Browsing by Subject "collaborative learning"
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(2023)Tiivistelmä - Referat – Abstract Objectives. The aim of this thesis was to describe, analyze, and interpret how a collaborative virtual reality learning environment (VRLE) can provide opportunities to learn and practice work skills that promote student motivation and agency to learn. The research questions concerned how students perceived their agency and autonomy in different learning environments and how this affected their motivation, as well as the cognitive potential of the VR learning environment and how it promoted agency in learning. The study applied the Cognitive Affordances of Technologies Scale, CATS (Dabbagh, Conrad & Dass, 2010), designed to examine the cognitive potential of technology-supported learning environments (TSLEs) with a focus on the strengths and weaknesses of learning technologies in relation to the affordances in the environment. CATS was developed with the aim to help in improving the cognitive design of TSLEs to support purposeful and meaningful learner activities and learning interactions. Methods. The study involved 14 students participating in a forest machine course at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. The students studied both in the VR learning environment and in the traditional learning environment. A mixed-method ethnographic case study approach (Torres Colón, 2020) was used to combine rich qualitative data from on-site observations, interviews, and video observations to complement quantitative data. The aim was to provide a better understanding of the research problems than using either approach alone. In this study, the approach was a pragmatic combination of methods (Seppänen-Järvelä, Åkerblad & Haapakoski, 2019), using all the methods that best enabled the research questions to be answered (triangulation). Results and conclusions. The main results showed that students generally rated their autonomy higher in VR groups than in physical groups, learning in a VR learning environment was meaningful and had a positive impact on students' motivation, and learning opportunities supported students' autonomy through meaningful teacher-student interaction and promoted student agency. A collaborative virtual learning environment, where teachers warmly regulate emotions through meaningful classroom interaction, can provide opportunities for learning and practicing work skills, thus promoting student motivation and agency. The VR environment was shown to provide opportunities for students to explore subjects that are interesting and meaningful to them, increasing students' intrinsic motivation. The teacher's role in supporting students' autonomy and agency is important, as students should be encouraged and guided to use the affordances of the VR environment. Teachers need to monitor, evaluate, and adapt different teaching methods to take advantage of the opportunities offered by technology. In the future, this may help teachers in post-secondary education and skills training and immersive virtual reality (VR) designers to further develop technology to enhance learning in VR.
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(2019)Objective of the study. Previous studies have concluded that applying collaborative learning methods in university courses, such as a small group work, enhances profound understanding of a learning issue and students’ thinking processes. In a group, students bring up new ideas and process, justify them from different perspectives, evaluate explanations and try to form a shared understanding of the theme to be studied. Questions have been found to be effective for improving students’ deep and collaborative knowledge elaboration, but the interrelationship between these two has not been investigated extensively, thus, only in the context of medical education. The objective of this study was to analyse how questions are used in a small group discussion for enhancing undergraduate students’ collaborative elaboration of knowledge in the context of biosciences. Methods. In this study, the video data collected from a small group discussion in a field course in biology were analysed. The focus of the analysis were the utterances in the group discussion of eight first-year bioscience students and their teacher. The aim of the group work and the discussion was to find out the students’ prior knowledge and elaborate ideas for defining a research problem. Theory-based content analysis was used to classify different question types and the quality of elaboration in answers that the students expressed. Finally, different question types were compared in relation to the quality of subsequent answers. Results and conclusions. In line with previous studies, the students elicited factual and declarative questions checking prior knowledge and the accuracy of their ideas. The teacher presented explanative and meaningful questions when asking the students to interpret and meta questions when encouraging other students to join a discussion. The students rarely elaborated and explained learning issues collaboratively. When answering, the students accepted different ideas without explaining or elaborating them further. When the teacher was involved in a discussion, the teacher explained and clarified issues on behalf of the students. The results emphasised the interpretation that students are used to express simple questions that do not challenge their thinking but that teachers can use explanative and meaningful questions to support students to elaborate their ideas thoroughly. The results show that applying collaborative learning methods requires that students are taught to ask meaningful questions and that pedagogical programs aiming at learning question strategies enhancing collaborative learning are developed and made available for teachers.
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(2020)The purpose of this study was to describe what an invention project is like in a class of students with special needs. Special attention was paid to the division of labor and how the support of teachers and other group members appears during the project and how students participate in the project. In addition to this, the study wanted to find out how socio-emotional challenges show up during the invention process. The subject group was a 7th-grade special education class where six out of eight students participated. The pupils took part in a community-based invention project that combined different subjects and utilized invention pedagogy at the Helsinki Metropolitan Area's primary school. The project is part of the Growing mind research project. The study is an ethnographic case study in nature, in which material was collected by several different methods. The research material used was small group process diaries, group interviews, researcher observation material and e-mails, which teachers used to keep in touch between project sessions, and special classroom teacher interviews. The collected material was analyzed by qualitative content analysis and formed into a narrative. The invention project was, in the opinion of the students and the special class teacher, a project in which they would be happy to participate again. The course of the invention project was different in its linearity compared to the general education classes. Students got more motivated as the project progressed. The division of labor between the groups was done according to interests and some of the students worked more independently during the project. Each of them participated in the project in their own way. The socio-emotional challenges were visible at the beginning of the process, but as the process progressed, all the students overcame their challenges. The invention project groups were guided more than what they usually are in the general education classroom. The members of the small groups gave each other social support during the project. Students were instructed to aim for compromises and all those involved in the groups sought to work together and unity within the groups. The results suggest that an invention project, which includes observable features of nonlinear learning is suitable for a group of students with different interests and students with different levels of technological skills. The importance of this research culminates in the development of pedagogical models that support different learners and their role in a community learning process.
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(2010)This study highlights the formation of an artifact designed to mediate exploratory collaboration. The data for this study was collected during a Finnish adaptation of the thinking together approach. The aim of the approach is to teach pulps how to engage in educationally beneficial form of joint discussion, namely exploratory talk. At the heart of the approach lies a set of conversational ground rules aimed to promote the use of exploratory talk. The theoretical framework of the study is based on a sociocultural perspective on learning. A central argument in the framework is that physical and psychological tools play a crucial role in human action and learning. With the help of tools humans can escape the direct stimulus of the outside world and learn to control ourselves by using tools. During the implementation of the approach, the classroom community negotiates a set of six rules, which this study conceptualizes as an artifact that mediates exploratory collaboration. Prior research done about the thinking together approach has not extensively researched the formation of the rules, which give ample reason to conduct this study. The specific research questions asked were: What kind of negotiation trajectories did the ground rules form during the intervention? What meanings were negotiated for the ground rules during the intervention The methodological framework of the study is based on discourse analysis, which has been specified by adapting the social construction of intertextuality to analyze the meanings negotiated for the created rules. The study has town units of analysis: thematic episode and negotiation trajectory. A thematic episode is a stretch of talk-in-interaction where the participants talk about a certain ground rule or a theme relating to it. A negotiation trajectory is a chronological representation of the negotiation process of a certain ground rule during the intervention and is constructed of thematic episodes. Thematic episodes were analyzed with the adapted intertextuality analysis. A contrastive analysis was done on the trajectories. Lastly, the meanings negotiated for the created rules were compared to the guidelines provided by the approach. The main result of the study is the observation, that the meanings of the created rules were more aligned with the ground rules of cumulative talk, rather than exploratory talk. Although meanings relating also to exploratory talk were negotiated, they clearly were not the dominant form. In addition, the study observed that the trajectories of the rules were non identical. Despite connecting dimensions (symmetry, composition, continuity and explicitness) none of the trajectories shared exactly the same features as the others.
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(2023)Multicultural learning environments are increasing at schools, where the inherent diversity in groups working in collaboration triggers situations of conflict due to students having different worldviews and opinions. While conflicts have traditionally been seen as negative, research shows that when resolved constructively, they have the potential to develop multiple skills and create richer learning experiences. The path to achieving constructive conflicts in a classroom largely depends on the development of the skills needed for conflict resolution in students and conflict management strategies. Nevertheless, although research shows inconsistency in methods and guidelines to achieve constructive conflicts, it is agreed that holistic support from schools is crucial. Therefore, this study aims to explore the strategies implemented by schools to promote constructive conflict resolution among students, as well as the specific approaches used during conflict situations. This study collected data through online qualitative surveys of in-service teachers at international schools worldwide. Participants shared their beliefs and practices regarding conflict resolution through open-ended questions, and responses were analysed using an inductive approach of content analysis to answer the research questions of this study. The results offered a holistic view of the practices in school settings, dividing the findings into two themes depending on the time of implementation: before or during the conflict. On one hand, preparing students for conflict resolution highlighted the development of SEL skills in the classroom through teachers' practices and curriculum approaches. Specifically, the embedding of SEL in the curriculum, collaborative learning methods and conflict resolution training were significant in preparing students for conflict resolution. In addition, prevalent conflict management strategies included collaborative conflict resolution strategies and teachers’ mediation, while inter-disciplinary support with third parties appeared as crucial for teachers. This study concludes that schools must develop methods at every level of school communities, curriculums need to embed SEL, and multi-disciplinary professionals at school are needed. Finally, there is a need to unify teachers’ practices to further develop teacher training on conflict resolution, so students will achieve constructive conflict resolution independently.
Now showing items 1-5 of 5