Scripted collaborative drawing in elementary science education

Abstract

Creating graphical representations can foster knowledge gains on science topics in elementary school students by promoting active integration and translation of new information. Collaborating on joint representations may encourage children to discuss and elaborate their knowledge. To foster productive interactions, children may greatly benefit from additional guidance through collaboration scripts or careful group composition. In this study, we investigate the effects of script support and group composition by social preference on children's learning processes and outcomes in a collaborative drawing setting within science education. The script foresaw a phase of individual preparation and prompted learners to engage in critical interactions. Group composition was based on children's preferences for peers to work with. Results show that whereas the drawings of unscripted children depicted the concepts to be learned more adequately, scripted children acquired more domain knowledge during the experience. We discuss how a script can facilitate learning through collaborative drawing by imposing additional challenges on children's interactions.

Scripts, individual preparation and group awareness support in the service of learning in Facebook: How does CSCL compare to social networking sites?

“…Learners can prepare for the discussion, e.g. prepare their individual solutions or reflect on their standpoints and create their individual arguments in order to compare and combine them during collaboration (e.g., Asterhan & Schwarz, 2009;Baker, 2009;van Boxtel, van der Linden, & Kanselaar, 2000;van Dijk, Gijlers, & Weinberger, 2013). Combinations of individual and collaborative phases may motivate learners and allow them to prepare in their own pace and give rise to different processes of argumentation.…”

The impact of classroom context upon 1st and 2nd grade students’ critical criteria for science representations

“…This includes observing closely to produce detailed drawings of objects under study (Vlach and Carver 2008), progressively refining scientific symbols (Enyedy et al 2012) and iteratively refining models of scientific phenomenon based on observation and experimentation (Lehrer and Schauble 2000). With the right instructional supports, early elementary students are capable of participating in a rich set of representational practices as they learn science content (NRC 2007) which can, in turn, help students to learn the content more deeply (van Dijk et al 2013).…”

Learning together in mixed-ability elementary classrooms

“…Social skills, such as decision making and conflict-managing skills, are considered to be complex and require extensive training. Research into children's social skills during cooperative processes has indicated that younger children especially need training in these skills (Gijlers, Weinberger, van Dijk, Bollen, & van Joolingen, 2013;van Dijk, Gijlers, & Weinberger, 2014), and that this training should occur outside of the cooperative process itself (cf., Saab, van Joolingen, & van Hout-Wolters, 2007).…”

“…Transactive dialogue requires children to reflect and act upon each other's reasoning to grasp and process the information. However, research has shown that younger children often experience difficulties with engaging in transactive dialogue and need extensive training to gain these skills (Gijlers et al, 2013;van Dijk et al, 2014 (Zimmerman, 2007). Making these children rely on their own abilities to gather and select knowledge to share could create a dialogue with less information to be shared and learned than might be possible.…”

“…Johnson et al (2007) stated, however, that the appropriate use of social skills during a cooperative process is an important prerequisite for the success of the cooperative process. Deciding whether support on social skills were to be part of the worksheet was based on the consideration that social skills are considered to be complex skills and require intensive training (cf., Saab et al, 2007), especially for younger children (Gijlers, Weinberger, van Dijk, Bollen, & van Joolingen, 2013;van Dijk, Gijlers, & Weinberger, 2014).…”