Investigation of the effects of group composition and conference structure on group creativity and induvidual perceptions of transactional distance in university students

PhD ThesisThe main purpose of this study was to investigate online collaborative activities based on the differences of individual students, to enhance creativity in small groups and reduce transactional distance (TD) in an online learning environment. The relationships among gender, thinking styles, individual creative ability and group creativity were also explored. Both experimental and survey data were collected to provide a rich understanding of the related issues. Different grouping and structuring strategies were developed and manipulated in this work. The 3 x 3 factorial quasi-experimental design employed a pretest-posttest comparison group, with two independent variables: thinking styles and conference structure. The dependent variables were group creativity and student perceptions of transactional distance. One hundred and thirty-eight second year students from three intact classes at Southern Taiwan University were selected as the participants for the main study. Four research instruments were used to collect data: the Thinking Styles Inventory (TSI), the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA), the Creative Product Semantic Scale (CPSS), and the individual’s perceptions of transactional distance questionnaire. The findings confirmed that male students tended to prefer the legislative thinking style more than the female ones. There was no significant difference between male and female students in the overall creative ability. However, the male students had significantly higher creative ability with regard to originality. The findings also supported Sternberg’s argument that ability is different from style. In addition, this study found that there was no significant association between the average group member creative ability and the overall group creative performance. As for the test results for the influences of the two proposed factors in terms of group composition and conference structure on group creativity, no significant differences were found for these two factors or their interaction on group creativity. In addition, group composition and conference structure had no significant interaction effect on any dimension of transactional distance, but two main effects were significant. Group composition had a significant effect on the learner autonomy dimension of transactional distance. The level of conference structure had a significant effect on individual perceptions of interaction, conference structure and interface transactional distance. Moreover, in the context of the present study, using synchronous online conferencing, a high degree of TD - interaction was associated with a high degree of TD - conference structure, TD - learner autonomy and TD - interface

Making L2 learners' reasoning skills visible : the potential of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments

AbstractThis paper explores the use of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Environments (CSCLE) as multimodal spaces for promoting critical thinking for English as Second Language Learning (L2) education from multiple perspectives (Technology, Thinking Skills and Interaction). The exploration focuses on the use of a multitouch tabletop, and an accompanying application called Digital Mysteries, as affordances in CSCLE’s for making reasoning skill-based thinking visible for L2 learning in Higher Education.Despite the worldwide promotion of teaching thinking in L2 education, it is not always easy for teachers to identify the types of thinking skills being targeted in L2 pedagogical tasks. To the authors’ knowledge, little empirical interactional evidence is available to demonstrate critical thinking in L2 learner talk during group work. This paper examines interactions among three groups of Chinese English Language learners at a higher education institution in a CSCLE. Video data were collected of students’ thinking-in-action whilst engaging in multimodal interactions in the environment. Results show that new technologies can provide innovative and empirically driven ways in which L2 learners’ thinking is externalised and how critical reasoning can be tracked, promoted, evaluated and self-regulated. The findings suggest that collaborations in a CSCLE can support the completion of tasks embedding high levels of cognitive complexity by L2 learners with effective use of limited cognitive resources. This leads to a number of recommendations about integrating the teaching of critical thinking skills into the L2 classroom using CSCLE technologies

Fostering designers' visual practices through a sociocultural approach

This thesis puts forward a sociocultural approach to the learning of visual practices for designers and suggests communication tools to help educators and students to engage with practice. It is concerned with the question of how designers’ visual practices are developed and fostered. From prior research in this area it was assumed that designers learn through a linguistic visual literacy approach or, at best, through a critique-based process. However, this study found that learning happens through social interactions and dialogues, which enables reflection on visual practices, informing future visual inquiry. It was found, through the provision of communication tools that externalise visual practices, that students develop into active learners, who can take greater control over their learning. Therefore, the presentation of a sociocultural approach explicitly develops knowledge of visual development, but also offers a more effective learning theory upon which to ground visual pedagogy in design. The study employed a qualitative approach and a strategy of design-based research to externalise the underlying attributes and processes of developing and fostering visual practices through the designing, and testing, of teaching-learning artefacts. This strategy led to the employment of two research phases: design experiments with design students and user testing with design educators. A review of the literature relating to a sociocultural approach led to a design framework (a sociocultural approach, shared understanding, reflective articulation, and critical questioning of visual practices) that informed both the designing and testing during both phases of the research. The design framework was adopted to analyse and code the data gained in two stages: descriptive and pattern coding. Through the discourse of the identified patterns, theoretical descriptions of developmental learning attributes and processes of fostering designers’ visual practices were formed. These descriptions were then interpreted and contextualised in design education, to present a sociocultural approach and characteristics (a shared understanding of, constructive reflection on, and critical evaluation of, visual practices), in the process outlining theoretical and practical knowledge of developing and fostering designers’ visual practices. Through the presentation of this knowledge, this study outlines opportunities to develop new directions in design education; moving from a critique-based process guided by design educators fostering individual development, to a general dialogue facilitated in collaboration with the learning community

CAD and creativity at Key Stage 3 : towards a new pedagogy

In recent decades there has been a major shift in the Design and Technology curriculum in secondary schools away from manual techniques and towards digital processes and products. CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing) is not only commonplace it is also embedded into the English National Curriculum. There is much evidence to suggest that this shift of emphasis has not been without problems. The equipment used to design and quickly modify products mirrors the technological advancement in everyday life. This rapid change can be a source of uncertainty especially when one considers that software taught to Year 7 (11-12 years old) students today will often be outdated by the time they finish compulsory secondary education in Year 11 (16 years old). Perhaps more significantly, because of these issues teachers struggle to encourage creativity when teaching CAD/CAM within design and technology education. 3D solid modelling software is particularly difficult to use and be creative with in the early stages of learning the software. Furthermore Design and Technology teachers often struggle to keep up to date with rapidly changing software and frequently lack the confidence to teach it, which, in turn, affects their students' progress. This research investigates the effects of teaching and learning CAD/CAM software and the impact this has on encouraging creativity in the classroom with Key Stage 3 students and their teachers. It suggests we require some rethinking concerning what we want students to know and be able to do and considers an alternative pedagogy which may help students to achieve more creative outcomes when using CAD. The research is undertaken through an intervention study within an action research framework. It outlines new methods and strategies to improve the confidence and creativity of students when using 3D modelling software and addresses the reality of day-to-day teaching pressures

Direct and Constructivist Instructional Design: A Comparison of Efficiency Using Mental Workload and Task Performance

This paper investigates the efficiency of two instructional design conditions: a traditional design based on the direct instruction approach to learning and its extension with a collaborative activity based upon the community of inquiry approach to learning. This activity was built upon a set of textual trigger questions to elicit cognitive abilities and support knowledge formation. A total of 115 students participated in the experiments and a number of third-level computer science classes where divided in two groups. A control group of learners received the former instructional design while an experimental group also received the latter design. Subsequently, learners of each group individually answered a multiple-choice questionnaire, from which a performance measure was extracted for the evaluation of the acquired factual, conceptual and procedural knowledge. Two measures of mental workload were acquired through self-reporting questionnaires: one unidimensional and one multidimensional. These, in conjunction with the performance measure, contributed to the definition of a measure of efficiency. Evidence showed the positive impact of the added collaborative activity on efficiency

Multimedia Development of English Vocabulary Learning in Primary School

In this paper, we describe a prototype of web-based intelligent handwriting education system for autonomous learning of Bengali characters. Bengali language is used by more than 211 million people of India and Bangladesh. Due to the socio-economical limitation, all of the population does not have the chance to go to school. This research project was aimed to develop an intelligent Bengali handwriting education system. As an intelligent tutor, the system can automatically check the handwriting errors, such as stroke production errors, stroke sequence errors, stroke relationship errors and immediately provide a feedback to the students to correct themselves. Our proposed system can be accessed from smartphone or iPhone that allows students to do practice their Bengali handwriting at anytime and anywhere. Bengali is a multi-stroke input characters with extremely long cursive shaped where it has stroke order variability and stroke direction variability. Due to this structural limitation, recognition speed is a crucial issue to apply traditional online handwriting recognition algorithm for Bengali language learning. In this work, we have adopted hierarchical recognition approach to improve the recognition speed that makes our system adaptable for web-based language learning. We applied writing speed free recognition methodology together with hierarchical recognition algorithm. It ensured the learning of all aged population, especially for children and older national. The experimental results showed that our proposed hierarchical recognition algorithm can provide higher accuracy than traditional multi-stroke recognition algorithm with more writing variability

The influence of computer-mediated feedback on collaboration

Collaboration is a crucial behavior of humans. People work together in a variety of contexts. For example, they wish to discuss and solve problems, to exchange knowledge or to be creative. However, group work is not necessarily successful when groups are left to themselves. The present thesis aims at improving collaborative work by means of technology. One technological solution to support small groups in being more effective is the use of group mirrors. These are systems that provide feedback to a group about specific aspects of their collaborative activities. An exemplary scenario is a small group that convenes a meeting to collect ideas on a certain topic. In one well-known realization of a group mirror, the speaking time of each group member is captured and displayed on a peripheral wall display, leading to an increased awareness of varying participation rates. Previous research on group mirror systems mainly focused on providing quantitative feedback such as speaking times or speaking turns. This thesis focuses on the various ways of giving qualitative feedback during co-located group work. In order to cover the wide spectrum of possible collaboration setups but still stay focused, two representative tasks are evaluated in detail, which stand for extreme positions of the whole range of applications: collaborative creativity, a more open-ended task, and collaborative argumentation, a more structured task. The contribution of this dissertation is twofold. Firstly, a design space for group mirrors is defined on a rather abstract and general level, and existing group mirrors are classified according to this design space. Secondly, for the two specific tasks, several aspects of this design space are systematically evaluated in studies using different prototypes, leading to suggestions for the design of group mirrors. To evaluate the feasibility of group mirrors for collaborative creativity, we implemented four different prototypes that support brainstorming and the Disney Method, a creativity technique that makes use of different roles (i.e., dreamer, realist and critic). We used the amount of ideas as qualitative feedback that we showed to the group. To investigate the influence of different aspects of group mirrors on collaboration, we compared several display environments in form of visualizations on table or wall and public or private display settings. Finally, we addressed the problem of the competitive nature of existing group mirrors that can lead to frustration and social pressure by proposing more cooperative concepts. Compared to collaborative creativity, argumentative debates represent a more structured task. An essential rule is to observe a particular structure of arguments. To support novices in learning how to use this structure, we built two prototypes. One system is composed of cylindrical light objects that facilitate peer feedback. We compared two versions of the light cylinders in a study in which the feedback providers either are anonymous or identifiable. A second system runs on smartphones and tablets and supports traditional debates as practiced in debate clubs by enabling a feedback loop between a jury member and the speaker. All prototypes presented in the current thesis are classified according to the design space. A synthesis of the results is presented and suggestions for adequate support in various usage scenarios are derived. With this, we provide insights into the various effects of group mirrors on collaboration and intend to offer guidance for the design of technologically mediated feedback.Die Zusammenarbeit in Gruppen ist ein essenzielles menschliches Verhalten. Menschen diskutieren und lösen Probleme miteinander, tauschen untereinander Wissen aus oder sind gemeinsam kreativ. Gruppen arbeiten allerdings nicht unbedingt erfolgreich zusammen, wenn sie auf sich selbst gestellt sind. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, technologische Möglichkeiten vorzustellen, die die Zusammenarbeit innerhalb von Gruppen fördern können. Eine dieser Möglichkeiten kleinere Gruppen darin zu unterstützen effektiver zusammenzuarbeiten, sind sogenannte Group Mirrors. Das sind Systeme, die Feedback über das Verhalten in der Gruppe geben. Ein Szenario könnte sein, dass sich Personen treffen, um Ideen zu einem bestimmten Thema zu sammeln. Ein bekanntes Beispiel eines Group Mirrors zeigt auf einem peripheren Bildschirm an, wie viel jede Person gesprochen hat, was dazu führt, dass die Gruppenmitglieder diesem Aspekt mehr Aufmerksamkeit schenken. Vorherige wissenschaftliche Arbeiten zu Group Mirror-Systemen verwendeten meist quantitatives Feedback, wie zum Beispiel die Anzeige von Redezeiten oder die Reihenfolge der Sprecher. Die hier vorgestellte Arbeit beschäftigt sich nun mit den verschiedenen Möglichkeiten, einer Gruppe qualitatives Feedback zu geben. Um ein möglichst großes Spektrum der vielen möglichen Arten von kommunikativen Gruppenprozessen zu erfassen, wurden zwei repräsentative Aufgaben gewählt, die zwei extreme Positionen abdecken, und zwar Kreativitätstechniken, die ein eher unbestimmtes Ergebnis haben, und Argumentationen, die einen strukturierteren Ansatz verfolgen. Dies soll im Wesentlichen durch zwei Beiträge erzielt werden. Zum einen wird ein eher abstrakter Design Space für die Gestaltung von Group Mirror-Systemen vorgestellt und bestehende Group Mirror-Systeme werden in diesen eingeordnet. Zum anderen werden verschiedene Aspekte dieses Design Space anhand der beiden zuvor vorgestellten Aufgaben systematisch evaluiert. Dazu wurden verschiedene Prototypen entwickelt, in Studien untersucht und Schlussfolgerungen für das Design von Group Mirror-Systemen abgeleitet. Um die Eignung von Group Mirror-Systemen zur Unterstützung von kreativem Arbeiten in der Gruppe zu analysieren, entwickelten wir vier Prototypen, zwei davon für die Kreativitätstechnik Brainstorming und zwei für die Disney Methode, die auf der Verwendung verschiedener Rollen (Träumer, Realist und Kritiker) aufbaut. Qualitatives Feedback wurde der Gruppe dabei in Form der Anzahl der generierten Ideen gegeben. Um den Einfluss verschiedener Aspekte von Group Mirror-Systemen auf die Gruppenarbeit zu untersuchen, verglichen wir mehrere Display-Umgebungen miteinander. Insbesondere wurden Visualisierungen auf horizontalen oder vertikalen Oberflächen sowie der Einfluss von öffentlichen und privaten Display-Umgebungen untersucht. Zudem betrachteten wir das Problem, dass viele Group Mirror-Systeme einen eher kompetitiven Charakter haben, der zu Frustration und sozialem Druck führen kann. Daher entwickelten wir kooperative Konzepte und verglichen diese mit den traditionellen, eher kompetitiven Ansätzen. In Bezug auf Kreativität haben argumentative Debatten eher eine strukturiertere Aufgabe. Eine der grundlegenden Regeln ist es, Argumente einer bestimmten Struktur nach aufzubauen. Wir entwickelten zwei Prototypen, die dazu beitragen sollen, dass Anfänger diese Struktur verinnerlichen. In einem Ansatz werden Lichtzylinder verwendet, die den Gruppenmitgliedern ermöglichen sich gegenseitig Feedback zu geben. In einer Studie verglichen wir zwei Versuchsanordnungen, eine, in der derjenige, der das Feedback gibt, anonym bleibt und eine, in der diese Person identifizierbar ist. Ein weiteres System wurde umgesetzt, um traditionelle Debatten, wie sie in Debattierclubs praktiziert werden, zu unterstützen. Dabei wird eine Feedbackschleife zwischen der Jury und dem Sprecher ermöglicht, die dazu ein Smartphone und ein Tablet verwenden. Alle genannten Prototypen werden schließlich in den Design Space eingeordnet und eine Synthese der vorgestellten Ergebnisse wird präsentiert. Vorschläge dafür, wie verschiedene Anwendungsszenarien unterstützt werden können, werden unterbreitet. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, damit Anhaltspunkte für die Gestaltung von technologisch vermitteltem Feedback zu geben

Exploring how newly qualified teachers accommodate learners with neurodevelopmental disorders in mainstream classrooms

Abstract : Inclusive education calls for high levels of learning and equal participation of learners’ diverse classrooms. Learners with neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, communication disorder, intellectual disorder, motor disorder and specific learning disorders present teachers with numerous challenges in the mainstream. These teaching difficulties could be challenging for newly qualified teacher who is still struggling to cope with their first year in the profession and then are required to support these learning deficits applying the knowledge derived from their teacher training programmes. This study explored how newly qualified teachers accommodate learners with neuro-developmental disorders in mainstream classrooms. In this generic qualitative study, ten newly qualified teachers were interviewed from different mainstream high schools. Critical incident reports were used to note support strategies used for major incidents of learners with NDD in the absence of the researcher...M.Ed. (Inclusive Education