| Images of connected features: |
| | | Personally-Seeded Discussions |  |
| | | Neutral space for stating non-objective viewpoints in peer-evaluation |  |
| | | Face to face dicussion to support online peer evaluation activity |  |
| | | Automated gathering of peer-evaluation outcomes in CeLS |  |
| | | Examples of Inquiry |  |
| | | Meshing Perceptual and Conceptual Ideas in eSTEP |  |
| | | Alternated Individual and Group Discourse (eStep) |  |
| | | Whole-class collaboratively constructed Wiki table |  |
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Connections 
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| Description: |
This principle is calls to encourage learners to listen to and learn from others. When students explain their ideas to other students they may clarify their own thinking by making it visible to themselves. They can also help their peers understand an idea by articulating concepts using familiar vocabulary and relevant examples. In addition, when students can take on the role of teacher or tutor they often delve more deeply into a topic and discover gaps in their own understanding. These opportunities also enable teachers to learn from each other. Learning environments support teachers in analyzing the impact of inquiry by allowing others to inspect the work of students. Focusing discussion on student learning enables all teachers and developers to participate equally, whereas focus on teacher behavior can reduce the effectiveness of social interactions.
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Theoretical background:
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Many researchers have stressed how communities of learners can help students become more deliberate learners with better ability to monitor their progress (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Brown & Campione, 1994; Cohen, 1984; Heller & Heller, in press; Pea, 1987). Cohen (1984), for example, describes the complex interactions that take place between pairs of students, and identifies interaction mechanisms that succeed and fail. Communities of learners, like individuals, can make progress using knowledge integration mechanisms. Clark (2004) develops collaborations to promote learning. Aronson (1978) described the jigsaw, where groups of individuals specialize in different aspects of a complex domain, and follow a process of forming new groups from the prior groups to jointly compare and contrast their ideas and assertions in order to build a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the situation. Design principles summarized in the reciprocal teaching approach to instruction (Palincsar & Brown, 1984) encourage students to compare ideas about complex situations. In reciprocal teaching, communities of learners have the opportunity to observe good role models engaging in the process of making sense of complex situations and to have guided practice in emulating the practices of these role models. Heller et al. (1992) combine context-rich problems with cooperative activity structures to scaffold the process of listening to peers.
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| Tips (Challenges, Limitations, Tradeoffs, Pitfalls): |
| Social interactions are very much depended on the group composition; it is hard to predict the social nature of the group, and learning possibilities are much depended on this variable. |
| References (Off-line): |
Linn, M. C., Davis, E. A., & Bell, P. (2004). Internet environments for science education. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum. |
| Summary of changes (wiki): |
| minor wording edits |
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History
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