Collaborative Learning Design Research Articles

Enhancing students’ attitudes towards statistics through innovative technology-enhanced, collaborative, and data-driven project-based learning

Given the substantial body of educational research highlighting the significant influence of student attitudes on academic performance, particularly in disciplines like statistics where anxiety is prevalent, there is a need to investigate how innovative methodologies could reshape these attitudes. This paper will capitalize on the advancements from previously uncombined innovative methodologies of teaching statistics, such as project-based learning, data analytics, collaborative work, or the use of technology. Specifically, this paper reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of innovative technology-enhanced, collaborative, and data-driven project-based learning, aiming to positively impact students’ attitudes towards statistics as a cornerstone to improve statistical knowledge. To achieve this, a quasi-experimental research study involving 174 secondary students was undertaken, with participants divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). Results indicate a notable positive shift in attitudes among EG students following the intervention. The EG students decreased their anxiety after the intervention and, increased their affect and positive attitude toward using technology for learning statistics. By contrast, the CG students do not show any positive effect on their attitudes. These findings underscore the potential of the innovative instructional design implemented in this project to not only foster practical statistical problem-solving skills but also cultivate positive attitudes crucial for statistical competence. Educational implications are discussed.

Collaborative Online Learning Design Through Lesson Study Activities for Mathematics Prospective Teacher

Collaborative Online Learning Design Through Lesson Study Activities for Mathematics Prospective Teacher

Open networked learning – a course, a community, an approach

ABSTRACT Open Networked Learning (ONL) is a collaborative open online course for higher education educators worldwide, focusing on open education, collaborative learning, and course design. The interorganizational course welcomes both institutional and open learners from around 30 nations. Delivered 17 times since 2014 with up to 120 participants in each session, ONL employs problem-based learning to foster digital competencies and strengthen community development. Rooted in the European Framework for Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu), a study involving 48 participants revealed statistically significant, across-the-board competence enhancement post-course, affirming ONL’s efficacy. The article also summarizes our experiences and learnings from participating in and organising the course over the past ten years.

Investigating cognitive engagement patterns in online collaborative learning: a temporal learning analytic study

ABSTRACT Online collaborative learning (OCL) has become a common instructional strategy in higher education for developing students’ skills in collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Cognitive engagement in OCL evolves dynamically, but we do not yet fully understand which patterns of cognitive engagement are conducive to OCL and when to promote them. This study used entropy analysis, sequential pattern mining, and temporal network analysis to examine the online discourse of 44 college students who participated in three OCL tasks. Results showed that, compared with the low-performance groups, the high-performance groups exhibited patterns of continuous perspective elaboration and low-level regulation, as well as frequent shifts from perspective expression to perspective elaboration. In addition, there were differences in the longitudinal evolution patterns of cognitive engagement between the high- and low- performance groups. These findings have important implications for learning tool design and improving collaborative learning design.

Redefining autonomy in low-achieving high-school students: Collaborative learning in Taiwan-context classrooms

The study endorses the idea of interdependence as a trait of autonomy, which dignifies low-achieving students’ autonomy developed in English-language classrooms. A modified autonomy scale, adapted from Nunan’s five levels of autonomy development, monitored low-achieving learners’ autonomy. This action research explores the pedagogical design of collaborative learning to improve low-achieving students’ autonomy. Twenty low-achieving students (out of 29) as target participants come from a vocational high school in Hualien County, Taiwan. The result via observation and group-focus interviews displayed that the quality of intra-group interactions, deciding whether target participants’ need was satisfied, influences target participants’ tendency to be autonomous. In this study, leader-assigned groups where target participants could access available ‘resources’ (leaders) without exposing themselves to teachers to complete their individual/collective goals could produce those interactions. This indicates their greater responsibility for their learning. This study could provide an inspiring perspective for practitioners to redefine autonomy in low-achieving students.

An automated analysis of topic distributions and features approach to promoting group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation in online collaborative learning

Online collaborative learning has been widely used in the field of education. However, unrelated or off-topic information is often included in online collaborative learning. Furthermore, the content of online discussion is often too shallow or narrow. To achieve productive collaborative learning, this study proposed and validated an automated analysis of topic distributions and features (AATDF) approach. In total, 189 college students in China participated in this study and were assigned to one of two experimental groups or a control group. Experimental Group 1 participated in online collaborative learning with the AATDF approach. Experimental Group 2 participated in online collaborative learning with the automated analysis of topic distributions (AATD) approach. The control group participated in traditional online collaborative learning without any specified approach. The results indicate that the AATDF approach can significantly promote group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation compared with the AATD and traditional online collaborative learning approaches. The results and implications are also discussed in depth. The main contribution of this study is that the AATDF approach can improve learning performance and bring online collaborative learning onto new ground. Implications for practice: The AATDF approach is very useful and effective for promoting group performance, collaborative knowledge building and socially shared regulation. Teachers and practitioners can provide personalised interventions and optimise collaborative learning design based on the analysis results of topic distributions and features. Developers can adopt deep neural network models to develop intelligent online

Exploring non-linear relationships between perceived interactivity or interface design and acceptance of collaborative web-based learning.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-023-11635-6.

The Interaction Effect of Group Formation and Individual Preparation on Computer Support Collaborative Engineering Design: An Exploratory Study

Collaboration, as one of the most essential skill sets for engineering students, remains challenging for both engineering educators and student engineers. This study explores the role of pedagogical support individual preparation before collaboration on engineering students’ collaborative learning outcome as well as the process. A total of 36 dyads engineering students from a university engineering class participated in the study, divided into 2 group formations: homogeneous group (two similarly experienced student engineers) and heterogeneous group (one experienced student engineer and one less experienced student engineer). All dyads completed two engineering design tasks in two conditions: immediate collaboration (control condition) and individual preparation before collaboration (experimental condition) in a face-to-face (F2F) computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) context. The results indicated the interaction effect of individual preparation and group formation on students’ collaborative knowledge co-construction. The homogeneous group formation produced higher quality knowledge co-construction and design solutions when there was an individual preparation before collaboration than immediate collaboration. Meanwhile, the heterogeneous group formation produced lower quality knowledge co-construction and design solutions when there was an individual preparation before collaboration than immediate collaboration. These findings expand the current understanding of individual preparation before collaboration and provide insights for the design of computer-supported collaborative learning in classrooms.

Virtual Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Bibliometric Review and Future Research Agenda.

Virtual learning has emerged as a powerful platform for students and academicians in the “new normal” owing to the availability of advanced technological tools and platforms. Recently, considerable literature has grown up around the role of digital and remote technologies in learning and teaching during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, the research evidence on this topic is still fragmented, requiring a synthesis of this rapidly growing literature. This study aims to assess the key research trends in virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic through a bibliometric analysis of 1595 studies from 589 journals during 2020–21. Our study highlights the influential aspects, such as the most contributing countries, journals, authors, and keywords in this research field. We identified the following four main research trends: 1) challenges in online learning and blended learning strategies; 2) student-centered, collaborative learning, and curriculum design; 3) home-based laboratory learning; and 4) teachers’ professional competence and interdisciplinary learning. We conclude this research by discussing the implications for regulators and educational institutions, and directions for future research.

Secondary Education Students’ Knowledge Gain and Scaffolding Needs in Mobile Outdoor Learning Settings

Science education enhances students’ scientific literacy in order to interact with the world responsibly and contribute to democratic and informed decision-making. The emergence of place-responsive pedagogy and mobile technology with a variety of affordances has refocused attention on students’ direct embodied experience. P-responsive pedagogy combined with mobile technologies provides numerous opportunities for investigating, across contexts, everyday socio-economical environmental problems inherent to a particular location. Forming an evidence-based decision on socio-economical environmental real-life problems requires a more in depth understanding of natural processes than just making use of everyday knowledge that is based on perceptions and direct observations. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the secondary education students’ (a) awareness and understanding about a timely socio-environmental challenge, (b) development of the scientific vocabulary, (c) scaffolding needs during the mobile outdoor collaborative inquiry-based learning event. To fulfill the aims, action research with an experimental technology-enhanced collaborative inquiry learning design was created to investigate students’ knowledge gain and scaffolding needs. Three interventions with a total of 68 secondary education students (age 14–15) were conducted. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. The results demonstrate the change in students’ opinions about the complex socio-economical environmental challenge and transformation from everyday concepts to more scientific knowledge, and their need for conceptual and procedural scaffolding. This paper adds new insights on how to utilize non-gamified use of mobile technology to empower secondary students’ scientific literacy and understanding in authentic settings.

Collaborative learning with block-based programming: investigating human-centered artificial intelligence in education

ABSTRACT In this article, we investigate human-centered artificial intelligence (HCAI) in an educational context where pupils used block-based programming in small groups to solve tasks given by the teacher. We used a design-based research approach in which we, together with the teachers, created a maker space for explorative science learning and organised teaching interventions wherein the pupils met online three hours a week for 16 weeks for an entire school year. Due to COVID-19, data were collected through Zoom, with collaborative learning situations captured through screen sharing and online communication using webcams. We employed three data analysis techniques: interaction analysis, visual artifact analysis, and thematic analysis. We developed an analytical framework for integration using thematic coding that combined concepts from computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) and domain-oriented design environments. We report the following findings: 1) Three types of rules between design units were identified with visual artifact analysis: latent, generic, and domain-specific rules; 2) two types of CSCL artifacts (technology and discussions) were intertwined and developed in parallel, along with a computer-based scaffolding scenario that offloads domain-specific scaffolding from humans to computers.

A synergistic framework for curricular flexibility in online collaborative learning

Collaborative learning can be a worthwhile and valuable part of a student’s online course experience, and interpersonal exchanges among members of an online course community often rely on greater intentionality within the design of the learning experience. We present a synergistic framework for strategic design of collaborative learning in the online environment, grounded in universal design for learning and facilitated through supportive technologies. The framework takes into account distance education student variability in regard to their learning, communication, abilities, and interests and incorporates curricular flexibility to mitigate barriers. Exploring relationships among key features of collaborative learning in the online environment, this conceptual article illustrates the framework through examples, strategies, and tools for two common online course activity areas—online discussions and peer teaching.

Understanding student teachers’ collaborative problem solving: Insights from an epistemic network analysis (ENA)

Collaborative problem solving, as a key competency in the 21st century, includes both social and cognitive processes with interactive, interdependent, and periodic characteristics, so it is difficult to analyze collaborative problem solving by traditional coding and counting methods. There is a need for a new analysis approach that can capture the temporal and dynamic process of collaborative problem solving in diversity online collaborative learning context to provide some insights into online collaborative learning design. During an eight-week semester, a total of 42 student teachers participated in two online collaborative learning activities. Student teachers' discourse data were collected, and the data were coded based on a collaborative problem solving assessment model. This study used Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) to explore the collaborative problem solving processes of student teachers in different online collaborative learning tasks. The results showed that both the high and low academic performance groups worked to maintain positive communication, but the students in the high academic performance groups negotiated on ideas while the students in the low academic performance groups focused on sharing resources/ideas. Moreover, fine-grained centroid analysis on a weekly basis showed that the high academic performance groups began by maintaining positive communication, and ended by negotiating ideas, while the low academic performance groups began by sharing resources/ideas and ended by regulating problem solving activities. Finally, the implications, limitations, and future research were discussed.

Engagement with Higher Education Surface Pattern Design Students as a Catalyst for Circular Economy Action

The ‘circular economy’ is seen as an approach by which the issue of sustainability can be addressed whilst broadly maintaining patterns of production, consumption, economic growth, and living standards. If circular economy ambitions are to be achieved, ways and processes of manufacturing need to radically change from the current linear model, and there is the potential for higher education students to act as active participants and catalysts, as explored in this research. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the potential for collaborative learning projects to generate value to all stakeholders and participants, with the definition of value pertinent to each participant’s needs whilst also addressing the principles of circular economy. A case study collaborative learning design project is used to illustrate the positive direct and indirect outcomes and to show how such design projects can form part of a wider drive for transition through innovation towards circular economy ways of working. We consider this research to be at the intersection of circular economy advancement and the integration of effective methods of education for the circular economy in higher education. A cohort of 29 undergraduate surface pattern design students was engaged in a challenge-based design project co-created with an established manufacturing firm. This research shows how such projects provide learning not only for students but also the case study firm and give tangible outputs in terms of new value-generative products. Through an examination of the reflective comments of participants, an outline of key aspects to consider in delivering such projects to ensure greatest impact is identified.

A wiki-based framework for collaborative learning design in teacher education

A wiki-based framework for collaborative learning design in teacher education

Development of children STEAM program utilizing collaborative learning art and design

목적 본 연구의 목적은 협력 학습적 미술과 디자인을 활용한 유아 STEAM 프로그램을 개발하는 것에 있다. 방법 프로그램 개발 절차는 계획단계→실행단계→정리단계를 거쳐 진행되었다. 이를 위해 문헌 및 선행연구 고찰을 통해 유아 STEAM 프로그램의 목적과 목표를 설정하기 위한 근거를 마련하였고 2019 개정 누리과정, 유아 발달 수준, 연령 특성 등을 통해 프로그램을 구성하였다. 결과 STEAM 준거틀을 이용한 활동을 제시하였고 창의⋅융합적 문제해결능력 증진, 통합적 표현능력 향상, 배려⋅소통의 친사회적 행동 증진의 목표에 따라 개발하였다. 개발된 협력 학습적 미술과 디자인을 활용한 유아 STEAM 프로그램은 3-5세 연령별로 6종 4차시가 구성되었으며 내용, 교수-학습 방법, 평가로 이루어진다. 결론 본 연구의 유아를 대상으로 하는 협력 학습적 미술과 디자인을 활용한 STEAM 프로그램 개발 연구는 우리사회의 창의융합형 인재 요구에 부응하며 유아의 전인적 발달을 촉진하는 역할을 할 것으로 기대한다.

From on-site to online collaborative learning

ABSTRACT This study aims to determine the impact of switching from on-site to an online education on the collaborative learning experience of third-year students in Hospitality Management. An online survey containing seventeen questions was answered by 90 students. The results show that the students perceive more disadvantages than advantages of the switch from on-site to online education, resulting in 74% qualifying it as a negative experience. Furthermore, overall appreciation was significantly related with impact on study behaviour, like time spent on study, attending classes or asking questions. In order to get a more complete view on how all students perceive and practise online education, further research is recommended on design and delivery of online collaborative learning.

Applying Talent Quality-Management System (TTQS) to Enhance Information Literacy, Learning Motivation, and Computational Thinking Competency of Nursing Undergraduates

In Taiwan, the Ministry of Education started promoting computational thinking (CT) and design skills in the programming curriculum in 2018 at all universities. CT, which has been widely discussed in the field of education, is the ability to solve problems that use computer science concepts. For students in non-information technology fields, such as nursing students, a curriculum that integrates nursing education and information literacy can bolster evidence-based practice, enhance professional development, and encourage lifelong learning. However, the programming courses were difficult for non-information learners to apprehend, given their lack of knowledge in programming, and had a low attrition rate. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a sustainable management system in the learning process. It is also important to support the interest and confidence of the nursing learner in the programming curriculum. In this study, a programming course for nursing students was completed. A talent quality-management system (TTQS) for this programming course was built and implemented. A technology acceptance model and learning attitude questionnaires were administered to investigate learners’ learning motivation and information literacy. Two nursing classes with 74 freshmen participated in the curriculum in the second semester of the 2020 academic year. The results showed that TTQS, which supports teachers in adjusting pedagogy in a timely manner, can enhance learners’ motivation and performance. In this programming course, nursing students can learn CT and information concepts and improve their learning motivation through the design of learner-centred and collaborative learning.

The Online Collaborative Learning Design Webinar: A Case Study of Thai Open University's Graduate Students in a Science Education Programe

In the COVID-19 pandemic situation, online education is an interesting way to enable learning anywhere. Especially in postgraduate instruction, the student's arguments, and shared knowledge and experiences with colleges are important and can be enhanced by collaborative learning activities in certain seminar courses. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using the webinar on Microsoft teams considered from satisfaction towards the webinar and attitude toward MST. The participants were 40 graduate students who enrolled in a seminar in science curriculum and instruction course at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. The research tools were as follows: 1) A satisfaction towards the webinar questionnaire, 2) attitude toward the MST questionnaire, and 3) an interview form. The mean, standard deviation and content analysis were used for data analysis. The results of this study indicated that the vast majority of graduate students had felt satisfaction towards the webinar and attitude toward MST were scored at an overall high level. The results suggested that the collaborative learning on webinars could be an appropriate alternative to be used as supplement for traditional face-to-face learning, particularly when there is a need for locational flexibility.

Exploring the influence of interactive network and collective knowledge construction mode on students’ perceived collective agency

Collective agency has been investigated in many empirical studies on collaborative learning. However, there is limited research investigating how participants develop collective agency via online collaborative learning, and the correlation between group interaction mode and collective agency. This mixed methods study investigates a class of 40 third-year college students' online learning underlying a multiple-agent interaction design where collective cognition and collective agency are prominent design features. Process and perception data were collected from multiple sources, including surveys, log records, content analysis of postings, and semi-structured interviews. The results of the study indicated the effectiveness of the multiple-agent interaction design, by analyzing students' collective agency and the collective knowledge construction via social network analysis and content analysis. The findings drawn from linear regression analysis further suggested that interactive network patterns within a group were generally not associated with students' perception of collective agency, but the network clustering coefficient was negatively associated with students' perception of collective agency. Moreover, inter-group interaction and collective knowledge construction process were generally not associated with students’ perception of collective agency. The study extends the literature on collective agency as it explores overt indicators, such as social network parameters, which may help to reflect the level of collective agency. Results also provide implications for online collaborative learning design and further research on collective agency.