This study reports the effects of online peer assessment, in the form of peer grading and peer feedback, on students' learning. One hundred and eighty one high school students engaged in peer assessment via an online system-iLap. The number of gradegiving and grade-receiving experiences was examined and the peer feedback was coded according to different cognitive and affective dimensions. The effects, on both assessors and assessees, were analyzed using multiple regression. The results indicate that the provision by student assessors of feedback that identified problems and gave suggestions was a significant predictor of the performance of the assessors themselves, and that positive affective feedback was related to the performance of assessees. However, peer grading behaviors were not a significant predictor of project performance. This study explains the benefits of online peer assessment in general and highlights the importance of specific types of feedback. Moreover, it expands our understanding of how peer assessment affects the different parties involved.

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The theoretical distinctions between metacognition, self-regulation and selfregulated learning are often blurred which makes the definition of co-regulation in group learning situations even more difficult. We have started to explore co-regulation in the context of decision making in simulated emergencies where medical teams work together to manage patient cases. Our earlier work has described the relationship between collaborative decision-making in this context as well as discourse patterns that emerge in a simulated medical emergency (Lu & Lajoie, 2008). This paper examines the interactions that occur during this simulation that reflect the relationship between coregulation and medical decision-making. There are two collaborative learning conditions, a traditional situation where the instructor facilitates collaboration by using a whiteboard to document the group's construction of a medical argument (the traditional whiteboard condition, TW). The second condition uses technology to facilitate the collaboration, where individuals use laptops and an interactive whiteboard (IW) where they can interact with the problem list as it is being created. Our assumption was that the IW would facilitate communication beyond the teacher-student, to include student-student both within and between the various subgroups. The IW group could document their medical arguments by using a structured template for constructing, annotating and sharing arguments. We found that participants in the IW condition differed from the TW condition in that they engaged in more adaptive decision-making behavior early on in the intervention. Similar overall levels of metacognitive activity were found in both conditions but the pattern and timing of metacognitive categories varied. Specifically, the IW group engaged in more planning and orienting than the TW group at the outset of the problem. Early engagement and co-regulation occurred in the IW group which led to shared understandings and subsequently to effective patient management in latter sessions (11.5% vs. 3.6% in TW). Technology supported greater metacognitive activity Metacognition Learning (2012) 7:45-62

This study examines the role of regulatory processes in medical students as they learn to deliver bad news to patients in the context of an international web-based problem based learning environment (PBL). In the PBL a medical facilitator and students work together to examine video cases on giving bad news and share their perspectives on what was done effectively and what could be done differently. We examine how regulation occurs within this collaboration. A synchronous computer-supported collaborative learning environment (CSCL) facilitated peer discussion at a distance using a combination of tools that included video-conferencing, chat boxes, and a shared whiteboard to support collaborative engagement. We examine regulation along a continuum, spanning from self- to co-regulation, in situations where medical students learn how to manage their own emotions and adapt their responses to patient reactions. We examine the nature of the discourse between medical students and facilitators to illustrate the conditions in which metacognitive, co-regulation and social emotional activities occur to enhance learning about how to communicate bad news to patients

Small-group medical problem-based learning (PBL) was a pioneering form of collaborative learning at the university level. It has traditionally been delivered in face-to-face text-based format. With the advancement of computer technology and progress in CSCL, educational researchers are now exploring how to design digitally-implemented scaffolding tools to facilitate medical PBL. The “deteriorating patient” (DP) role play was created as a medical simulation that extends traditional PBL and can be implemented digitally. We present a case study of classroom usage of the DP role play that examines teacher scaffolding of PBL under two conditions: using a traditional whiteboard (TW) and using an interactive whiteboard (IW). The introduction of the IW technology changed the way that the teacher scaffolded the learning. The IW showed the teacher all the information shared within the various subgroups of a class, broadening the basis for informed classroom scaffolding. The visual records of IW usage demonstrated what students understood and reduced the need to structure the task. This allowed more time for engaging students in challenging situations by increasing the complexity of the problem. Although appropriate scaffolding is still based on the teacher’s domain knowledge and pedagogy experience, technology can help by expanding the scaffolding choices that an instructor can make in a medical training context