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This study investigated the effectiveness of using Google Docs in collaborative concept mapping (CCM) by comparing it with a paper-and-pencil approach. A quasi-experimental study was conducted in a physics course. The control group drew concept maps using the paper-and-pencil method and face-to-face discussion, whereas the experimental group employed Google Docs to create concept maps and used Google Chat for discussion. Learning achievements, physics concept representation, attitudes toward science, and attitudes toward CCM were examined to identify the differences between the two groups and the effectiveness of Google Docs. The results suggested that the use of Google Docs did not significantly affect physics achievement. However, Google Docs fostered physics concept representation and enhanced attitudes toward science. Moreover, the Google Docs group tended to learn more collaboratively. The students in this group also agreed with the superiority of observation and modification functions provided by the real-time co-editing mechanism and revision history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an implementation of Connected Spaces (CxS)—an ambient help seeking interface designed and developed for a project‐based computing classroom. We use actor network theory (ANT) to provide an underutilized posthumanist lens to understand the creation of collaborative connections in this Computational Action‐based implementation. Posthumanism offers an emerging and critical extension to sociocultural perspectives on understanding learning, by pushing us to decenter the human, and consider the active roles that human and non‐human entities play in learning environments by actively shaping each other. We analyse how students in this class adjusted their help‐seeking and collaborative habits following the introduction of CxS, a tool designed to foster (more inter‐group) collaboration. ANT proposes generalized symmetry—a principle of considering human, non‐human and more than human entities with equivalent and comparable agency, leading to describing phenomena as networks of actors in different evolving relationships with each other. Analysing collaborative interactions as fostered by CxS using an ANT approach supports design‐based research—an iterative design revision process highlighting understandings about design as well as learning—by providing a temporal and informative lens into the relationship between actors and tools within the environment. Our key findings include a framing of technologies in classrooms as bridging agentic gaps between students and becoming actors engaging in different behaviours; learners enacting new agencies through technologies (for instance a more comfortable non‐intrusive help seeker), and the need for voicing and teachers to connect help networks in CxS equipped classrooms. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Collaborative learning is a valuable skill and practice; opportunities to mentor others are critical in empowering minoritized learners, especially in STEM and computing disciplines.School norms solidify a power and expertise hierarchy between teachers and learners and fail to productively support learners in learning from each other.Additionally, lack of awareness about peers' knowledge is a common hindrance in students knowing who to ask for help and how.What this paper adds An example of a designed interface called Connected Spaces with potential to foster more inter‐student collaboration, especially outside of mandated within‐group collaboration—in the form of cross‐group help seeking and help giving.A design based research study using actor network theory highlighting the limitations of Connected Spaces in sparking notable behaviour change among students by itself but being retooled as a teacher support tool in enabling cross‐group collaborations.Presenting conceptions of collaboration through technologies as bridging agentic gaps and acting with new agencies in performing help‐seeking related actions.Provoking the idea of testing emerging technologies in classrooms along with sharing our analyses and reflections with the classroom as a key idea in computing education—surfacing the gap between designed intentions and the different kinds of extra social work needed in the on‐ground success of different technologies.Implications for practice and/or policy Designers and researchers should create and test more interfaces alongside teachers across different classrooms and contexts aimed at supporting different kinds of voluntary collaborative interactions.Curricula, standards and school practices should further center providing students with opportunities to engage as mentors and build communities of learning across disciplines to empower minoritized students.Researchers engaging in design based research should consider using more posthumanist lenses to examine educational technologies and how they affect change in learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with educational escape rooms. We based the design of the escape room on an educational game design framework that aligns the learning goal and the game goal, that is, escaping from the room. One‐hundred‐and‐twenty‐six students, aged between 16 and 20 played the escape room. Measures for learning were pre‐and post‐tests. The game experience was measured through questionnaires, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers. The results show a knowledge gain between pre‐and post‐test. Correlational analysis showed that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain. Based on the qualitative data it appeared that the used escape boxes contributed most to perceived immersion. Immersion helps students focus on each other and the tasks. Also, a narrative with distinct roles for each student helped to evoke immersion. Unexpectedly, these roles also scaffolded collaboration except for students in the school that engaged in a collaborative learning pedagogy. The study confirms the usability of the framework for game designs, based on theories for the design of physical and hybrid educational games. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic The escape room as a learning environment appeals to teachers of different disciplines, ages, gender and teaching experiences.Teachers implement escape rooms to create active (hybrid) learning spaces, where learners need a combination of knowledge and skills to solve the subject‐based activities.Students and teachers perceive that while participating in escape rooms, students are more engaged, active and learn more compared to regular classes. The assumption is that escape rooms support collaboration and automatically collaborative learning.Review studies on educational escape rooms show that a systematic evaluation is usually absent, disputable or indicates no knowledge gain.Teachers design their educational escape rooms based on digital escape games and/or their experience as players of escape rooms.For digital educational games, important game design aspects are researched.Three main challenges in designing educational games are (1) the participants' transition from the real world to the game world, (2) the alignment of game design aspects and educational aspects and (3) the transfer from attained experiences and knowledge back into the real world.What this paper adds This paper evaluates an educational game design framework for escape rooms, focussing on the above‐mentioned main challenges in designing educational games.It investigates the influence of the educational game design elements immersion, collaboration and debriefing, on fostering learning with a hybrid educational escape room.It informs that all three design elements contributed to students' appreciation of the escape room, whereas only immersion had a direct contribution to knowledge gain.The used hybrid escape boxes contributed most to the immersion; scaffolding students to focus on each other and the tasks.Students' collaboration was successfully fostered. However, it scarcely led to collaborative learning during gameplay, due to lack of discussion and reflection needed for deeper understanding.Implications for practice and/or policy The educational escape game framework would help educators creating immersive games, which not only confront learners with meaningful contexts but also give learning gains.The educational escape game framework would help researchers focussing on important and difficult aspects of designing and implementing educational escape rooms to develop and research more effective escape rooms.In guidelines on creating immersion in educational escape games, the notion of physical objects is lacking. In this hybrid escape room, the physical objects such as escape boxes were the most powerful in creating immersion. In addition, the use of sound design in escape games in classrooms seems overrated.Debriefing after the gameplay is perceived necessary to discuss common misunderstandings, to make connections between the topics in various puzzles and to add more content to interest high‐achieving students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of internal migration on students from the perspective of high school teachers and students. The study employed qualitative research with a phenomenological design. The study group consisted of nine teachers and seventeen high school students from Mardin city in Turkey with a migrant experience. The researchers collected data using semi-structured interviews and used a descriptive analysis technique to analyse the data. The results of the study show that participants from both groups (teachers and students) agreed on the following issues: adolescents from immigrant families have difficulty adapting to school life; their level of academic success is lower and they have difficulty making new friends. Most of the students stated that they have problems forming relationships with their peers at school. The study's results emphasised the necessity for collaboration among educational, health, and social institutions to ensure the adjustment of migrant students to their new schools and environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially shared regulation contributes to the success of collaborative learning. However, the assessment of socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) faces several challenges in the effort to increase the understanding of collaborative learning and support outcomes due to the unobservability of the related cognitive and emotional processes. The recent development of trace‐based assessment has enabled innovative opportunities to overcome the problem. Despite the potential of a trace‐based approach to study SSRL, there remains a paucity of evidence on how trace‐based evidence could be captured and utilised to assess and promote SSRL. This study aims to investigate the assessment of electrodermal activities (EDA) data to understand and support SSRL in collaborative learning, hence enhancing learning outcomes. The data collection involves secondary school students (N = 94) working collaboratively in groups through five science lessons. A multimodal data set of EDA and video data were examined to assess the relationship among shared arousals and interactions for SSRL. The results of this study inform the patterns among students' physiological activities and their SSRL interactions to provide trace‐based evidence for an adaptive and maladaptive pattern of collaborative learning. Furthermore, our findings provide evidence about how trace‐based data could be utilised to predict learning outcomes in collaborative learning. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Socially shared regulation has been recognised as an essential aspect of collaborative learning success.It is challenging to make the processes of learning regulation 'visible' to better understand and support student learning, especially in dynamic collaborative settings.Multimodal learning analytics are showing promise for being a powerful tool to reveal new insights into the temporal and sequential aspects of regulation in collaborative learning.What this paper adds Utilising multimodal big data analytics to reveal the regulatory patterns of shared physiological arousal events (SPAEs) and regulatory activities in collaborative learning.Providing evidence of using multimodal data including physiological signals to indicate trigger events in socially shared regulation.Examining the differences of regulatory patterns between successful and less successful collaborative learning sessions.Demonstrating the potential use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to predict collaborative learning success by examining regulatory patterns.Implications for practice and/or policy Our findings offer insights into how students regulate their learning during collaborative learning, which can be used to design adaptive supports that can foster students' learning regulation.This study could encourage researchers and practitioners to consider the methodological development incorporating advanced techniques such as AI machine learning for capturing, processing and analysing multimodal data to examine and support learning regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though discipline‐specific approaches to literacy instruction can support adolescents' academic literacy and identity development, scant attention has been paid to ways of targeting such instruction to address individual student needs. Dialogic writing assessment is an approach to conducting writing conferences that foregrounds students' composing process so that teachers can assess and support that process with instructional feedback. Because such feedback is immediate, teachers can observe how students take it up. While dialogic assessment has shown promise as an approach to revealing and supporting students' writing processes in English Language Arts classrooms, it remains to be explored how this approach can support developing writers in other subject areas. This paper offers an analytic narrative account of how a high school social studies teacher used this method to support the writing process of one student, exploring what the method revealed about the challenges the student faced in writing about history, the gaps and misconceptions in their understanding of history and the intersection between the two. We discuss how certain 'mediational moves' the teacher employed enabled the student to compose collaboratively with the teacher, and in this collaborative composing, to capture ideas that she later used in her independent writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational agents can deepen reasoning and encourage students to build on others' knowledge in collaborative learning. Embedding agents in group work, however, presents challenges where groups may ignore the agents, and this calls for designs where students perceive agents as learning partners. This study examines group interactions with two text‐based agents (ie, chatbots) that posed as an expert and a less knowledgeable peer in a high school marine biology lesson. Student messages (N = 1764) from 18 groups (52 students ages 14–15) received codes for reasoning, building on prior ideas, and responsiveness to the agents. Results indicate no differences between agents in how often each discussion move occurred. Interestingly, sequential pattern mining suggests that the less‐knowledgeable‐peer agent prompted groups to show questioning and building on others' ideas, similar to how students may act as peer tutors to the agent. Meanwhile, sequences with the expert agent resembled student‐teacher exchange, where groups responded to the agent's nudges and then provided reasoning. Findings illustrate the affordances of embedding humanized features in technology designs to promote discussion. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Conversational agents can facilitate group discussions, but can get abused or ignored by student groups.To engage students, agent designs can simulate the characteristics of familiar classroom figures, such as peers or teachers.There are limited explorations of how student groups adapt their interactions to different agent designs in collaborative settings.What the paper adds Illustrations of the utilities of diversifying agent designs in collaborative learning.Insights into the unique interaction patterns that student groups displayed to different designs, such as questioning and building on others' ideas with a less‐knowledgeable‐peer agent.Implications for practice and/or policy Embedding signs of humanness in classroom facilitation and technology design can foster responsiveness among users.Pedagogy can consider adaptive designs to promote interaction sequences that contribute to learning (eg, questioning, expanding on prior ideas) at opportune moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the use and potentials of Learning Platform (LP) technologies for organising learning in English primary and secondary schools. It reports on the findings of qualitative research on the benefits of LPs based on data from case studies in 12 ‘early adopting’ English primary and secondary schools. The paper reports findings on the potential of LPs to enhance student access to a broad range of learning resources, to increase opportunities for independent and personalised learning, to support opportunities for collaborative learning and to improve student processes of reflecting on and assessing their learning. The paper concludes by drawing out some of the pedagogic implications from these findings and with a brief summary of the emerging conditions associated with the effective use of LPs to support and organise learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the successful application of a computer-supported collaborative learning system in teaching e-commerce. The authors created a teaching and learning environment for 39 local secondary schools to introduce e-commerce using a computer-supported collaborative learning system. This system is designed to equip students with additional knowledge and skills in e-commerce. In this paper, the authors focus on the practical implications of the project-based learning approach on the teaching and learning of introductory e-commerce in the business context. Results indicate that students are interested in the proposed approach, particularly in learning by doing. In conclusion, the authors describe in this paper the successful development of a project-based teamwork game environment for the teaching and learning of e-commerce in schools. This environment can enrich learning and the pedagogical use of development tools in the academe. Finally, the paper puts forward two propositions that can guide hypothesis generation in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been calls for decades by many educational writers and commentators for a new model of learning to facilitate what is generally described as twenty-first-century learning. Central to this challenge is the required shift in responsibility for who leads and owns the learning - from teacher to student. Such a shift requires a pragmatic pedagogical model to facilitate the transfer of control and ownership of learning. Vygotsky’s ‘more able other’ identified the peer as a key figure in learning. Teamwork facilitates project-based learning and, when mediated with technology, proves an effective partner in creating an engaging and autonomous learning experience. This paper describes the rationale for the design of a team-based model of twenty-first-century learning, particularly drawing upon the team-based learning model of the World Scout Movement. Results from a year-long study of the implementation of the model in an out-of-school context with 288 second-level students are presented. The authors argue that Bridge21 is a candidate learning model for effective, implementable, twenty-first-century, team-based learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this literature review on the dynamics of intersubjectivity in primary and secondary education, we summarise and examine articles published in the last 10 years. This concept is considered relevant in education, in particular to enhance different types of collaborative learning situations. The articles were selected from several databases, all in English and blindly peer-reviewed. From the 157 articles appearing when limiting the contexts to primary and secondary education, 25 empirical studies were selected because they focused on the collaborative activities of students-students and/or teacher-students. We are also interested in understanding the role that technology may play in such process. Additionally, research where some types of digital technologies were used was contrasted with studies with analogical technologies. The selected articles were analysed with the aim of highlighting ideas and critical concepts featuring the process of producing intersubjectivity. As relevant dimensions, we identified: (a) teachers' role; (b) cultural and/or intercultural dimension; (c) the role of cognitive aspects; (d) the role of social dimension, and (e) the role of space-time. Finally, implications for future empirical studies and educational practices are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education is well recognised – learning environments where the ICT features included are being proposed for many years now. The Web Geometry Laboratory (WGL) innovates in proposing a blended learning, collaborative and adaptive learning Web-environment for geometry. It integrates a well-known dynamic geometry system providing an adaptive environment where face-to-face activities can be combined with computer-mediated activities, in a collaborative or stand-alone, synchronous or asynchronous, classroom or homework way. The WGL collaborative environment allows each student to capitalise on one another's resources and skills. Its adaptive module gives to each teacher the ability to assess the geometric level of each student, allowing the teacher to build the individual profile and/or learning paths. In this paper we begin describing what are the goals that support the development of such an environment, the goals that support our beliefs in the usefulness of such an environment for the teaching and learning of geometry, after which we describe the environment and the case studies already conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports about an innovative collaborative group learning strategy for improving learning achievement of slow learners at secondary school level. The paper highlights that all students are unable to be competent in their learning achievement mainly because of diverse social and mental factors. There are some slow learners in each class due to cognitive differences among students. For present study, the researchers developed an innovative learning plan based on collaborative learning strategy to enhance the learning achievement of slow learners. The analysis showed significant differences in performance of slow learners in their final term examination where they obtained good marks as compared to their mid term /December term examination. The study also reflects that in this process, the slow learners comprehend the concepts and their learning achievement improved when they were provided learning opportunities in collaborative peer groups' leaders. The findings have implications for improving the situation of learning achievement of slow learners through this strategy. The outcome of research shows that this strategy can also be implemented in diverse learning groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside other forms of social software, wikis have been heralded as supporting more collaborative and democratic teaching and learning practices. This paper explores, through a case study approach, the use of wikis to support a collaborative research project undertaken in a UK secondary school. Findings are analysed in the context of research on social and collaborative learning, using theories of Communities of Practice and Knowledge-Building Networks. The study identifies tensions between views of learning and knowledge-creation as collaborative and learner-driven, with students' views of learning, drawn from their experience of the broader economy of education. The role of assessment, the importance of authentic activities, and the teacher's role are all seen as important factors in the facilitation or otherwise of a collaborative classroom. Rather than asking how schools can make best use of social software, this study raises the question of how social software prompts a debate about the value of collaborative learning and ways to cultivate attitudes and organise education that may be more conducive to such collaborative practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a small-scale action research project that aimed to increase the effectiveness of a learning support centre within a secondary school. Central to the project was the use of a solution-focused approach with groups of pupils. The added dimension in this project involved a focus on class teacher involvement. The paper discusses the importance of peer support and teacher involvement in working to enhance positive behaviour by bridging the gap between the learning support centre and the wider school system. It details the work undertaken by two educational psychologists (EPs) working in one secondary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital media have unique potential to amplify student voice in both high school teacher preparation and academic development for college faculty. This paper applies narrative analysis to participant descriptions of how three uses of digital media amplify student voice in the context of a single higher education consortium: (1) high school students and prospective high school teachers use email to engage in dialogue as part of a larger project within the consortium's secondary teacher preparation program, (2) undergraduate student consultants use visual mapping technology as a classroom observation tool through one of the consortium's academic development programs for college faculty and (3) graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and staff engaged in pedagogical partnerships within and beyond this consortium use on an online platform to publish reflective essays on their collaborative work. Amplifying student voice through these uses of digital media has the following actual effects: it creates the possibility for exchanges between students and teachers across space and time; it supports the development of reflective practice; and it encourages the embrace of a partnership approach to teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper challenges the reductive notion of children as ‘efferent'1readers who learn to decode written language in order to ‘take away’ knowledge. This anachronistic idea has become entrenched in current UK curriculum and education policy. However, it is well established that decoding letters and sounds is only one aspect of reading, that reading is cultural and that learning to read, not only words but also images and sounds, develops children's comprehension and criticality. With this in mind, I seek to share a process through which children and young people were able to develop as readers with a particular focus on the reading of media texts. I present an account of media education activity which focused on the way children read media texts, in the classroom. I suggest that with appropriate pedagogic and conceptual tools children develop as critical, cultural and collaborative readers of words, images, sounds and texts and thereby of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper, through discussion of a teaching intervention at two secondary schools in Hong Kong, demonstrates the learning advancement brought about by group work and dissects the facilitating role of teachers in collaborative discussions. One-hundred and fifty-two Secondary Two (Grade 8) students were divided into three pedagogical groups, namely ‘whole-class teaching’, ‘self-directed group work’ and ‘teacher-supported group work’ groups, and engaged in peer-review, team debate, group presentation and reflection tasks related to a junior secondary science topic (i.e. current electricity). Pre- and post-tests were performed to evaluate students’ scientific conceptions, alongside collected written responses and audio-recorded discussions. The results indicate that students achieved greater cognitive growth when they engaged in cooperative learning activities, the interactive and multi-sided argumentative nature of which is considered to apply particularly well to science education and Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development framework. Group work learning is also found to be most effective when teachers play a role in navigating students during the joint construction of conceptual knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally accepted that intrinsic student motivation is a critical requirement for effective learning but formal learning in school places a huge reliance on extrinsic motivation to focus the learner. This reliance on extrinsic motivation is driven by the pressure on formal schooling to ‘deliver to the test’. The experience of the use of ICT in formal learning is marked with a naive and largely unfulfilled assumption that it would of itself promote a ‘game-changing’ shift in student motivation. This study investigates the effectiveness of a team-based, technology-mediated model called Bridge21 to encourage intrinsic student motivation. The data for the study come from 425 secondary school students, average age 16 years, who participated in workshops of 3.5 days in duration. The workshops took place in an out-of-school learning environment in one academic year. Bridge21 seeks to provide a vehicle to allow the transfer of control of learning from the teacher to the team and in this way to encourage and promote student autonomy. The principal findings reported in this paper are that participation in the workshops had a direct positive impact on the students’ perceptions around their learning and on their intrinsic motivation to learn. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite their advanced status, nations such as the United States of America continue to face a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) crisis in their education system. Lack of effective teaching modalities that can leverage real-world examples to stimulate student interest in STEM concepts are identified as one of the reasons for this crisis. To address these challenges, our research is investigating the use of innovative and attractive modeling and simulation frameworks for concurrent, interactive and collaborative STEM education where vehicular traffic serves as the real-world example to reify STEM concepts. Existing traffic-related tools, such as traffic simulators, however, do not provide: (1) intuitive abstractions to construct, refine, and simulate various traffic models that are commensurate to the level of high school students, (2) concurrent and scalable model execution, and (3) collaborative learning environments. On the other hand, although intuitive abstractions such as Google Maps exist, these abstractions do not support semantics for dynamic behavior, which is representative of real-world traffic scenarios. To overcome both these challenges and address the STEM problem, this paper presents a Cloud-based, Collaborative, and Scaled-up Modeling and Simulation Framework for STEM Education called C 2 SuMo. The key contribution of this paper lies in the design and implementation of a cloud-based, elastic modeling and simulation framework that provides an intuitive, model-driven, collaborative, and concurrent visual simulation environment for STEM education. The paper also reports on insights we gained conducting a user study involving over sixty high school students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the outcomes of a ‘lesson study’ project conducted in a mathematics department with four serving teachers in a secondary school in England. Using Dudley’s lesson study framework and drawing on Hargreaves and Fullan’s notion of professional capital, the feasibility and value of collaborative lesson study as a vehicle for the development of teacher learning were explored. Planning and evaluation meetings as well as end-of-project interviews were analysed to investigate how teachers planned research lessons together and how these were evaluated. Despite time constraints, teachers who engaged in lesson study reported that the process improved understanding of their students; that collaboration helped them to develop less-teacher-centred approaches and created a stronger sense of teacher community. The project demonstrated that lesson study has potential as an alternative or complementary model of teachers’ learning, but it also throws up substantive organisational challenges if its use is to expand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This design-based research project focuses on documenting statistical learning among 16–17-year-old Finnish upper secondary school students (N= 78) in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. One novel value of this study is in reporting the shift from teacher-led mathematical teaching to autonomous small-group learning in statistics. The main aim of this study is to examine how student collaboration occurs in learning statistics in a CSCL environment. The data include material from videotaped classroom observations and the researcher's notes. In this paper, the inter-subjective phenomena of students’ interactions in a CSCL environment are analysed by using a contact summary sheet (CSS). The development of the multi-dimensional coding procedure of the CSS instrument is presented. Aptly selected video episodes were transcribed and coded in terms of conversational acts, which were divided into non-task-related and task-related categories to depict students’ levels of collaboration. The results show that collaborative learning (CL) can facilitate cohesion and responsibility and reduce students’ feelings of detachment in our classless, periodic school system. The interactive .pdf material and collaboration in small groups enable statistical learning. It is concluded that CSCL is one possible method of promoting statistical teaching. CL using interactive materials seems to foster and facilitate statistical learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Informatics or computer science (the terms informatics and computer science are used as synonyms in this paper) in Austrian secondary schools is often considered “difficult” and “not interesting” because of mainly mathematical and economical contents. But informatics is much more; it is used in almost every part of the working life and can also cooperate with every subject at school. It offers a wide range of possibilities for COOL (COoperative Open Learning), an Austrian teaching model based on the Dalton Plan that provides also cooperation between different subject matters. Besides the COOL concept this paper describes some ideas for cooperation between informatics and foreign languages at secondary schools and at University level besides just ICT (Information and Communication Technology) or computer-assisted language learning. The presented tasks are part of the project “COOL Informatics” (according to COoperative Open Learning) that aims at developing COOL teaching material based on neurodidactical (Neurodidactics is a relatively young research field that combines the findings of brain research, pedagogy, cognitive psychology and other related fields.) principles for informatics and cross-curricular cooperation from primary school up to University. On the basis of the developed material the following main research questions of the project shall be examined in the course of the next school year: (1) Can COoperative Open Learning methods help to enhance learning? (2) Can learning be enhanced by considering neurodidactical principles in the design of teaching material and in the classroom? As the first test phase of the developed material is still in progress the evaluation is not available at the moment. But the first informal feedback of a vocational school and a programming course at the University shows that it is worth fostering COoperative Open Learning and cross-curricular cooperation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper presents a didactic sequence proposal, jointly designed by university and high school teachers of English and Spanish (Región del Bio Bio, Chile), which aims at supporting students' development of writing skills through the application of a wiki as a computer mediated collaborative tool. For this purpose, the paper provides a conceptual framework which supports the proposal, followed by a writing didactic sequence design, based on the process writing approach, the collaborative learning theory, and computer mediated communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper introduces a methodology for analyzing the knowledge construction and misconstruction processes occurring in online asynchronous discussion for Secondary 2 (Grade 8) students. The use of purposive sampling targeting specific students in a single course forum could potentially advance understanding of these processes using Knowledge Construction – Message Map (KCMM) and Knowledge Construction – Message Graph (KCMG). This paper traced the communication patterns and knowledge construction as well as misconstruction processes of students working in groups to formulate scientific ideas. This methodology reveals the dynamics of asynchronous discussion through mapping and quantifying the electronic learning process. This will equip educational practitioners and researchers with a useful tool for describing online interaction through adoption of a measurement methodology more systematic and effective than anecdotally. The research findings suggest that self-directed learning through asynchronous discussion has to be monitored by facilitators as learners possessed misconceptions that could potentially mislead other participants. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

TACTICS (French and Spanish acronym standing for Collaborative Work and Learning in Science with Information and Communications Technologies) is an ongoing project aimed at investigating a distributed community of learning and practice in which information and communications technologies (ICT) take the role of collaborative tools to support social construction of knowledge. This community is composed of researchers, graduate students, and high-school teachers and their students, from six schools and four universities in Canada and Mexico. It set out in fall 2000 to develop a community around the general topic of integrating concepts in science school subjects. Once a “prototype” community is established, it can become a “terrain” where different aspects could be studied. Subsequently, researchers could gradually take a “back seat” allowing as well as ensuring the autonomy of the school members involved and, thereby, the viability of the learning community. The set up of the proposed “prototype” distributed science learning community was therefore an essential yet far from trivial first step. This paper discusses the process of setting up the community and the lessons learned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating students' home languages into the classroom is one powerful way to welcome and show immigrant students care. But what if teachers can't speak these languages? Sharing findings from a collaborative educational ethnography in a large urban ESL program in the U.S., this article offers a framework that new and practicing teachers can use to create warm relationships, support academic progress, and challenge inequality within their classrooms, even when their own linguistic repertoires overlap little with those of their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to cultivate students to be able to participate in public affairs and make decisions about socioscientific issues (SSI), a web-based module was designed for students to collaboratively engage in the decision-making (DM) process. This study attempted to identify students' discourse characteristics that might lead to formulating an evidence-based decision on SSI. Twenty-nine Grade 10 students were randomly divided into eight groups of three or four. The transcribed data of one case from each performance level were compared to investigate the interplay between groups' DM performances and discourse characteristics. The results showed that the group that gained a high score on the DM group worksheet engaged in the metacognitive discussion for planning procedures of the module tools and in the conceptual exchanges to accomplish the tasks. The members of this group could initiate and extend ideas, provide prompts, and confirm or reject each other's ideas, resulting in sustained interactive dialogs that allowed them to learn from one another. This indicated that students need to be encouraged to clarify the task goals, plan procedures, monitor their performance, and exchange their ideas actively. The implications of how collaborative discourse promote students' SSI DM performance, and the better design and enactment of SSI modules are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper an educational experience is described. It was carried out with students from third year of Educación Secundaria Obligatoria focused on the content of "The inorganic chemical formulation". From a question or the approach of a riddle we aim to bring the students, in an innovative way, to the field of physics and chemistry and, ultimately, to science, thus involving them in their own teaching-learning process. Having the methodology of learning by inquiry, as a referent, we have worked with different didactic tools that can help improve student learning, such as: collaborative learning techniques using the technique of Aronson's Puzzle or the information Technology and Communication. Also a WebQuest has been designed using the Google sites tool to present the activities so that it can guide the student in finding information on the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies on peer assessment (PA) have highlighted significant benefits for the learning process such as increased student motivation, enhanced collaborative learning (especially in terms of EFL writing) and improved reflection skills. Research on secondary school teachers' perceptions of PA is lacking, particularly in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) external-examination-dominated contexts. The current study presents an in-depth exploration of 40 EFL Greek Cypriot teachers' perceptions of the use of PA in secondary education to address adolescent learners' poor writing performance, low motivation, and exam failure. Teachers used PA of writing for one whole school year with more than 400 students after receiving training in PA methods and continuous support throughout this implementation. The researcher used semi-structured interviews to explore EFL teachers' attitudes towards PA after implementing it in their classes. Findings indicated that teachers were initially reluctant to use PA with their students but changed their minds during its implementation and reported that PA facilitated learning by making the educational process easier for learners. Given teachers' favourable attitudes towards PA after experimenting with it for a whole year and the benefits that they believe students (especially low-achieving) may gain from the implementation of PA of EFL writing in their classes, this study suggests that PA is a promising inclusive assessment method that caters to diverse learners' needs and fosters autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the use of multimedia sources can deepen student engagement, comprehension, and questioning of a variety of texts. Through an American literature project, The Art of War, high school juniors work in collaboration to read, analyze, and create original digital texts using Animoto.com. As a result, educators are able to see academic strengths in students that might otherwise go unnoticed with the sole use of traditional teaching practices and print text. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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The aim of this research is to study the effectiveness of using videoconferencing as a tool for collaborative learning on water pollution among students from two secondary schools located in different districts. The poor water quality of the nullahs in urban areas aroused the interest of students from two secondary schools in Tin Shui Wai and Wong Tai Sin who had experienced the nasty smell of the water from Tin Shui Wai Nullah and Kai Tak River respectively. Students of both schools were quickly aware of the need to improve the environment around their schools. Through the use of internet-based videoconferencing, the students shared and learned from each other's experiences in analysing pollutants in their own water channel. With the help of governmental and non-governmental organisations involved in environmental protection, the students also exchanged ideas on how water quality can be improved. They conducted three video conferences thus far. These involved lectures, data exchanges and information sharing. After these conferences, the data taken from the school-based curriculum design, the students' worksheets, their reflections and the video-clips of lesson observation were analysed. This paper discusses the data collected, and the results show that students' interest was aroused and their learning outcomes in knowledge, skills and attitude were recognised. Teachers involved also considered the project to be an opportunity for teacher development and to enhance their own learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Finnish high school system in rural areas is facing challenges because of a decreasing number of the students. This situation places new emphasis on online learning. Online learning offers new possibilities for high schools to provide equal learning opportunities for their students. This paper explores students’ readiness to adapt their studying habits in the networked high schools by outlining their beliefs about online learning. Beliefs are assumed to direct people’s actions, in this case activities concerning studying online. Three hundred second year high school students from Eastern Finland who had not had the experiences of learning online were studied. The findings suggest that students polarize into negative, neutral and positive groups based on their beliefs concerning online learning. Results also indicate that students’ knowledge about the possibilities of online learning is quite superficial. In contrast to theories about collaborative learning practices, students see online learning rather differently. Students with negative and neutral beliefs especially see online learning merely as a static “warehouse” of materials and study-alone learning tasks instead of offering possibilities for collaborative knowledge building. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article explores the use of a technological tool, the Makey Makey, in the music classroom, to support student engagement and motivation. An experimental, descriptive and correlational quantitative design was designed and done over a sample of 104 students at high school level. Pre- and post- measures of engagement and motivation indicators were collected and compared to a control group to explore and compare the impact of the use of the Makey Makey over these indicators. The research findings indicate a significant difference between the experimental and control group in relation to their levels of engagement and motivation, suggesting that the use of technological tools in the music classroom can have potential benefits over these indicators. The results also show that are the affective and emotional dimensions that have more incidence over the student engagement, suggesting that educational interventions aimed at improving student engagement and motivation should focus on nurturing their emotional engagement. However, the results from this study cannot be generalized due to the study's limitations, which make evident the need for more experimental studies and further exploration of the impact of technology in student engagement and motivation indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined maker‐centred learning from an epistemic perspective, highlighting the agentic role of material engagement and artefacts in learning and creativity. The use of physical materials plays a crucial role in maker activities where the socio‐epistemic aspects of knowledge creation entangle with the designing and making of physical artefacts. By taking a case study perspective, we analysed video data from nine design sessions involving a team of students (aged 13 to 14) developing an invention. First, we analysed knowledge that was built during the process. Our analysis revealed how design ideas evolved from preliminary to final stages and, together with the expressed design problems and conversations preceding the ideas, formed an epistemic object pursued by the team. Next, we included non‐human agencies into the analysis to understand the role of materials in the process. Features of materials and human design intentions both constrained and enabled idea improvement and knowledge creation, intermixing meanings and materials. Material making invited the students to not only rely on human rationalisation, but also to think together with the materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a knowledge-driven society, secondary education should let students develop appropriate and meaningful skills to live, think and work. To attain this aim, teachers require specific knowledge and competences about technology-mediated collaborative learning strategies while overcoming preconceptions and a general sense of inadequacy towards these learning approaches. This exploratory study focuses on a learning path based on the 'Trialogical' Learning Approach to consider the role of technology-mediated collaborative learning in the educational development and classroom practices of trainee teachers. A multi-methods approach was used to analyse the collected data. Results indicate a good level of active participation in the activities leading to a general perception of effective learning. Participants report having acquired knowledge and skills which will improve their professional practice. The positive value of introducing collaboration and technology in the learning path is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the development of digital technologies provides generous resources for educational practices, how the use of information and communication technology (ICT) supports instructional reforms in schools still needs further exploration. The purpose of the study is to understand the roles of school leaders and teachers play in an instructional reform supported by ICT as well as how these roles interact with each other. The study selected a Chinese middle‐high school that successfully had a school‐wide instructional reform supported by ICT as an exemplary case and collected data through document analysis, interviews and observations. The results indicated that the school leadership was critical in the instructional reform. While the executive vice principal was in an essential position as an initiator and strategic planner, the leadership was distributed and stretched over in the school. The school built supporting pedagogical and organizational systems for continuous and collaborative learning and helped the teachers develop four new roles: learners, facilitators to student‐centered learning, collaborators and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the types of learning behaviors students demonstrated while performing inquiry tasks. It also explored the relationship between the learning behaviors and students’ domain knowledge. We observed fourteen students in five groups during a ninth-grade biology course. Three types of learning behaviors (inquiry, collaborative, and minimally productive behaviors) were identified and time on each type was measured. The results suggest that students demonstrated different patterns according to the types of learning behaviors. Correlation analysis revealed that learning outcomes had a strong positive correlation with the inquiry behaviors but a strong negative correlation with the minimally productive behaviors. The results suggest that attention should be paid to facilitate the more meaningful inquiry behaviors while reducing minimally productive behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the author’s interactions with the teaching strategy known as Reciprocal Teaching, sometimes also called Reciprocal Reading, which involves students learning to read collaboratively in small groups. Reciprocal Teaching typically involves students teaching each other by following a rubric of activities that are aimed at primarily improving their comprehension skills. In brief, students read a text in a group and collectively try to understand it, using prescribed procedures. This article scrutinises the original research by Palincsar and Brown which created the strategy and questions some of its claims. While many other investigations into Reciprocal Teaching have aimed to prove or disprove its efficacy, this enquiry studies the discourses which inform the strategy, arguing that there are problems with its presentation in the original article which have affected subsequent representations of Reciprocal Teaching. The article shows how the author, an English teacher in a large secondary school, taught Reciprocal Teaching to teenagers for a year and argues that the presentation of Reciprocal Teaching he read in a well-regarded teaching handbook caused him to deploy Reciprocal Teaching problematically. It was only when he taught Reciprocal Teaching in a more imaginative fashion that he found greater success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates the transdisciplinary teaching of education for sustainable development (ESD) with a global dimension at an upper secondary school in Sweden. The purpose was to analyse and describe variations in how nine teachers in different subject matters experienced collaborative teaching in the context of a whole school educational development project. A total of 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using phenomenographic method and contextual analysis. Two main approaches to transdisciplinary teaching were identified among the teachers: one where teachers contributed but struggled with transdisciplinarity, and the other where they displayed ownership and were able to reconceptualise the project as a whole. Overall, teachers worked in the project with deep-level processing for learning ESD in an integrated manner in the transdisciplinary framework. However, they also experienced tensions between their resources and capabilities, and the challenges they faced in the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the advocated importance of twenty-first century competences in education, it appears that they are not systematically integrated in national curricula, school curricula and classroom activities. Potential explanations can be found in the current ambiguity of definitions for twenty-first century competences and the absence of educational actors in curriculum development. Responding to both shortcomings, this study aims to explore how teachers' conceptualization and enactment of twenty-first century competences constitute dimensions that can inform curricular guidelines. An exploratory factor analysis of teachers' self-reported classroom activities that foster students' twenty-first century competences was conducted. The data comprised responses of 2,804 primary- and secondary-school teachers to a web-survey about the perceived occurrence of specific classroom activities targeting twenty-first century competences. Results suggested six coherent dimensions of classroom activities that foster twenty-first century competences: digital literacy, innovative thinking, critical thinking and communication, (digital) citizenship, self-regulated learning, and (computer-supported) collaborative learning. Nevertheless, there were substantial interrelationships among the six dimensions. This demonstrated that teachers did not perceive twenty-first century competences to be fostered by disconnected classroom activities, but that they already have a more integrative conception of the curricular innovation. The implications of these findings for curricula, teaching practice and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The call for teachers and schools to become more research-engaged is resonating stronger than ever with government efforts to improve research impact and educational quality in the United Kingdom (UK) and many other countries. In these endeavors strengthening the social network structure and collegial relationships that enable collaborative research and learning in schools are often overlooked. This longitudinal, multi-method case study focused on understanding this pivotal social dimension. It examined in what way and to what extent research-engaged relationships are developed and value for practice is created among school colleagues. The context was a secondary school that is part of a longstanding school–university research partnership in the UK. Social network and survey data, school documents, individual narratives, and interview data were collected and analysed during one academic year. Results reveal that school leadership adopted an approach in which they combined the development of formal structures and informal networking to foster a significant increase in research-engaged interactions among school staff. Two key elements of the school–university research partnership were distinguished as powerful drivers of fostering research engagement. Outcomes show that the increased research engagement led to diverse types of value creation in both the core and periphery of the research network of school staff. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Researchers have indicated that the collaborative problem-solving space afforded by the collaborative systems significantly impact the problem-solving process. However, recent investigations into collaborative simulations, which allow a group of students to jointly manipulate a problem in a shared problem space, have yielded divergent results regarding their effects on collaborative learning. Hence, this study analysed how students solved a physics problem using individual-based and collaborative simulations to understand their effects on science learning. Multiple data sources including group discourse, problem-solving activities, learning test scores, and questionnaire feedback were analysed. Lag sequential analysis on the data found that students using the two simulations collaborated with peers to solve the problem in significantly different patterns. The students using the collaborative simulations demonstrated active engagement in the collaborative activity; however, they did not transform discussions into workable problem-solving activities. The students using the individual-based simulation showed a lower level of collaboration engagement, starting with individual exploration of the problem with the simulation, followed by group reflection. The two groups also showed significant differences in their learning test scores. The findings and pedagogical suggestions are discussed in the hope of addressing critical activity design issues in using computer simulations for facilitating collaborative learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design in educational contexts is a relatively new topic. The basic idea of design and design-driven education is that students and teachers participate together in the planning, implementation and evaluation of learning projects. However, how design-driven education should be carried out in practice is yet to be established. Therefore, the aim of this study is to gain insights into how such practice could be implemented. Through a qualitative study, the authors examined primary and secondary school teachers' (N = 5) conceptions on various aspects of design in educational contexts. The results indicate that design-driven education emphasises the need for collaboration between students and teachers, and the teachers' active roles as facilitators for learning. Furthermore, in order for such design-driven practices to be successful, the learning process requires students to be self-regulative learners. The use of technology was also experienced as a natural part of design-driven education. The results present the participating teachers' understanding of how design-driven education in school contexts could be organised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]