Can children create mind maps as planning tools for writing?

This thesis reports an investigation into primary-aged children's ability to learn how to construct mind maps and use these as a tool to support thinking and planning for written tasks. Little research has investigated the kinds of mind map produced by 7-11 year old children, or the impact on an associated written task. It is argued therefore that a closer examination of these claims might shed light on how children learn and use such representations. An initial exploratory study investigated the ability of children to create mind maps and use them as planning tools for narrative writing. Following this, five experimental studies were conducted exploring how to enhance children's construction and use of mind maps. Two studies were concerned with supporting the construction process independent of a written task and three further studies investigated mind map plans linked to expository writing tasks. Strategies that improved children's mind map construction were found to be the use of templates, a staged inductive procedure or collaboration using computer software. No overall improvement in children's writing was found when mind maps were used as planning tools, but better structured mind maps were correlated with better written texts. A close examination of items present on mind map plans and included in written tasks revealed that there was more transfer of items from mind maps to texts of better quality. Findings suggest that children can learn and engage with this kind of representation successfully, however the task environment is particularly influential on the types of mind map produced. It is suggested that representations such as mind maps can be usefully introduced into the primary curriculum as an effective planning tool. Mind maps also create a visible record of planning that can provide an opportunity for focused teacher intervention

Sustaining collaborative knowledge building: continuity in virtual math teams

When virtual teams engage in knowledge building—the creation and improvement of knowledge artifacts, they can face significant challenges related to overcoming discontinuities, such as integrating the activities of multiple participants, coordinating sessions over time, and monitoring how ideas and contributions evolve. Paradoxically, these gaps emerge from the very factors that make collaborative knowledge building promising: diversity of actors, activities, and ideas engaged over time.This dissertation investigated how Virtual Math Teams (VMT) who participated in the Math Forum online community “bridged” the discontinuities emerging from their multiple episodes of collaboration over time and the related changes in participation, and explored the role that such “bridging activity” played in the teams’ knowledge building. Through Ethnomethodology-oriented interaction analysis of episodes of collaboration selected from 38 naturally-occurring, online sessions within two VMT “Spring Fests,” the following findings emerged: (a) Bridging Methods: 4 practices were central to how VMT teams sustained knowledge building: Reporting, Collective Re-membering, Projecting, and Cross-team Bridging. These practices intertwined 3 key interactional elements: Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts. (b) Temporality: VMT teams actively constituted temporal sequences of interaction as resources to organize their collective knowledge building over time. (c) Knowledge Artifacts. Each bridging method involved the co-construction of a bridging artifact interlinking group knowledge-building activity across different episodes or collectivities. (d) Positioning: VMT teams purposely placed individual and collective participants, their history of interaction, and relevant knowledge resources relative to each other in a situated field of interaction. (e) Continuity. The interactional relationships among Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts established through bridging were critical to establishing diachronic continuity of knowledge building for an individual team as well as the expansive continuity of a larger collective of multiple virtual teams.These findings offer a framework for understanding how online collectivities sustain knowledge building over time. This study does not represent a complete and general scheme of bridging mechanisms; however, it highlights the frequently overlooked role of constructed temporality within the situated knowledge field that VMT teams developed over time and the dialectical integration of temporality with the organization of participation and the development of knowledge artifacts.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 200

Fostering argumentation-based computer-supported collaborative learning in higher education

cum laude graduation (with distinction). In collaborative settings, students of all ages need to learn to clearly explain their informed opinions and give reasons for the way in which they carry out tasks and solve problems. Engaging students in collaborative discussion and argumentation is an educational approach for preparing them to manage today’s complex issues and actively participate in knowledge societies. Despite the fact that argumentation is shaped in social conversation and also in learners’ online exchanges in daily life, learners in academic settings need to be taught to reason and argue in a way that is beneficial for knowledge sharing, domain-specific learning, and knowledge construction. Online support systems for collaboration or Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments in which learners argue in teams have been found to support the sharing, constructing, and representing of arguments with the aim of learning. This type of learning arrangement is called Argumentation-Based Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ABCSCL) and it is seen as a promising environment in which to facilitate collaborative argumentation and learning

Can children create mind maps as planning tools for writing?

This thesis reports an investigation into primary-aged children's ability to learn how to construct mind maps and use these as a tool to support thinking and planning for written tasks. Little research has investigated the kinds of mind map produced by 7-11 year old children, or the impact on an associated written task. It is argued therefore that a closer examination of these claims might shed light on how children learn and use such representations. An initial exploratory study investigated the ability of children to create mind maps and use them as planning tools for narrative writing. Following this, five experimental studies were conducted exploring how to enhance children's construction and use of mind maps. Two studies were concerned with supporting the construction process independent of a written task and three further studies investigated mind map plans linked to expository writing tasks. Strategies that improved children's mind map construction were found to be the use of templates, a staged inductive procedure or collaboration using computer software. No overall improvement in children's writing was found when mind maps were used as planning tools, but better structured mind maps were correlated with better written texts. A close examination of items present on mind map plans and included in written tasks revealed that there was more transfer of items from mind maps to texts of better quality. Findings suggest that children can learn and engage with this kind of representation successfully, however the task environment is particularly influential on the types of mind map produced. It is suggested that representations such as mind maps can be usefully introduced into the primary curriculum as an effective planning tool. Mind maps also create a visible record of planning that can provide an opportunity for focused teacher intervention

Sustaining collaborative knowledge building: continuity in virtual math teams

When virtual teams engage in knowledge building—the creation and improvement of knowledge artifacts, they can face significant challenges related to overcoming discontinuities, such as integrating the activities of multiple participants, coordinating sessions over time, and monitoring how ideas and contributions evolve. Paradoxically, these gaps emerge from the very factors that make collaborative knowledge building promising: diversity of actors, activities, and ideas engaged over time.This dissertation investigated how Virtual Math Teams (VMT) who participated in the Math Forum online community “bridged” the discontinuities emerging from their multiple episodes of collaboration over time and the related changes in participation, and explored the role that such “bridging activity” played in the teams’ knowledge building. Through Ethnomethodology-oriented interaction analysis of episodes of collaboration selected from 38 naturally-occurring, online sessions within two VMT “Spring Fests,” the following findings emerged: (a) Bridging Methods: 4 practices were central to how VMT teams sustained knowledge building: Reporting, Collective Re-membering, Projecting, and Cross-team Bridging. These practices intertwined 3 key interactional elements: Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts. (b) Temporality: VMT teams actively constituted temporal sequences of interaction as resources to organize their collective knowledge building over time. (c) Knowledge Artifacts. Each bridging method involved the co-construction of a bridging artifact interlinking group knowledge-building activity across different episodes or collectivities. (d) Positioning: VMT teams purposely placed individual and collective participants, their history of interaction, and relevant knowledge resources relative to each other in a situated field of interaction. (e) Continuity. The interactional relationships among Temporality, Participation, and Knowledge Artifacts established through bridging were critical to establishing diachronic continuity of knowledge building for an individual team as well as the expansive continuity of a larger collective of multiple virtual teams.These findings offer a framework for understanding how online collectivities sustain knowledge building over time. This study does not represent a complete and general scheme of bridging mechanisms; however, it highlights the frequently overlooked role of constructed temporality within the situated knowledge field that VMT teams developed over time and the dialectical integration of temporality with the organization of participation and the development of knowledge artifacts.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 200