Dirkx, J.M. & Smith, R.O. (2004) p132-159
Thinking out of a bowl of spaghetti: Learning to
Learn in online collaborative groups
Chapter 6 in Roberts, T.S. Online collaborative
learning: theory and Practice
Students need orientation in
how to do collaborative learning, and the value of it, and how to do it online.
Cooperative v collaborative
learning
Coop, p137 – ‘learning is
regarded as an individual effort that is facilitated by participation in the
group’
Collaborative, p 137 ‘In
collaborative learning, students call into question, through self-reflective
& self critique, assumptions, values, beliefs, symbols and rules of conduct
that characterise their existing way of meaning making’ teachers de-authorize themselves p142 ‘
group members are encouraged to assume responsibility for their own structure
and direction’
Methods
Case study approach
26 students assigned to small groups. Well defined
task. Allowed to meet f-f only one
group did so. Orientation for 2
weeks, group work for 16 weeks.
Experienced tutor available.
Source of data.
Interviews, student journals, discussion and chat transcripts.
Findings
‘the students in our case described powerful emotional
responses to what was occurruing with their small groups’
p144
two orientations to authrority emerge, one remains with the
tutor the other to the group
p145
‘the gradual development of interdependence and
intersubjectivity requires the cultivation of a culture of intimacy within the
group. Intimacy involves an ability to open oneself up to another, as well as
being receptive to otherness’
p148
quote from a student about feeling that you are meeting all
the time ‘ you are never not meeting with your group. You turn on the computer
and the group is there. In the form of email messages and postings to the
discussion board’
Conclusions about CSCL
Subjectivity and intersubjectivity p151 ‘ need for group
members to reconstruct a sense of identity that is grounded in the
intersubjective realities of their group contexts’
Associated emotional dynamics
Have to reach concensus and this is not always easy
P155 ‘ Implementation of collaborative learning ….., will
not be successful unless the broader contextual and systematic issues are also
attended to’
p155 there is 'a psychological resistance to the need to move from a subjective to a more intersubjective form of identity'
