3 research outputs found
Examining How Middle School Science Teachers Implement a Multimedia-enriched Problem-based Learning Environment
This study examined how a group of ten middle school teachers implemented a technology enriched problem-based learning (PBL) environment. The goal was to understand their motivation, document their implementation techniques, and identify factors that teachers considered important in using technology-based PBL tools in their teaching. The analysis identified four factors that provided the impetus for teachers to consider the adoption of technology-based PBL instruction. These factors are (1) the PBL program addresses the teachers’ curricular needs and implementing it has campus administrative and technical support, (2) the method is aligned with teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, (3) the PBL program offers a new way of teaching and promotes the development of higher-order thinking skills, and (4) the PBL program challenges students in a captivating manner and supports the learning needs of all students. Teachers’ implementation techniques with over 1,000 sixth graders were documented in detail with regard to: 1) the teacher’s roles, 2) the student’s role, and 3) the classroom interactions during the implementation of the PBL program. In addition, a detailed description of contrasting narratives of two pairs of teachers is provided, illustrating the range of implementation techniques that can occur using the same PBL program to allow for individualized instruction to meet different students’ needs. The goal of providing detailed implementation practices is to address the lack of “how to” in PBL implementation in K-12 classrooms as indicated in the literature and offer insights and ideas to those interested in adopting and implementing PBL. Findings are discussed within the theoretical framework and implications are provided
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Students' trust building in a collaborative learning team
textThe purpose of the study was to examine elements which affected students' team trust building in an online collaborative learning team and relationships among these elements. The setting of this study was a graduate-level online course on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) in which all course activities were conducted collaboratively through online communications. Data were collected from multiple sources including interviews which were audio taped, transcripts of students' self-reflective journals, transcripts of messages on the asynchronous web conferencing system, transcripts of messages on the synchronous web conferencing system, and the researcher's reflective journals. Data were analyzed using the coding procedures for developing grounded theory proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998). Results of the data analysis indicated the influences of CSCL course context including the collaborative nature of the course and the heterogeneity of teams on students' team trust building. Results also indicated the dynamics of team trust building. Four different components of team trust building, which were initial team trust, contributors, dimensions, and consequences of team trust, influenced one another. Students’ initial team trust influenced the contributors to team trust which were students' competence, reliability, online communication, and caring. In addition, these contributors influenced the dimensions of team trust such as task performance trust and interpersonal trust. Once students built trust in their teams, they could develop collaborative knowledge building and a sense of community which were the consequences of team trust. The consequences of students’ team trust, in turn, influenced the contributors to team trust. Understanding the construct of team trust may help not only instructors in their design and guidance of successful online collaborative learning teams, but also students in various online collaborative learning teams. In addition, the results of this study may help instructors and researchers to consider carefully the issues in relation to online team trust building.Curriculum and Instructio
Cognitive, social and teaching presence in a virtual world and a text chat
Using a framework of cognitive, social, and teaching presence, the nature of learning experiences in a three-dimensional virtual world environment (Second Life) and a text-chat learning environment without visuals (TeachNet) were investigated. A mixed method of code frequencies, coherence graphs, interviews, and a survey was used. The results revealed that the TeachNet debates included more cognitive presence codes that indicate higher levels of cognitive processing than in SL debates. The teams were significantly different from each other in the collaboration style for developing arguments and in the ways to use utterances associated with cognitive, social, and teaching presences, and the groups' collaboration style became more established with more experience with the tasks. The three critical factors-tool, tasks and group cohesion-that affect cognitive, teaching, and social presence are discussed