Promoting Students’ Collective Cognitive Responsibility through Concurrent, Embedded and Transformative Assessment in Blended Higher Education Courses

Abstract

This study investigates different instructional designs to promote students’ collective cognitive responsibility for Knowledge Building in blended university courses. Using an iterative, design-based research methodology with reference to the conjecture mapping technique, the blended learning design of an undergraduate educational psychology course was refined over three years in three design iterations. The iterations differed substantially in the embodiment of the Concurrent Embedded and Transformative Assessment Knowledge Building principle that engaged students in knowledge assessments and strategy assessments of their community’s work. The design of the knowledge assessment involved face-to-face small group and whole class discussions in all three iterations. In the first and second iterations, students also worked online by writing individual reflections and contributing to a community portfolio. The design of the strategy assessment changed in each iteration. In the first iteration, the students’ strategy assessment took place in face-to-face discussions; in the second iteration, students contributed to an online community portfolio; and in the third iteration, the strategy assessment took place in an online community portfolio and face-to-face discussions before beginning the course and in the online community portfolio in the middle of the course. Collective cognitive responsibility was analyzed in terms of productive and informative participation, interdependence between participants, self-regulation skills. The results show that the second iteration’s design was most effective for fostering the students' collective cognitive responsibility, showing an increase in productive participation and self-regulation skills in the first part of the course and also an increase in the interdependence of participants during the course. Some implications concerning the relationship between the implementation of the CETA principle and Knowledge Building are identified for future directions of inquiry and for blended learning environments design.

Shared Metacognition in a Community of Inquiry

“…Suggestions about how to proceed with research to understand approaches to design shared metacognitive strategies can be enormously valuable. Cacciamani et. al (2021) offer suggestions in the context of a study that addresses metacognition from a pragmatic collective cognitive perspective that assesses knowledge individually and collectively.…”

Activating teachers’ epistemic agency to implement knowledge building in classroom: A case analysis of the “Classi in rete” project

“…These results show that thanks to the training, teachers have become au-tonomous in managing the reading, writing and revision of notes and build-on in KF and therefore they are in the condition to use KF in the rural and multigrade classroom with their students. In addition, the correlations between different kinds of participation highlight, as suggested by Cacciamani et al (2021), that this appropriation is realized in the perspective of assuming a collective cognitive responsibility about knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2002).…”

“…Following this assumption Cacciamani (ibid.) studied the correlation between informative and productive participation as evidence of interdependence among community members, considered as an indicator of the collective cognitive responsibility (Cacciamani et al, 2021). The correlation between the two different kinds of participation indicates, then, the assumption of collective cognitive responsibility, and can be considered also evidence of the appropriation of the KF use.…”

Coélaborer des connaissances au baccalauréat : analyse d’une pratique à partir d’un cadre de référence des compétences du 21e siècle

“…Cinq principes pédagogiques phares permettent d'organiser le travail de coélaboration de connaissances (Allaire et Lusignan, 2011). Ils ont été adaptés à partir des 12 principes originaux (Scardamalia et Bereiter, 2010), qui sont toujours en usage dans différents contextes internationaux (Cacciamani et al, 2021) :…”

“…À l'exception des balises d'échafaudage qui seront discutées ultérieurement dans le texte, le design de la pratique est demeuré constant au fil des années. Néanmoins, il importe de préciser que d'autres façons de faire peuvent être envisagées (Cacciamani et al, 2021).…”