Exploring lake ecology in a computer-supported learning environment

Abstract

This study highlights the computer-mediated discursive activity of two dyads of first year educational sciences students, each collaboratively exploring several options for increasing the equilibrium size of a fish population in a lake. Our focus is on peers' attempts to come up with justified predictions about the adequacy of several options for maintaining a larger fish population, as well as on their attempts to refine or radically reconsider these theoretical predictions in the light of empirical data provided by software simulations. Thus, this paper is particularly concerned with the construction of arguments on the level of the argumentative (i.e. claims, justifications, challenges) and epistemic operations (i.e. recognising assumptions, appealing to limiting factors) and the contribution of the software simulations in this process. According to the analysis of peers' discourse, both dyads seem to be engaged in the construction of directly justified theoretical predictions by activating several epistemic tools, while only one seems to reach the target concept of carrying capacity. Significant differences may be identified in regard with the two dyads' interest as well as capability in using the simula-tions as a meaningful feedback upon their initial arguments. Implications of students' tendency to transfer the sterile culture of ‘doing school’ into problem-based collaborative learning environments, as well as of their difficulties on both the conceptual level and the level of meaningfully integrating the software simulations in their argumentative reasoning, are discussed.