Computer-Supported Academically Productive Discourse

Abstract

Studies of computer-supported collaborative learning have begun to explore processes of online group cognition-such as small-group methods of problem solving-and how they can be mediated by various technological and interactional mechanisms to promote academically productive discourse. This chapter first presents (1) an analysis of co-presence as a foundational aspect of online interaction in an excerpt of chat discourse. Based on how the students in this excerpt actually interact, it develops (2) a notion of intersubjective shared understanding as necessary for the possibility of collaborative knowledge-building dialog. The chapter concludes with (3) a discussion of consequences for the design of computer support of academically productive online group cognition. An Excerpt of Computer-Supported DiscourseThe studies of digital interaction by virtual math teams presented in (Stahl, 2009) adopt an ethnomethodological interest in how interaction is actually carried out in particular online contexts. They assume that the member methods or group practices of computer-mediated interaction developed by small groups of students may differ significantly from commonsense assumptions of researchers based on experience with face-to-face interaction. If this is true, then it is important to explore actual instances of digital interaction before designing interventions in such settings.This section reviews how a team of three students collaboratively achieved a cognitive accomplishment as a distributed online group. The log of their interaction makes visible mechanisms by which academically productive discourse can arise naturally in settings of "computer-supported collaborative learning," or CSCL (Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2006). The data analysis presented in this initial section is not intended as an illustration of pre-existing theories; rather, the theory in the next section emerges from this and similar data. "Wait…. I don't really see"-Establishing Co-presenceFigure 1 (left) shows a screenshot of the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) software environment, being used by three middle-school students. They volunteered to participate in this online, synchronous math activity with other students from around the world. The students are collaboratively investigating mathematical patterns (combinatorics) related to sequences of geometric figures. In the lower right of the whiteboard is a stair-step pattern of blocks remaining on the board from their previous day's session. Currently, the students are considering a pattern of regular hexagons, which they will visualize in a grid of triangles they construct in the lower left.