCBLA and all chats. Some results of an experimentation with PhD students, engaged in solving two mathematical tasks, are shown. (shrink)

Given the instructional challenges posed by the influx of minority-language children in North America, this article attempts to examine early childhood bi- or multilingualism in one of the fastest growing ethnic minority groups in Canada, Korean-Canadians. By drawing on a Vygotskian perspective, the article focuses on the affective and social aspects of learning for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) children and their families. With an emphasis on the integration of language and thought, this article first identifies the instructional applications (...) of Vygotskian perspectives and then describes iterative phases of design-based research aimed at developing technology-mediated collaborative learning environments for trilingual Korean-Canadian children. The technology-mediated collaborative learning environment supported young CLD children's affective, social and cognitive needs and created meaning-centered collaborative learning environments. The paper concludes with a consideration of implications of this technology-mediated collaborative learning environment so as to assist teachers who might be confronted with the educational needs of the growing population of CLD children. (shrink)

As a committee of the National Academy of Engineering recognized, ethics education should foster the ability of students to analyze complex decision situations and ill-structured problems. Building on the NAE’s insights, we report about an innovative teaching approach that has two main features: first, it places the emphasis on deliberation and on self-directed, problem-based learning in small groups of students; and second, it focuses on understanding ill-structured problems. The first innovation is motivated by an abundance of scholarly research that (...) supports the value of deliberative learning practices. The second results from a critique of the traditional case-study approach in engineering ethics. A key problem with standard cases is that they are usually described in such a fashion that renders the ethical problem as being too obvious and simplistic. The practitioner, by contrast, may face problems that are ill-structured. In the collaborative learning environment described here, groups of students use interactive and web-based argument visualization software called “AGORA-net: Participate – Deliberate!”. The function of the software is to structure communication and problem solving in small groups. Students are confronted with the task of identifying possible stakeholder positions and reconstructing their legitimacy by constructing justifications for these positions in the form of graphically represented argument maps. The argument maps are then presented in class so that these stakeholder positions and their respective justifications become visible and can be brought into a reasoned dialogue. Argument mapping provides an opportunity for students to collaborate in teams and to develop critical thinking and argumentation skills. (shrink)

Collaborative learning has become increasingly prevalent throughout all disciplines in higher education, but these types of situations may prove challenging for quiet students who may prefer m...

During the COVID-19 outbreak, educational institutions were closed, and students worldwide were confined to their homes. In an educational environment, students depend on collaborative learning to improve their learning performance. This study aimed to increase the understanding of social media adoption among students during the COVID-19 pandemic for the purpose of CL. Social media provides a learning platform that enables students to easily communicate with their peers and subject specialists, and is conducive to students' CL. This (...) study addresses the key concept of CL during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing social media use among students in higher education. The relationship between social media use and students' performance is crucial to understanding the role of social media during a pandemic. This study is based on constructivism theory and the technology acceptance model. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the conceptual model using SmartPLS. The research findings indicate that social media plays an important role during the pandemic because it provides opportunities for students to enhance CL under the aforementioned situations. This study makes noteworthy theoretical and practical contributions. (shrink)

This paper presents the experience of applying the Social Intelligence Design (SID) paradigm in a multidisciplinary course planned with Collaborative Learning (CL). Through the experience, three levels of SID were discovered; one was the social product/artifact, the other two were the student’s social process and the professor’s social process. Authors propose a framework for SID-based education and CL as a possible tool for supporting and assessing such experiences. The experience of this approach seems very promising for social product (...) innovation, social entrepreneurship, and social awareness. (shrink)

Recently, many universities apply mobile tools to teaching practices. For instance, some teachers may set up groups on mobile social apps and assign course tasks and advise college students to submit papers online. Nevertheless, how these mobile social apps affect teaching practices, especially the process of students’ satisfaction needs to be further explored. To fill this research gap, we build a theoretical model of how mobile social apps’ functions affect course satisfaction from the perspective of Media Richness theory and the (...) Uses and Gratifications theory. A total of 186 valid questionnaires from college students in China were collected, and a structural equation model was built to test our research model. The results show that as: only the communication function has positive impacts on knowledge sharing, while the impact of the information storing function and information distribution function on knowledge sharing is not significant; knowledge sharing does not affect course satisfaction in a direct way, but it can act indirectly through promoting collaborative learning, which shows the mediating role of collaborative learning. The theoretical implications and practical implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

Despite recent increases in research on emotions and regulation in collaborative learning, measuring both constructs remains challenging and often lacks structure. Researchers need a systematic method to measure both the formation of emotions and subsequent regulation in collaborative learning environments. Drawing from the Formation and Regulation of Emotions in Collaborative Learning model, I introduce a new observational coding procedure that provides comprehensive guidelines for coding these phenomena. The FRECL coding procedure has been implemented successfully (...) in other studies and is described here in detail. Specifically, I detail the ideal situations for using the procedure, discuss background information and present a codebook and empirical examples for each stage of the FRECL model, and provide additional considerations that allow researchers flexibility based on their own experiences and preferences. This procedure extends past research by providing an accessible observational protocol that is both systematic and comprehensive. The FRECL coding procedure can benefit future research by providing more organized consistency to the measurement of collaborative emotions and regulation. (shrink)

When I think of the single change that would most successfully transform our teaching practice and leverage truly significant benefits, it would be to bring much more of what learners already know into the classroom so that it can be shared, examined, refined and improved. At present, it would seem that the majority mode of teaching in the areas of ethics and social responsibility does a rather poor job of this, tending instead towards silencing the wisdom that is in the (...) room in order that external perspectives can be more easily “instilled”. From many years of experimenting with a wide variety of approaches to teaching the subject, I find this to be deeply suboptimal and would seriously suggest that we ought to shift our practices in ways that make learners’ perspectives our primary material of interest. (shrink)

Arthur Anderson & Co. has made a significant contribution to assist and encourage the teaching of business ethics. They provided assistance initially through workshops and curriculum materials; currently they are using campus coordinators to disseminate information and materials. The curriculum materials can be used by the instructor to assist students in practicing their moral reasoning skills and cover four academic areas: Accounting, Finance, Marketing, and Management. These materials include business ethics video vignettes, suggestions on presentation methods, guidelines for implementing a (...) stakeholders' analysis approach to ethical reasoning, and possible discussion questions. The vignettes present ethical dilemmas that persons may encounter in entry level positions. We have used the vignettes, the accompanying discussion questions, and the suggested stakeholder analysis in class presentations. This paper presents a discussion of the basic concepts associated with cooperative learning, an example of the implementation of cooperative learning techniques using the Arthur Andersen Accounting Ethics Vignettes, and empirical results of the influence of these particular group discussions on the students' ethical responses. We did not attempt to measure whether the individuals' moral levels changed, but whether the group discussions stimulated any changes in the students attitudes toward the particular ethical dilemma they viewed. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning about Urban Sustainability with Digital Stories: Promoting Collaborative Creativity from a Constructionist Perspective” by Maria Daskolia, Chronis Kynigos & Katerina Makri. Upshot: Daskolia, Kynigos and Makri’s article offers us a view into potential applications of constructionist learning theory to help students conceive of and collaborate on solutions to today’s complex problems. This work in many ways parallels the efforts of those investigating systems thinking and highlights the importance of digital production (...) in that process. While many efforts rely on simulations and models, the authors place centrally the role of digital production in understanding complexity. This, in turn, calls our attention to the affordances and limitations of our current tools for facilitating learning and collaboration, and ultimately to the need for new tools. (shrink)

Between 1900 and 1925, the American economy witnessed a remarkably successful effort to upgrade competition through associations. Unlike the prevailing interpretation of American industrialization, in which associations fell prey to antitrust and collective action problems, we find many associations that reinvented themselves from cartels to developmental associations. This transition marked two previously unrecognized varieties in economic institutions. In the first, associations joined markets and corporate hierarchies to create variety in American capitalism. In the second, associations used deliberation, cost accounting, and (...) benchmarking to enhance productivity and create varieties of collective governance. This article explains the origins of developmental associations, outlines their principles, traces their implementation in the commercial printing industry, and surveys their distribution and performance effects across 344 industries. Based on these findings, we revise conventional institutionalist assumptions about order and agency to make room for institutional diversity and actors’ capacities for reflexivity and learning. (shrink)

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories “The Birthmark” (1843) and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844) encourage critical thinking about science and scientific research as forms of social power. In this collaborative activity, students work in small groups to discuss the ways in which these stories address questions of human experimentation, gender, manipulation of bodies, and the role of narrative in mediating perceptions about bodies. Students collectively adduce textual evidence from the stories to construct claims and present a mini-argument to the class, thereby strengthening (...) their skills in communication and cooperative interpretation of ethical dilemmas. This exercise is adaptable to shorter and longer periods of instruction, and it is ideal for instructors who collaborate across areas of expertise. (shrink)

Learning to write in a foreign language is a complex cognitive process. The process-genre approach is a common instructional practice adopted by language teachers to develop learners’ writing abilities. However, the interacting elements of procedural knowledge, linguistic knowledge, and generic knowledge in this approach may exceed the capacity of an individual learner’s working memory, thus actually hindering the acquisition of writing skills. According to the collective working memory effect, it was hypothesized that teaching writing skills of English as a (...) foreign language by adopting a process-genre approach in collaborative conditions could lead to better writing performance, lower cognitive load, and higher instructional efficiency. The reported experiment compared learning writing skills of English as a foreign language in individual and collaborative instructional conditions from a cognitive load perspective, a rarely adopted approach in this field. The results indicated that the collaborative instructional condition was more effective and efficient than the individual instructional condition in improving the quality of written products as well as in optimizing the cognitive load experienced by the learners. Measures of cognitive load were used to support the cognitive load theory’s interpretation of the results, which is the unique contribution of this research study to the field. (shrink)

The increasing concern about ethics and integrity in research communities has brought attention to how students and junior academics can be trained on this regard. Moreover, it is known that ethical behaviour and integrity not only involve individual but also group norms and considerations. Thus, through action research and participant observation, this research investigates the learning processes through which 64 students collaboratively develop research ethics and integrity competencies. The aim was to understand how bachelor, master and PhD students approach (...) ethical dilemma cases through a collaborative process. The data consisted of recorded group work on ethics cases, student group reports, and post-training questionnaires. Later, the analyses considered groups as the unit of analysis. These data were analysed through content analysis utilizing the SOLO taxonomy to identify levels of understanding and assess evolvement of ethical sensitivity during a case-based training session. The results show that all groups reached the level of understanding where the groups demonstrated that concepts had been understood appropriately, but occasionally struggled to make connections between them. Students perceived working collaboratively as beneficial. The results help teachers of research ethics and integrity to make pedagogically justified choices in their teaching. Drawing on the results of this study, we propose a tool for the formative assessment of student learning of research ethics and integrity. (shrink)

This study explored the impact of facilitating collaborative philosophical inquiry, in the tradition of “Philosophy for Children,” on connectedness pedagogies. The study employed an experimental design that included 59 primary teachers in 2 groups. The experimental group received an intervention that comprised training in CPI and the comparison group received training in Thinking Tools, a subset of the CPI training. Lessons were coded on four variables of connectedness pedagogies, across the two groups, at three time-points. Teacher interviews were conducted (...) to gather participants’ perspectives. Between-groups analysis of variance on particular measures of pedagogy revealed that CPI significantly broadened teachers’ pedagogical repertoires, in ways that included drawing on students’ background knowledge and preparing a problem-based curriculum which connects students to the world beyond the classroom. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder initiatives for biodiversity conservation on working landscapes often necessitate strategies to facilitate learning in order to foster successful collaboration. To investigate the learning processes that both undergird and result from collaborative efforts, this case study employs the concept of boundary work as a lens to examine learning between rice growers and conservation professionals in California’s Central Valley, who were engaged in a collaborative research project focused on migratory bird conservation. Through analysis of workshop observations, (...) project documents, and interviews with rice growers and conservation professionals, we identified five distinct factors of the collaborative research process that influenced learning amongst these two groups: having mutually beneficial goals, sharing ownership of the collaborative research process, building trust, integrating knowledge, and institutional alignment. We also examined and identified learning outcomes for both rice growers and conservation professionals, which included new knowledge of the social-ecological system, new practices around farming and collaboration, and shifting identities. Our findings suggest that applying these factors and outcomes for learning when structuring collaborative research, and other multi-stakeholder initiatives, can foster learning amongst diverse stakeholder groups to support new approaches for balancing resource use and adaptive management. (shrink)

The expression ‘a university without research is a dignified high school’ is becoming a both local and global concern in the academia. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which collaborative research methodologies can enhance integration of faculties of arts and humanities in the universities in Malawi for knowledge development and transfer. It has been argued over and over that universities are spotlighted by their outstanding work in research, developing and sharing ideas, new inventions and (...) creativity within the spectrum of partnership development. While striving for partnership through collaborative research approaches, research activities still remain an area of concern in institutions that offer diverse tertiary education in Malawi. The question of how can these institutions or faculties engage each other in collaborative research methodologies in the quest of knowledge development and transfer remains crucial and relevant The study analyzed strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the existing research methods in Arts and Humanities and how the two disciplines can create a space for amalgamation so that research findings can benefit both disciplines. The study reveals that collaboration in various disciplines is a challenge owing to variations of conceptual analyses and the deficiency of technical no-how of both teaching staff and students as well as tools for data collection and analysis as may be emphasized in each of the areas of study; Arts and Humanities. Furthermore, while other institutions of higher learning have research ethics committees for checks and balances as a collaborative tool, some institutions do not know that this committee plays a crucial role in the field of research. Within this backdrop, there is need to develop research collaborations within an institution or with other institutions of higher learning that have a well-defined research profile for mutual benefits as far as collaborative research methodologies are concerned. (shrink)

As development of research ethics competencies is in the focus in higher education institutions, it is crucial to understand how to support the learning process during such training. While there is plenty of research on how to scaffold children’s learning of cognitive skills, there is limited knowledge on how to enhance collaborative case-based learning of research ethics competencies in HE contexts. Our aim was to identify whether, how and when scaffolding is needed with various expertise levels (...) to support development of ethics competencies. To identify and evaluate scaffolding during collaborative case-based ethics training we synthesised a scaffolding framework consisting of three levels: techniques, mechanisms and process. We organised 5 training sessions where 46 participants were involved. Data was collected as part of action research from group-work recordings and transcribed verbatim. Deductive qualitative analysis was implemented on transcripts based on the scaffolding framework. Our analysis revealed that structural scaffolding alone is not always efficient with bachelor level students, they also require oral scaffolding when the need becomes apparent. Master’s level students benefited most from wording the issues they needed to focus on. Doctoral students and senior academics needed scaffolding to maintain goal orientation. We end our article with some recommendations for facilitators of ethics education, and encourage using the scaffolding framework also in complex problem-solving beyond ethics training. (shrink)

This book covers the seven-year project involving China, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, and the US, to show how collaborative research can help expand worldwide knowledge of education.

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning about Urban Sustainability with Digital Stories: Promoting Collaborative Creativity from a Constructionist Perspective” by Maria Daskolia, Chronis Kynigos & Katerina Makri. Upshot: The target article by Daskolia, Kynigos and Makri shows the great potential of narrative learning to foster general learning skills, such as meaning-making, collaboration and creativity, while facilitating the construction of disciplinary content knowledge. This learning approach has much to recommend it, especially from a constructivist perspective, (...) because it supports the implementation of collaborative and creative learning processes apt to promote reflective dialogue as a basis for knowledge construction, capitalizing on students’ previous knowledge and experience. (shrink)

Context: Sustainability is among major societal goals in our days. Education is acknowledged as an essential strategy for attaining sustainability by activating the creative potential within young people to understand sustainability, bring forth changes in their everyday life, and collectively envision a more sustainable future. Problem: However, teaching and learning about sustainability and sustainability-related issues is not an easy task due to the inherent complexity, ambiguity, and context-specificity of the concept. We are in need of innovative pedagogical approaches and (...) tools that will allow us to design learning activities in which learners will be empowered to develop new, alternative interpretations of sustainability in personally and collectively meaningful ways. Method: We argue that a constructionist perspective involving the use of expressive media for digital storytelling offers an appropriate frame for designing learning activities fostering collaborative creativity in thinking and learning about urban sustainability. Our study is based on the design of a learning activity following this rationale. We adopted a qualitative approach in the collection and analysis of different sources of data with the aim to explore collaborative creativity as a learning process based on the students’ collective processes and resulting in the co-construction of new ideas and insights about sustainability, and new tangible artefacts encompassing them. Results: Our analysis of the collaborative creativity exemplified in the three digital stories produced identified important creative elements with regards to the three components of a digital story and how they were embodied in each digital story produced as a result of the students’ joint constructionist activity. Implications: Our study provides some preliminary evidence that collaborative creativity from a constructionist perspective can stand as an appropriate framework for designing learning activities addressing the difficult concept of sustainability. There are several implications for both theory and educational practice in environmental education and education for sustainable development, constructionism, and digital storytelling in education. Moreover, our study opens up new fields for research and theory in creativity. (shrink)

In view of the poor recommendation performance of traditional resource collaborative filtering recommendation algorithms, this article proposes a collaborative filtering recommendation model based on deep learning for art and MOOC resources. This model first uses embedding vectors based on the context of metapaths for learning. Embedding vectors based on the context of metapaths aggregate different metapath information and different MOOCs may have different preferences for different metapaths. Secondly, to capture this preference drift, the model introduces an (...) attention mechanism, which can improve the interpretability of the recommendation results. Then, by introducing the Laplacian matrix into the prior distribution of the hidden factor feature matrix, the relational network information is effectively integrated into the model. Finally, compared with the traditional model using the scoring matrix, the model in this article using text word vectors effectively alleviates the impact of data sparsity and greatly improves the accuracy of prediction. After analyzing the experimental results, compared with other algorithms, the resource collaborative filtering recommendation model proposed in this article has achieved better recommendation results, with good stability and scalability. (shrink)

This article reports the results of an investigation into the issues encountered by undergraduate language students while engaging in ‘the Grammar Project’ - a collaborative assessment task for the module Academic and Professional Skills for Language Learning - and shows how encouraging students to take ownership of their learning process with the support of a Virtual Learning Environment can increase their motivation and their understanding of the subject matter. It shows that students’ beliefs may hinder their (...) learning experience, while maintaining that an effective social-interactive environment can help them understand subject-specific concepts, particularly if this is supported by recording their reflections both within the VLE and in a portfolio. (shrink)

This article compares case studies to better understand how third grade teachers, serving low-income (including Title I) schools, adapted their instruction in the midst of a global pandemic to better support their students’ learning about locally-relevant civic issues. Civic perspective-taking components were embedded in the unit design with the aim of building deliberative, inclusive classrooms. The team designed lessons drawing from theories of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Using semi-structured interview data, we examined teachers’ reported thinking and perceptions about students’ needs (...) and their own struggles to deliver purposeful, equitable instruction. Findings indicate that as teachers collaboratively designed the lessons they discussed how to balance relevance and sensitivity in relation to content that mirrored students lived realities. This study advances our understanding of what challenges teachers overcome to integrate culturally-sustaining practices in their social studies instruction. (shrink)

The goals of this study are to evaluate a relatively novel learning environment, as well as to seek greater understanding of why human tutoring is so effective. This alternative learning environment consists of pairs of students collaboratively observing a videotape of another student being tutored. Comparing this collaboratively observing environment to four other instructional methods—one‐on‐one human tutoring, observing tutoring individually, collaborating without observing, and studying alone—the results showed that students learned to solve physics problems just as effectively from (...) observing tutoring collaboratively as the tutees who were being tutored individually. We explain the effectiveness of this learning environment by postulating that such a situation encourages learners to become active and constructive observers through interactions with a peer. In essence, collaboratively observing combines the benefit of tutoring with the benefit of collaborating. The learning outcomes of the tutees and the collaborative observers, along with the tutoring dialogues, were used to further evaluate three hypotheses explaining why human tutoring is an effective learning method. Detailed analyses of the protocols at several grain sizes suggest that tutoring is effective when tutees are independently or jointly constructing knowledge: with the tutor, but not when the tutor independently conveys knowledge. (shrink)

Osiurak and Reynaud highlight the critical role of technical-reasoning skills in the emergence of human cumulative technological culture, in contrast to previous accounts foregrounding social-reasoning skills as key to CTC. We question their analysis of the available evidence, yet for other reasons applaud the emphasis on causal understanding as central to the adaptive and collaborative dynamics of CTC.

The purpose of this exploratory action research study was to examine how the modeling by a collaborative team of instructors regarding technology integration and information literacy would affect the quality of the lessons that elementary teacher-education students designed and taught in their field placements. The research was conducted over two distinct years with two different cohorts of methods students placed at a local elementary school that had received new interactive whiteboards, SMART boards, in every classroom at the beginning of (...) the previous school year. Based upon field-supervisor/instructor observations, reflections, and oral and written feedback from host-teachers and students, an analysis was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the interventions. Findings suggest that teacher education students' level of engagement increased regarding the integration of technology, information literacy, ethical information use, and children were more engaged and actively involved during the teaching of methods students' mathematics and science lessons. (shrink)

We provide an overview of a transdisciplinary project about sustainable forest management under climate change. Our project is a partnership with members of the Menominee Nation, a Tribal Nation located in northern Wisconsin, United States. We use immersive virtual experiences, translated from ecosystem model outcomes, to elicit human values about future forest conditions under alternative scenarios. Our project combines expertise across the sciences and humanities as well as across cultures and knowledge systems. Our management structure, governance, and leadership behaviors have (...) both fostered and constrained our work and must be continuously responsive to changing group dynamics. Our project presents opportunities for substantial contributions to society, including insights and knowledge about complementary ways of knowing, skills training, and professional development, and opportunities for reflexive learning about effective transdisciplinary, translational, and transformative scientific processes. (shrink)