Paul Kirschner (Director of Research on Lifelong Learning in the Professions, Netherlands Laboratory for Lifelong Learning (NeLLL), Open University of Netherlands explains the social aspects of collaborative learning at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (27/02709)

1. Social Aspects of
Collaborative Learning
Environments
Prof. dr. Paul A. Kirschner
Open Universiteit Nederland
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
Question:
Can we afford CSCL?
1

2. 2

3. Affordances
Affordance???
Possibility for action
• reciprocal relation
• perception-action coupling (you perceive
something and thus you do something)
3

4. 4

5. What is CSCL?
• Learning
• With others (Collaboration)
• Supported by a computer network
PLACE
(Electronic) project
same
Problem-based
rooms
co-located
place
learning
groups
contiguous learning
group
synchronous asynchronous
TIME
co-presence time deferred
asynchronous
distributed learning
group
Video Threaded
conferencing discussion lists
different
distributed
place
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6. Premise 1
Artifacts and our
perception of them
influence our behavior
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7. 7

8. Premise 2
Behavior is determined by:
• Culture
• Material
• Technology
In other words: Behavior is context-
bound
8

9. 9

10. Premise 3
Education is always a combination of
technological, social and
pedagogic/educational affordances
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11. Educational
11

12. authentic
task
group
responsibility
external internal
control control
individual
responsibility
constructed
task
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13. interdependence positive negative none
interaction promotive oppositional none
acceptance, support, rejection, distrust,
affordances none
trust, liking disliking
information exchange,
no or misleading
activities none
mutual influence,
communication
resource utilization
emotional
high low none
involvement
cooperative competitive individualistic
Social
13

14. Presence
Trust
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15. Cohesiveness /
Group forming
Form Storm Norm Perform Adjourn
Belonging
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16. (Tele)proximity
Archetypical Social Affordance
Devices
16

17. Technical
17

18. Elegant?
18

19. Negotiation process
Unshared knowledge
External knowledge
Externalisation
Shared knowledge
Internalisation
Shared formalism
Negotiation Tool
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20. Modern Research
(Theory
+ Hypothesis
based) testing
design
Good Research?
Theory
Hypothesis
+
based
testing
design
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21. How can (distance) learning be optimized by proper usage
of technological, educational and social affordances?
▼
▼
Design (distance) learning
Analyze the combination of
(environments) and tools for
educational, social, and
optimising (the perception of)
technological affordances for
affordances for learning
(distance) learning
▼
Design-based research + Hypothesis testing research
How?
Learner / user What do learners actually do?
experience What do learners want to do?
Support / How can we support what they do?
affordances What affordances are needed?
Constraints / What are the physical, logical and
conventions cultural limitations encountered?
How does the learner perceive the Learner / user
support? perceptions
How does the learner actually use Learner / user
the support? experience
What has the learner / learning
Learning
group actually achieved?
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22. Alone
Formal Personalised
classroom learning
learning arrangements
Fixed / Static Personal / Flexible
Learning
Teleconferencing
communities
Together
Gràcies
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