In this study, we aim to widen the understanding of how students' collaborative knowledge practices are mediated multimodally in a school's makerspace learning environment. Taking a sociocultural stance, we analyzed students' knowledge practices while carrying out STEAM learning challenges in small groups in the FUSE Studio, an elementary school's…

Classroom activity traditionally takes one of three forms, variously oriented toward the levels of individual students, small groups, or the whole class. CSCL systems, however, may enable novel ways to facilitate instruction within or sequence activity across these different levels. Drawing on theoretical accounts of learning at and across…

There is a growing understanding of the unique ways that tabletops support effective collaboration; however, this research mostly focuses on environments in which learners work towards a single shared goal. Underpinning this perspective, either implicitly or explicitly, is the theory that collaborative learning is a process of attaining convergent…

The field of Computer Supported Computer Learning (CSCL) is at a critical moment in its development. Internally we face issues of fragmentation and questions about what progress is being made. Externally the rise of social media and a variety of research communities that study the interactions within it raise questions about our unique identity…

In recent years there has been a proliferation of research findings on CSCL at the micro and macro levels, but few compelling examples of how CSCL research has impacted actual classroom practices at the meso-level have emerged. This paper critically examines the impact of adopting a systemic approach to innovative education reforms at the macro,…

The relationship between interaction and learning is a central concern of the learning sciences, and analysis of interaction has emerged as a major theme within the current literature on computer-supported collaborative learning. The nature of technology-mediated interaction poses analytic challenges. Interaction may be distributed across actors,…

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the relations between Carl Bereiter's and Marlene Scardamalia's knowledge-building approach and social practices. It is argued that technology enhances learning through transformed social practices. In order to truly contribute to educational transformation, pedagogical approaches have to be embedded…

CSCL systems which follow the dual-interaction spaces paradigm support the synchronous construction and discussion of shared artifacts by distributed or colocated small groups of learners. The most recent generic dual-interaction space environments, either model based or component based, can be deeply customized by teachers for supporting…

There has long been a call for schools to prepare students for the twenty-first century where skills and dispositions differ significantly from much of what has historically characterized formal education. The knowledge based economy calls for policy and pedagogical efforts that would transform schools. Schools are to foster communities of…

Computer-supported discursive learning (CSDL) systems for the support of asynchronous discursive learning need to fulfill specific socio-technical conditions. To understand these conditions, we employed design experiments combining aspects of communication theory, empirical findings, and continuous improvement of the investigated prototypes. Our…

Per definition, CSCL research deals with the data of individuals nested in groups, and the influence of a specific learning setting on the collaborative process of learning. Most well-established statistical methods are not able to analyze such nested data adequately. This article describes the problems which arise when standard methods are…

This article discusses the relationship between procedural and conceptual problem solving in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment designed within the field of science education. The contribution of this article, and our understanding of this phenomenon, is anchored in our socio-cultural interpretation, and that implies…

Traditionally, universities focus primarily on instructionist teaching. Such an understanding has been criticized from theoretical and practical points of view. We believe that "socio-cultural theories of learning" and the concepts of "social capital" and "social creativity" hold considerable promise as a theoretical…

The authors work as online tutors for a BSc (Hons) physiotherapy programme at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. This paper represents a stage in our developing understanding, over a 3 year period, of the impact of group dynamics on online interaction among physiotherapy students engaged in sharing with their peers their first experiences…