Challenge of supporting vocational learning: Empowering collaboration in a scripted 3D game – How does teachers’ real-time orchestration make a difference?

Collaborative 3D learning games for future learning: teachers’ instructional practices to enhance shared knowledge construction among students

“…On the other hand, the teacher's role in these evolving learning environments has become problematized (Hämäläinen & Oksanen, 2012). The findings also suggest that the processes and results of collaborative learning are highly contextual when the students work by themselves in a virtual environment (Arvaja, 2012).…”

“…Since 2004, our series of design-based studies has focused on designing 3D game environments as a response to future learning needs in the vocational education context. Results from these studies have been promising, and it has been noted that games clearly add value to the practice of vocational skills (Hämäläinen, 2008;Hämäläinen, 2011;Hämäläinen & Oksanen, 2012). On one hand, these studies have shown that scripted virtual games can generate high-level learning.…”

“…Firstly, based on our previous empirical evidence (Hämäläinen & Oksanen, 2012), our hypothesis is that groups with real-time teacher instruction (Condition 1) will come up with more shared knowledge construction that can be considered productive (i.e., building knowledge on others' ideas and thoughts) than groups studying without real-time teacher instruction (Condition 2) in the scripted 3D-game setting. The assumption is that real-time teacher instructional activities are favourable for collaborative learning.…”

“…Therefore, eight work-life instructors were interviewed to identify the main shortcomings in terms of the know-how of students graduating from vocational education. (For a more detailed description, see Hämäläinen & Oksanen, 2012.) Based on the interviews, inter-professional knowledge construction was identified as one of the key challenges in current vocational education, as students often have fairly good knowledge on their own profession (e.g., electricity supply), but in real work-life situations, their content knowledge needs to be integrated with that of other professions (e.g., electricity supply as part of construction).…”

Investigating Choices of Appropriate Devices for One-to-One Computing Initiatives in Schools Worldwide

“…In the field of education it has often been argued that using technology may facilitate a shift towards a more constructivist [1] or collaborative pedagogy [2] and those teachers are challenged to support collaborative learning in new ways [3]. According to constructivist theories, learning is an active act of producing reality (knowledge) as opposed to passively receiving it.…”