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Exploring Teacher Intervention in the Intersection of Digital Resources, Peer Collaboration, and Instructional Design

2015; Wiley; Volume: 99; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/sce.21181

1098-237X

Torunn Aa. Strømme, Anniken Furberg,

Educational Strategies and Epistemologies

Science EducationVolume 99, Issue 5 p. 837-862 Research ArticleOpen Access Exploring Teacher Intervention in the Intersection of Digital Resources, Peer Collaboration, and Instructional Design TORUNN AA. STRØMME, Corresponding Author TORUNN AA. STRØMME Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo NorwayCorrespondence to: Torunn Aa. Strømme; e-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorANNIKEN FURBERG, ANNIKEN FURBERG Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo NorwaySearch for more papers by this author TORUNN AA. STRØMME, Corresponding Author TORUNN AA. STRØMME Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo NorwayCorrespondence to: Torunn Aa. Strømme; e-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorANNIKEN FURBERG, ANNIKEN FURBERG Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1099, Blindern, 0317 Oslo NorwaySearch for more papers by this author First published: 10 June 2015 https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21181Citations: 23AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat ABSTRACT This paper reports on a case study of the teacher's role as facilitator in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) settings in science. In naturalistic classroom settings, the teacher most often acts as an important resource and provides various forms of guidance during students' learning activities. Few studies, however, have focused on the role of teacher intervention in CSCL settings. By analyzing the interactions between secondary school students and their teacher during a science project, the current study provides insight into the concerns that teachers might encounter when facilitating students' learning processes in these types of settings. The analyses show that one main concern was creating a balance between providing the requested information and supporting students in utilizing each other's knowledge and understanding. Another concern was balancing support on an individual versus group level, and a third concern was directing the students' attention to coexisting conceptual perspectives. Most importantly, however, the analyses show how teacher intervention constitutes the pivotal "glue" that aids students in linking and using coexisting aspects of support such as peer collaboration, digital tools, and instructional design. INTRODUCTION The aim of the current study is to provide insight into teachers' concerns when facilitating students' learning processes in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) settings. Numerous digital learning environments and resources have been developed with the aim of introducing students to scientific concepts (Linn & Eylon, 2011; Quintana et al., 2004). In keeping with this accelerating development, many science classrooms have begun using digital learning resources. Often these digital resources are used in educational settings where students solve open-ended tasks in collaboration with peers and with a teacher who actively guides and participates in the students' development of conceptual understanding. Several studies have provided valuable knowledge about how to support students' learning processes through use of digital tools (Rutten, van Joolingen, & van der Veen, 2012; Smetana & Bell, 2012), peer collaboration (Howe, Duchak-Tanner, & Tolmie, 2000; Mercer, 2004), and various instructional designs (Linn & Eylon, 2011; Scardemalia & Bereiter, 2006). In most of this research, the analysis focuses on the impact of one or two forms of support. In naturalistic classroom settings, however, various forms of support are present at the same time, which implies that students' learning processes take place at the intersection of different and often coexisting forms of intended support. In addition, in settings where students engage in computer-supported activities, the teacher most often acts as an important resource, providing different forms of guidance during the students' learning activities. Although there seems to be general agreement that teacher support is crucial in computer-supported learning settings, few studies have analytically scrutinized its specific role, especially in CSCL settings (Greiffenhagen, 2012; Urhahne, Schanze, Bell, Mansfield, & Holmes, 2010; Webb et al., 2009). The current study adds to this body of research by focusing on teacher interventions that support students' development of conceptual understanding in interactions that take place at the intersection of digital resources, peer collaboration, and applied instructional design. To demonstrate the complexity of facilitating students' development of conceptual understanding in these types of settings, we have performed detailed analyses of student and teacher interactions during a student project. In this case study, upper secondary school students designed virtual models of carbon dioxide (CO2) friendly houses based on scientific theories about energy supply and heat loss from low-energy buildings. Our analysis focuses on conceptually oriented talk (Furberg, Kluge, & Ludvigsen, 2013), sequences in which the students' and/or teacher's attention is directed to making sense of conceptual issues or, in this case, their talk about heat transfer. Our analytical focus is guided by our interest in exploring the concerns encountered by teachers in settings where students' development of conceptual understanding takes place at the intersection of digital resources, peer collaboration, and instructional design. We analyze student–teacher interactions using van de Sande and Greeno's (2012) conceptualization of "perspectival framing." This perspective enables a combined focus on the participants' social organization during their interaction and how they make sense of conceptual issues. Research on Support of Students' Conceptual Understanding Several researchers have pointed out that few studies focus on the role and significance of teacher intervention in CSCL settings (cf. Greiffenhagen, 2012; Urhahne et al., 2010; Webb et al., 2009). Based on analyses of teacher–student interactions in a naturalistic CSCL setting, Greifenhagen (2012) explored teachers' focus in interactions with students during group-work activities. The study reported that teacher interventions targeting conceptually oriented issues, also known as "pedagogical aspects," are intertwined with teacher interventions targeting classroom management issues. Other studies have focused on the effects of teacher intervention in CSCL settings, and these studies have shown positive effects on students' conceptual understanding when the teacher provides indirect intervention, for instance by prompting questions or encouraging students to retrieve science-based information instead of providing descriptive explanations or prompting fact-based student responses (Hakkarainen, Lipponen, & Järvelä, 2002). Furthermore, a study on students' help-seeking behavior in CSCL settings showed that students sought less help but showed higher learning gains when the teacher provided consolidation instructions in the form of introductions to new tasks, evaluations, and discussions of results in plenary sessions (Mäkitalo-Siegl, Kohnle, & Fischer, 2011). Our review of studies that have focused on aspects of support other than teacher intervention showed that the studies emphasized one or more of the following aspects: digital resources, peer collaboration, and instructional design. The majority focused on how various digital resources or tools embedded in computer-based inquiry environments could support student learning. Examples of digital resources are dynamic or static visualizations, computer simulations, interactive tasks, collaboration- and argumentation-supporting tools, domain-specific text, etc., designed to represent a scientific phenomenon and/or central scientific concept (Bell, Urhahne, Schanze, & Ploetzner, 2010; de Jong et al., 2012; Linn & Eylon, 2011). Several studies reported positive effects on students' learning as a result of engaging with various types of computer-mediated representations such as simulations (Rutten et al., 2012; Smetana & Bell, 2012), multiple representations (Ainsworth, 2006), and virtual labs (Baltzis & Koukias, 2009; Kozma, 2003; Zacharia, 2007). In these studies, student learning was primarily measured using pre- and posttests. Despite the consensus on the positive effects of digital support tools on student learning, some studies have also reported challenging findings. For instance, students often have difficulty seeing relationships between different representations of the same phenomenon (van der Meij & de Jong, 2006) or tend to focus on the surface features instead of the underlying scientific principles (Ainsworth, 2006). Other studies have focused on the influence of peer collaboration in computer-supported settings. Research based on various learning perspectives has emphasized the advantages of peer collaboration in enhancing student learning (Howe et al., 2000; Linn & Eylon, 2011; Mercer, 2004; Scardemalia & Bereiter, 2006; Stahl, 2006). For instance, several studies have found that peer collaboration helps students develop scientific argumentation skills (Linn & Eylon, 2011; Littleton & Howe, 2010), conceptual understanding (Bell et al., 2007; Howe et al., 2007; Linn & Eylon, 2011), inquiry learning skills (van Joolingen, de Jong, & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007), and productive disciplinary engagement (Clark & Sampson, 2007; Engle & Conant, 2002). However, studies have also revealed challenging aspects of peer collaboration. Student talk and collaboration must be cultivated over time, and researchers have pointed to the importance of students learning to deal with disagreements and opposing views on scientific explanations or the problem to be solved (Howe et al., 2000; Mercer, 2004). Other studies have focused on the impact of the instructional design on student learning processes. A common feature of design-based research is a focus on computer tools or task interventions whose design is informed by idealized models of productive learning. Various instructional models have been developed based on socioconstructivist theories of learning, such as "knowledge building" (Scardemalia & Bereiter, 2006), "progressive inquiry learning" (Muukkonen, Hakkarainen, & Lakkala, 1999), and "knowledge integration" (Linn & Eylon, 2011). Another instructional design model based on similar ideas is the jigsaw model (Aronson, Bridgeman, & Geffner, 1978; Brown et al., 1993), which was the instructional design used in the current study. By breaking classes into groups and assignments into pieces, the jigsaw model organizes classroom activity to make students dependent on each other to succeed. Several studies have documented positive effects of the jigsaw method on students' learning compared to more traditional teacher-centered and individualized methods (Doymus, Karacop, & Simsek, 2010; Karacop & Doymus, 2013; Tarhan & Sesen, 2012). However, as with all instructional designs, studies have also reported lower or equal academic performance by students under the jigsaw condition compared to more traditional work forms (Hänze & Berger, 2007; Souvignier & Kronenberger, 2007; Zacharia, Xenofontos, & Manoli, 2011). To summarize, although many studies on science learning in computer-based settings have provided valuable knowledge to the field, we nevertheless stress the value of taking a different analytical approach to provide deeper insight into the role of teacher intervention in these types of settings. In most science classrooms where digital tools and learning environments are used, the teacher orchestrates the support aspects of digital resources, peer collaboration, and instructional design to facilitate students' development of conceptual understanding. By taking an ecological perspective that focuses on teacher interventions taking place at the intersection of digital resources, peer collaboration, and an applied instructional design, and by performing detailed analysis of student–teacher interaction over time, this study aims to provide deeper insight into concerns encountered by the teacher in CSCL settings. Approaching the Role of Teacher Intervention From a Sociocultural Perspective Seen from a sociocultural perspective, the teacher holds an important position in students' learning processes (Furberg & Ludvigsen, 2008). First, by virtue of being a scientific expert, the teacher acts as an important conceptual resource for the students. However, the teacher also holds an important position as the facilitator of the learning activities and the instructional design (Squire, MaKinster, Barnett, Luehmann, & Barab, 2003). In addition, the teacher becomes a provider of institutional practices and norms (Mehan, 1991; Mercer, 2004) reflected, for instance, in the assessment criteria, which include expectations regarding how to participate in group work, how to behave in front of a teacher, or how to solve a task appropriately. The relationship between teacher intervention, the tools in use, peers, and instructional design is interdependent: They each influence students' conceptual development in the activity setting. In other words, students' conceptual understanding develops at the intersection of these aspects (Säljö, 2010). From a sociocultural perspective, learning is seen as a dynamic and dialogical meaning-making process between interlocutors (Linell, 2009; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1991). Through their interactions, participants try to interpret and make sense of situations, actions, and scientific concepts. At the same time, the participants make their own interpretations visible and observable to other participants. In this sense, language is seen as the most important tool for making sense of the world, human practices, and ideas and as a tool that mediates thinking and reasoning (Vygotsky, 1986). Talk and discourse are therefore conceived of as a "social mode of thinking" (Mercer, 2004). Meaning is dialogically constituted in specific practices, and meaning-making involves complex interactions among people, resources, and the organization of the setting (Stahl, 2006). An important part of human conduct and learning processes is the use of various material tools (Säljö, 2010). These can be seen as cultural artifacts that store knowledge and social practices developed over generations (Cole, 1996). This interpretation implies that digital learning environments—often containing representations such as graphs, visualization models, or simulations—are developed to display and represent experts' knowledge about objects, processes, or phenomena. Students interact with the knowledge and practices stored within digital learning environments when they utilize these representations in their learning activities (Säljö, 2010). In this sense, digital learning environments, such as the SCY-Lab with its embedded digital tools, can be seen as resources for students' development of conceptual understanding. When engaging with science, students are asked to make sense of diverse concepts. Scientific concepts do not embody fixed or universal meanings but come with historic "meaning potentials" that need to be elaborated on and made relevant to students (Linell, 2009). However, this does not imply that students can come up with just any explanation for a scientific concept. All science domains have cultural contexts that include commonly expressed understandings and ways of talking about conceptions, implying that some ways of representing and talking about scientific concepts are seen as more "correct" or valid than others (Wertsch, 1991). From this perspective, teachers facilitating students' learning processes in computer-supported collaborative settings enforced by various instructional designs must do more than just provide instructional support; they must also orchestrate coexisting support aspects, each with its own affordances and constraints. The aim of the study is to contribute to the conceptualization of the complexity of teacher intervention within computer-supported learning activities. With an analytical focus on teacher interventions at the intersection of digital resources, peer collaboration, and instructional design, we address the following research question: RQ: What concerns does the teacher encounter in student–teacher interactions when facilitating students' development of conceptual understanding in CSCL settings? RESEARCH DESIGN Design of Learning Activities and Resources The data in this paper were produced during an intervention study as part of the Science Created by You (SCY) project. The current study is informed by ideas from design-based research (Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc, 2004). The objective is to examine interaction and learning in a naturalistic setting but, at the same time, to also study the influence of specific design principles. We used a sociocultural design–based approach; the main difference between this approach and a more "traditional" design-based approach is the status of the design principles in the empirical analysis of the activities and/or learning that takes place during the design experiment (Krange & Ludvigsen, 2009). For instance, in Collins and colleagues' (2004) design-based approach, the design principles are used as the basis both when designing a learning environment and when evaluating the effectiveness of the intervention. In contrast, a sociocultural design–based approach implies that design principles are used in designing learning activities; however, the same design principles are not used as an analytical framework when analyzing the activities and interactions taking place during the intervention. This ensures that the concerns of the participants and their actual activities are scrutinized—not only the researchers' intentions and predefined interests. Central to the project was the development of the computer environment, the SCY-Lab, which contains various science-related learning modules (de Jong et al., 2012). In the current empirical setting, students were to learn about energy supply and heat loss, and their main task was to design a virtual model of a CO2 friendly house based information from a variety of resources such as textbooks, Internet-mediated sources, and a heat loss simulation tool embedded in the SCY-Lab. Using the simulation tool, the students calculated the heat loss of the construction materials used in the virtual house model. The concepts of heat loss (J) and heat transfer coefficient (W/m²K) were central in the curriculum design. Heat is central to the school science curriculum and is frequently brought up in public discussions about the use of renewable energy in the construction of buildings and private homes. The participants were 42 upper secondary school students, aged 16–17 years, and two teachers from two general science classes. The two teachers, both in their 10th year of practice, were recruited by the school's principal based on their experience and competence as professional teachers. The project was carried out in 20 school lessons, 45 minutes each, over the course of 2 weeks (see Table 1 for an overview of the project schedule). The design experiment took place at a school situated in Oslo, Norway, as part of the standard instruction schedule. Table 1. Overview of Project Activities Day # Organization Activity Day 1 Plenary session Lecture about energy supply and heat loss from low-energy buildings by visiting expert Basic groups Group task on concept map related to energy supply and heat loss Day 2 Expert groups Group 1: Heat loss and insulation (Jigsaw model) Group 2: Heat pumps Teacher lecture Group 3: New renewable energy in each field Group 4: Solar energy Day 3 Basic groups Peer-group presentations of individual expert fields Day 4 + 5 + 6 Basic groups Design and construction of virtual, CO2-friendly house with the use of heat loss simulation tool Day 7 + 8 Basic groups Preparation for the group presentation Day 9 Plenary session Group presentation The SCY-Lab environment was developed by an international project team consisting of programmers, teacher educators, and educational scientists within the SCY project. The design experiment was planned and executed by our local research group. The overall aim of the design experiment was to create a learning setting where we could explore and analyze students' development of conceptual understanding as they use digital learning resources, combined with an instructional design aimed at probing conceptually oriented peer interaction that also included teacher intervention in the form of group guidance. The instructional design and learning activities were planned in collaboration with the two teachers. During this planning phase, the researchers emphasized the significance of peer interaction in the form of conceptually oriented discussions and group-oriented teacher intervention, but the teachers were not given specific instructions on how to facilitate peer interaction and group-oriented teacher intervention. During the design experiment, the teachers, as professional practitioners, had full responsibility for implementing the instructional design without interference from the observing researchers. Instructional Design, Student Work Forms, and Teacher Intervention The instructional design was informed by the jigsaw model (Aronson et al., 1978; Brown et al., 1993). This model organizes classroom activity in such a way that students within the same group become experts in different fields. Student collaboration is common in the participating school; however, the particular work form of jigsaw-based instruction used in this case was new to the students. Central to the instructional design were the "expert group" sessions during three school lessons at the very beginning of the project. The expert groups, each consisting of three to five students, were given one of four designated "expert fields" to focus on: "heat loss and insulation," "heat pumps," "solar panels and solar thermal collectors," and "new renewable energy." A teacher lectured the expert students in each assigned field. After listening to the teacher, each expert group was asked to produce a one-page written account of the expert topic; the students then reorganized themselves into new groups (termed "basic groups") consisting of one student from each of the four expert groups, and each expert was presented his or her topic of expertise to his or her peers. The goal of the activity was for all students in the groups to gain insight into all expert fields. After the presentations, the groups were asked to design their own virtual, CO2 friendly house models to present to their class at the end of the project. During the project, the teachers circulated among all the student groups. The Heat Loss Simulation Tool in the SCY-Lab A central tool in the SCY-Lab for introducing the students to the concepts of heat transfer coefficient and heat loss was the heat loss simulation tool (see Figure 1), which the students used to calculate how the different construction materials would affect the total heat loss for each house element. Figure 1Open in figure viewerPowerPoint The heat loss simulation tool in SCY-Lab. The heat transfer coefficient and heat loss are complex concepts and can be understood from several perspectives. In this study, the teacher explicitly advocated two different perspectives on heat loss. One perspective is the phenomenon perspective (later referred to as "phenomenon framing"): that is, an understanding of heat referring to the thermal energy transferred from one system with a higher temperature to another system with a lower temperature. The second perspective was the formula perspective (later referred to as "formula framing"), in which calculating the heat requires the capacity to see the relation between this concept and other concepts (i.e., power [W] and energy [J])—concepts that, in themselves, can be seen as complex for students. The formula for calculating heat loss is related to the concept of heat transfer coefficient, which is defined as the rate of heat transfer through a building element per square meter per degree of temperature difference (W/m²K). The engineering notion for the heat transfer coefficient is the U-factor. The concept of U-factor was used in the simulation, and, thus, the students and teachers used the engineering notion when they talked about the heat transfer coefficient. Data and Analytical Procedure Three focus groups of four students each were videotaped during the project. The three groups were selected with the teachers' help, based on the criterion of being verbally active. According to the teachers, the students were average- to high-level achievers in science. Our data consisted of 40 hours of transcribed video recordings of the focus groups' interaction, along with field notes taken during classroom observation that were used to contextualize the data. In this case study, we performed detailed analyses of two students' interactions with their respective peer groups and the teacher. Our analysis focuses on two students, Isabel and Amanda, and how they, together with their peer groups and the teacher, make sense of the concept of heat transfer coefficient. As shown in Figure 2, five interaction excerpts were selected from the two students' interaction trajectories and then analyzed in detail. In accordance with our focus on the role of teacher intervention, we selected excerpts from settings where the teacher engaged with the student groups. Amanda and Isabel participated in the expert group on "heat loss and insulation," and the first analyzed excerpt is from this expert group. In the second part of the analysis, we follow Amanda and Isabel in their two separate basic groups, first in a setting where they present the information and experiences from their expert group session and then in a group-work setting in which the students were to design a virtual house model. Figure 2Open in figure viewerPowerPoint The figure shows the situations from which the excerpts are taken. We focused on the interactions between Amanda, Isabel, and their two respective peer groups for several reasons. These two students and their peers were verbally active students. Furthermore, a conceptual topic in Amanda's and Isabel's expert group sessions—the heat transfer coefficient—appeared several times during their basic group discussions as well as in student–teacher interactions. This ongoing verbalized activity in the two groups made the students' development of conceptual understanding transparent in such a way that we are able to analyze in detail how their understanding of heat transfer coefficient developed in the intersection of teacher intervention, digital resources, peer collaboration, and instructional design. Another reason for focusing on these two students and their peer groups is that the two groups' discussions and work forms differ greatly from one another. Consequently, a dual focus on both Amanda and Isabel and their respective groups enables us to address variations in students' development of conceptual understanding, as well as variations in how the teacher intervened. By analyzing the selected chronological excerpts of the students' interaction trajectory, we are able to show the evolving development of the students' conceptual understanding as well as the opportunities and challenges of teacher intervention in these types of settings. We use the notion of interaction trajectory to refer to the analysis of interactions over time (Furberg & Arnseth, 2009; Ludvigsen, Rasmussen, Krange, Moen, & Middleton, 2011). By exploring students' interaction trajectories, we can investigate the changes that take place in students' sense making of the specific domain content as well as how different support aspects influence their sense-making processes. In addition to detailed examinations of specific interaction excerpts, we used ethnographic information documented in video recordings and field notes as a background resource for describing the educational setting. In the discussion and conclusion, we tie our analytic generalizations back to the larger corpus of data, analysis of the extracts, our theoretical grounding, and the literature review. We used the analytical procedure of interaction analysis, which implies that talk and interaction between interlocutors are analyzed sequentially (Furberg et al., 2013; Jordan & Henderson, 1995). This means that each utterance in a selected sequence is understood and seen in relation to the previous utterance in the ongoing interaction. This practical guideline for analysis supports the idea that analytical descriptions are oriented toward interactional achievements and not what might be taking place in individuals' minds (Linell, 2009). In our analysis of the student–teacher interactions, we also use a set of analytical concepts on "perspectival framing" adopted from van de Sande and Greeno (2012). Here, framing refers to the way in which participants understand the activity in which they are engaged. We specifically focus on two interrelated aspects of