Early research on online PBL explored student satisfaction, effectiveness, and design. The temporal aspect of online PBL has rarely been addressed. Thus, a gap exists in our knowledge regarding how online PBL unfolds: when and for how long a group engages in collaborative discussions. Similarly, little is known about whether and what sequence of…

Group awareness is of critical relevance for collaborative learning and interaction and is thus often referred to in CSCL research. However, the concept is only vaguely defined as some kind of understanding or perception of characteristics of learning partners or the collaborating group. Most CSCL research activities concerned with group awareness…

Group awareness (GA) is essential for computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), as it informs learners about other group members' activities, knowledge, and emotions. A key advantage of GA support is that it can collect, process, and visualize GA information, which provides a basis for students' reflection and adjustment during…

We investigated how the level of variance in students' prior knowledge may have influenced their collaborative interactions and science learning in small groups. We examined learning outcomes from 102 groups from seven science teachers' classes and discourse from two contrasting groups: Homogeneous versus heterogeneous. We examined individual and…

Unequal participation poses a challenge to collaborative learning because it reduces opportunities for fruitful collaboration among learners and affects learners' satisfaction. Social group awareness tools can display information on the distribution of participation and thus encourage groups to regulate the distribution of participation. However,…

The discourse of small groups of 3-4 adults enrolled in a graduate business course was audio-recorded as they participated in a computer-supported simulation in which the group represented a firm and worked over a series of eight sessions in making a series of decisions. Discourse transcripts were analyzed using a coding scheme that classified…

Over the last decade, there has been a renewed interest in capturing twenty-first century skills using new data collection tools. In this article, we leverage an existing dataset where electrodermal activity (EDA) was used to identify markers of productive collaboration. The data came from 42 pairs of participants (N = 84) who had no coding…

Group awareness (GA) tools can facilitate learning processes and outcomes by visualizing different social attributes, such as cognitive and behavioral information about group members. To assist learning and writing in social media, combining various types of awareness information may foster learning processes due to challenges, which are difficult…

Very often, university students deliberately form self-organized study groups, e.g. to study collaboratively for an upcoming exam. Yet, very little is known about what regulation problems such self-organized study groups encounter during their learning process and how they try to cope with these problems. Therefore, this study investigates how…

Virtual manipulatives running on tablets have been demonstrated to improve students' conceptual understanding in previous studies. However, the differential effects on group interaction during face-to-face collaborative inquiry learning from the support of alternative technology affordances has received little attention. Technology affordances in…

In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) classrooms it may be challenging for teachers to keep awareness of certain aspects of the learning process of each small group or assess whether the enactment of the class script deviates from the original plan. Orchestration tools, aimed at supporting the management of the increasing uncertainty…

The coordination of cognitive and non-cognitive interactive processes contributes to successful collaboration in groups, but it is hard to evidence in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Monitoring is a metacognitive process that can be an indicator of a student's ability to recognize success or failure in collaboration. This study…

Learning scientists and the CSCL community have argued that knowledge construction is a process of collective thinking; a process that is simultaneously personal and social that requires group cognition. However, while CSCL researchers have investigated situated knowledge in the process of collective thinking, little work has been done to fully…

Empirical studies have proven the effectiveness of the knowledge and information awareness approach of Engelmann and colleagues for improving collaboration and collaborative problem-solving performance of spatially distributed group members. This approach informs group members about both their collaborators' knowledge structures and their…

The benefits of collaborative learning, although widely reported, lack the quantitative rigor and detailed insight into the dynamics of interactions within the group, while individual contributions and their impacts on group members and their collaborative work remain hidden behind joint group assessment. To bridge this gap we intend to address…