Learning analytics for academic paths: student evaluations of two dashboards for study planning and monitoring

An in-depth understanding of student experiences and evaluations of learning analytics dashboards (LADs) is needed to develop supportive learning analytics tools. This study investigates how students (N = 140) evaluated two student-facing LADs as a support for academic path-level self-regulated learning (SRL) through the concrete processes of planning and monitoring studies. Aim of the study was to gain new understanding about student perspectives for LAD use on academic path-level context. The study specifically focused on the student evaluations of the dashboard support and challenges, and the differences of student evaluations based on their self-efficacy beliefs and resource management strategies. The findings revealed that students evaluated dashboard use helpful for their study planning and monitoring, while the challenge aspects mostly included further information needs and development ideas. Students with higher self-efficacy evaluated the dashboards as more helpful for study planning than those with lower self-efficacy, and students with lower help seeking skills evaluated the dashboards as more helpful for study monitoring than those with higher help seeking skills. The results indicate that the design of LAD can help students to focus on different aspects of study planning and monitoring and that students with different beliefs and capabilities might benefit from different LAD designs and use practices. The study provides theory-informed approach for investigating LAD use in academic path-level context and extends current understanding of students as users of LADs

Affective and effective collaborative learning:process-oriented design studies in a teacher education context

Abstract This study explores the socio-cognitive and socio-emotional activities of teacher education students in collaborative learning, how the students interpret their activities and how the activities influence collaborative learning. The study consists of two empirical studies, which are reported in four articles. The first study focuses on knowledge co-construction in face-to-face interactions enhanced with cognitive tools and pictorial knowledge representations. The second study explores groups’ monitoring activities in collaborative interaction, along with challenges and socio-emotional conflicts in collaborative learning. The data collection methods include video observations, video-stimulated recall interviews and pre- and post-knowledge tests. The results indicate that collaborative learning is a cognitively and emotionally challenging learning process. The way in which group members share and develop their ideas depends on how actively they monitor their own and each other’s evolving understanding. However, monitoring cognitive activities as a group is only one part of effective and enjoyable learning. Troubled interaction can create a socio-emotionally unbalanced group climate, and can endanger effective collaborative learning unless group members are capable of regulating their emotional experiences and expression of their emotions. Therefore, in addition to effective knowledge co-construction, effective collaborative learning requires that group members proactively monitor their own and each other’s shared learning activities at both cognitive and emotional levels. The findings of this study contribute to the understanding of how individuals learn together as a group. Methodologically, this study provides several process-oriented analysis schemas for analysing socio-cognitive and socio-emotional activities within collaborative learning. Practically, this study offers teachers and educational professionals ideas for the design of collaborative learning environments.Tiivistelmä Väitöstutkimus tarkastelee opettajaksi opiskelevien yhteisöllistä oppimista sosiokognitiivisena ja sosioemotionaalisena vuorovaikutusprosessina. Tutkimuskohteina ovat yhteisöllinen tiedonrakentelu, yhteisöllisen oppimisen haasteet ja ryhmän toiminta sosioemotionaalisessa konfliktitilanteessa. Yhteenvedossa tarkastellaan sitä, mitä yhteisöllisen oppimisen aikana tapahtuu, miten opiskelijat tulkitsevat prosessinaikaisia toimintoja ja miten ne vaikuttavat oppimistilanteeseen. Tutkimus koostuu kahdesta osatutkimuksesta, joiden tulokset on raportoitu neljässä artikkelissa. Väitöstyö on luonteeltaan design-tutkimus, jossa ilmiötä tarkastellaan aidoissa, etukäteen pedagogisesti suunnitelluissa ja tieto- ja viestintäteknologiaa hyödyntävissä oppimistilanteissa. Tutkimusaineisto koostuu videoiduista ryhmätilanteista, opiskelijoiden haastatteluista sekä oppimistesteistä, joilla mitattiin opiskelijoiden sisällöllistä ymmärrystä. Lisäksi sosioemotionaalisen vuorovaikutuksen analyysia syvennettiin menetelmällä, jossa opiskelijoiden haastattelua stimuloitiin videon avulla. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että tiedonrakentelun yhteinen säätely edesauttaa yhteisöllistä oppimista. Tehokas ja mielekäs yhteisöllinen oppiminen edellyttää, että ryhmän jäsenet monitoroivat, kuinka ymmärrys tehtävästä ja sisällöstä kehittyy, kuinka mielenkiinto säilyy ja kuinka ryhmä etenee. Kognitiivisten prosessien ohella opiskelijoiden tulee tarkkailla oppimistaan sosioemotionaalisesta näkökulmasta. Ryhmien on tärkeä arvioida ja säädellä työskentelyään siten, että sosioemotionaalinen ilmapiiri säilyy yhteisölliselle oppimiselle suotuisana. Väitöstutkimuksen tulokset lisäävät teoreettista ymmärrystä yhteisöllisen oppimisen mahdollisuuksista ja haasteista. Tutkimus myös edistää prosessiorientoituneiden tutkimusmenetelmien kehittämistä. Lisäksi tulosten perusteella voidaan kehittää korkeakouluopetusta ja erityisesti opettajankoulutusta. Tutkimukseen suunnitellut oppimisympäristöt tarjoavat konkreettisia ideoita, joilla voidaan tukea yksilöllisiä ja sosiaalisesti jaettuja oppimisprosesseja

Co-construction of knowledge and socioemotional interaction in pre-service teachers’ video-based online collaborative learning

Building on social constructivist theory, this case study analyzed how pre-service secondary teachers co-constructed knowledge and expressed socioemotional interaction in online breakout rooms during a collaborative task. Video data was analyzed by content and interaction analysis. There was more higher-level knowledge construction than in most studies from asynchronous settings. Active listening and humor were thoroughly present. Talk about personal experiences occurred at both lower and higher levels of thinking. The teacher educator's visits to the breakout rooms and purposeful dissonance affected knowledge co-construction and socioemotional interaction. The findings will help in designing high-quality online and blended teacher education.peerReviewe

Student Teachers’ Video-Assisted Collaborative Reflections of Socio-Emotional Experiences During Teaching Practicum

This study explores video as a tool for student teachers in reflecting upon their own teaching practice. The particular interest is in exploring, what kind of socio-emotional experiences did the student teachers describe during the video-assisted collaborative reflection and what benefits student teachers experienced through the video-assisted collaborative reflections? The study implements a video-observation model (Participatory and Empowering Video Analysis- model, PEVA™) developed for a professional teacher education programme and investigates the model from student teachers’ perspective. The participants are student teachers in an international professional teacher education programme (n = 24) at a university of applied sciences. Student teachers video recorded their own teaching sessions displaying their work in different roles: teacher-led content specific instructions, group working sessions and individual student guidance and tutoring sessions. Student teachers were advised to annotate their own videos with a video-reflection tool by focussing on socio-emotional interactions, non-verbal elements of interaction and moments, where students felt successful and empowered. In addition to self-reflection, videos were viewed and annotated by a peer student and a teacher educator. After the phases of reviews and annotations (self-,peer-, and teacher annotations), an hour-long collaborative reflective feedback discussion was held either face-to-face or online. These sessions were facilitated by the teacher educator, involving the videoed student and the reviewing peer. Video annotation data was transcribed, and, in addition, the student teachers’ reflective writings (54 pages) and teacher educators’ notes of the reflective feedback sessions (20 pages) were used as data. The results of this study indicate that student teachers viewed the video reflection process as helpful in making socio-emotional experiences visible and tangible. The video annotation tool was recognised as useful for indicating socio-emotional experiences and making them more concrete thus resources for reflection. A combination of own, peer’s and teachers’ annotations functioned as a collaborative tool for increasing awareness of different socio-emotional experiences. By observing videos of their own teaching as well as teaching videos of their peers, student teachers were able to evaluate teaching situations holistically and observe connections of their own socio-emotional behaviours to their students.peerReviewe

Virtual Reality for Collaborative Learning in Teacher Education

This poster discusses the potential of virtual reality (VR) for collaborative learning. VR can provide engaging, social and creative digital environments for collaborative knowledge construction but its pedagogically meaningful uses and affordances are only just developing. We present the design of a case study where pre-service teachers become acquainted with the pedagogical potential of VR through collaborative exploration and subsequently collaboratively design and reflect on authentic school projects using VR.nonPeerReviewe

“You really brought all your feelings out”:scaffolding students to identify the socio-emotional and socio-cognitive challenges in collaborative learning

Abstract The aim of this study is to explore how students experience and describe socio-cognitive and socio-emotional challenges in collaborative learning. The participants (N = 20) were teacher education students whose collaborative learning was supported with a designed regulation macro script during a six-week mathematics course. The purpose of the script was to provide structured phases during the collaborative learning tasks for the group members to plan, monitor, and evaluate their workings. The video data of groups' face-to-face work was collected and analysed by focusing on the different types of challenges the groups experienced and the types of challenges they described during the scripted interaction. The results indicate that the groups experienced more socio-cognitive challenges than socio-emotional challenges. The script provided them a moment to verbalize their emotional experiences, name the emotions (i.e. frustration), and attribute the challenges and emotions more precisely than during their mathematical task. The intertwining characteristics of socio-cognitive and socio-emotional challenges were observable. Collaborative learning can be challenging for groups, and thus, the knowledge of and the ability to implement practices for becoming aware of challenges can provide a direction for students to progress towards more productive collaboration

Cognitive and socio-emotional interaction in collaborative learning:exploring fluctuations in students’ participation

Abstract Collaborative learning involves fluctuations in how students participate in social interaction and how they engage in interactions that are cognitive (e.g., sharing knowledge, monitoring learning) and more socio-emotional (e.g., encouragement, positive appraisal) in nature. Few studies have investigated how participation in social interaction fluctuates in relation to these varying types of interaction. The aim of this process-oriented study was to explore how actively students participated in cognitive and socio-emotional interactions and what characterized the moments when participation changed during transitions between the types of interaction. The qualitative analysis focused on video-recorded collaborative learning of six groups of student teachers (N = 24). We found that socio-emotional interaction involved more active participation than cognitive interaction. Changes in participation during transitions between types of interaction were characterized by shifts between domain-focused and metacognitive activities. Implications for supporting and studying productive social interaction in collaborative learning are discussed