Interaction & learning in chat environments: A workshop with data sessions

Workshop paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS 2006, Bloomington, IN. Retrieved July 18, 2007 from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/pub/icls2006chat.pdf.Research groups around the world are using approaches inspired by Conversation Analysis to explore the processes of sense-making peculiar to textual exchanges mediated by chat technology. Such Chat Analysis allows researchers to observe the opportunities for and barriers to collaborative learning created by chat environments with various functionality. This day-long workshop will consist primarily of group data sessions analyzing chat logs, but will also consider theoretical and methodological implications for the study of computer support in the learning sciences

Sustaining group cognition in a math chat environment

Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning (RPTEL), 1(2)Learning takes place over long periods of time that are hard to study directly. Even the learning experience involved in solving a challenging math problem in a collaborative online setting can be spread across hundreds of brief postings during an hour or more. Such long-term interactions are constructed out of posting-level interactions, such as the strategic proposing of a next step. This paper identifies a pattern of exchange of postings that it terms math proposal adjacency pair, and describes its characteristics. Drawing on the methodology of conversation analysis, the paper adapts this approach to investigating mathematical problem-solving communication and to the computer-mediated circumstances of online chat. Math proposals and other interaction methods constitute the collaborative group as a working group, give direction to its problem solving and help to sustain its shared meaning making or group cognition. Groups sustain their online social and intellectual work by building up longer sequences of math proposals, other adjacency pairs and a variety of interaction methods. Experiences of collaboration and products of group cognition emerge over time

Sustaining online collaborative problem solving with math proposals

Paper presented at the International Conference on Computers and Education (ICCE 2005), Singapore, Singapore. Retrieved July 19, 2007 from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/pub/icce2005.pdf and http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/pub/icce2005ppt.pdf.Learning takes place over long periods of time that are hard to study directly. Even the learning experience involved in solving a challenging math problem in a collaborative online setting can be spread across hundreds of utterances during an hour or more. Such long-term interactions are constructed out of utterance-level interactions, such as the strategic proposing of a next step. This paper identifies a pattern of exchange of utterances that it terms math proposal adjacency pair, and describes its characteristics. Drawing on the methodology of conversation analysis, the paper adapts this approach to mathematical problem-solving communication and to the computer-mediated circumstances of online chat. In particular, a failed proposal is contrasted with successful proposals in the log of an actual chat. Math proposal adjacency pairs constitute the collaborative group as a working group, give direction to their problem solving and help to sustain their interaction

Sustaining online collaborative problem solving with math proposals. Paper presented at

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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

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