A key challenge in CSCL research is to find ways to support learners in becoming effective collaborators. While the effectiveness of external collaboration scripts is well established, there is a need for research into support that acknowledges learners' autonomy during collaboration. In the present study, we compare an external collaboration…

Productive peer talk moves have a fundamental role in structuring group discussions and promoting peer interactions. However, there is a lack of comprehensive technical support for developing young learners' skills in using productive peer talk moves. To address this, we designed iTalk-iSee, a participatory visual learning analytical tool that…

Collaboration scripts and heuristic worked examples have been described as powerful scaffolds to support skill acquisition in CSCL. While CSCL scripts particularly facilitate argumentative discourse within groups, heuristic worked examples provide heuristics and worked out pathways to solve domain-specific tasks. Yet, both scripts and heuristic…

In this paper we examine how two groups of middle school students arrive at shared understandings of and solutions to mathematical problems. Our data consists of logs of student participation in the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) system as they work on math problems. The project supports interaction both through chat and through a virtual whiteboard. We…

Earlier quantitative studies in computer-supported collaborative learning identified "Productive Failure" (Kapur, Cognition and Instruction 26(3):379-424, "2008") as a phenomenon in which students experiencing relative failures in their initial problem-solving efforts subsequently performed better than others who were in a condition not involving…

While some studies found positive effects of collaboration on student learning in mathematics, others found none or even negative effects. This study evaluates whether the varying impact of collaboration can be explained by differences in the type of knowledge that is promoted by the instruction. If the instructional material requires students to…