Individual versus pair work on L2 speech acts: production and cognitive processes

This study aims to examine the extent to which peer collaboration affects EFL learners’ speech act production and cognitive processes. Eleven EFL students in the individual group and 22 students (11 pairs) in the collaborative groups were asked to report their cognitive processes when working on a written discourse completion task (WDCT). The WDCT performances were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale, and the verbalizations were analyzed in terms of pragmatic-related episodes (PREs). Results showed that the individual group scored higher on content, whereas the collaborative group outperformed their counterparts on forms. Regarding the cognitive processes, the individual group tended to plan the general direction of their writing before writing the WDCT and paid more attention to sociopragmatic content while writing. In contrast, the collaborative group planned specific details before the task and attended to pragmalinguistic forms more often while writing.

Collaborative learning in creative writing: A teacher’s perspective

This study aims to determine how the impact of collaborative classes on creative writing and how these classes improve students' abilities in achieving learning outcomes. The research question that exposed is how do teachers perceive teaching creative writing through collaborative project. Collaborative learning offers a number of opportunities for students to learn interpersonal skills and character and teamwork by participating in task-oriented learning groups, so that although the content or learning materials continue to develop, collaborative groups are still able to develop various skills that can prepare students to pursue career. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative. The primary data in this study were taken from interviews with lecturers in creative writing courses. From the analysis it can be seen that collaborative learning engages all students from diverse backgrounds personally and actively, inviting each individual to contribute knowledge and perspectives to the world of education from their own unique lives and also from their academic and vocational experiences.

How Can High-Frequency Sensors Capture Collaboration? A Review of the Empirical Links between Multimodal Metrics and Collaborative Constructs

This paper reviews 74 empirical publications that used high-frequency data collection tools to capture facets of small collaborative groups—i.e., papers that conduct Multimodal Collaboration Analytics (MMCA) research. We selected papers published from 2010 to 2020 and extracted their key contributions. For the scope of this paper, we focus on: (1) the sensor-based metrics computed from multimodal data sources (e.g., speech, gaze, face, body, physiological, log data); (2) outcome measures, or operationalizations of collaborative constructs (e.g., group performance, conditions for effective collaboration); (3) the connections found by researchers between sensor-based metrics and outcomes; and (4) how theory was used to inform these connections. An added contribution is an interactive online visualization where researchers can explore collaborative sensor-based metrics, collaborative constructs, and how the two are connected. Based on our review, we highlight gaps in the literature and discuss opportunities for the field of MMCA, concluding with future work for this project.

Patterns of student collaborative learning in blended course designs based on their learning orientations: a student approaches to learning perspective

This study combines research methods from student approaches to learning research and social network analysis (SNA) to examine patterns of students’ collaborative learning based on their learning orientations amongst 193 postgraduates enrolled in a blended course. The study identified two distinct learning orientations, namely ‘understanding’ and ‘reproducing’, which differed in approaches to learning through inquiry, approaches to using online learning technologies, perceptions of the online workload, and academic outcomes. On the basis of students’ learning orientations and their choice of whether to collaborate and with whom to collaborate, five networks representing five patterns of collaborative learning were found. From these, two did not reveal any collaboration (Understanding Alone and Reproducing Alone networks); and three revealed collaborations (Understanding Collaboration, Mixed Collaboration, Reproducing Collaboration networks). A range of SNA measures were calculated and revealed different features of the three collaboration networks. Viewed together, the combined methodologies suggest that the Understanding Collaboration network has more desirable features of collaboration, such as the intensity of collaboration, having closely knitted groups who tended to seek out and welcome peers and who tended to engage more often in both face-to-face and online modes. The study suggests that helping students adjust their learning orientations, designing some compulsory collaborative assessment tasks, and configuring the composition of collaborative groups are productive strategies likely to improve students’ experiences of collaborative learning.

Developing a Digital Learning Community

Norwegian universities cancelled all campus activity as a response to a nationwide increase in Covid-19 cases. Lectures were moved to online platforms. The pandemic regulations forced us to redesign our teaching for a group of adult learners at the vocational lecturer education. Moving away from traditional lectures and discussion seminars, we designed new collaborative ‘work packages’ accompanied with various practical tasks. Our analysis is based on our teaching material, written student feedback and in-depth interviews. A combination of asynchronous teaching, collaborative groups and online meetings with supervisors created a confidence-building learning community and a safe learning environment. The study shows how students mastered the situation during a national lockdown and took responsibility for their own progress in the course. In the discussion, we highlight how an active two-way communication can foster an online learning community that has a positive impact on students’ learning experiences, and how our strategies led to student empowerment.

Developing Confidence: Visual Art Teaching in a Primary School

<p>In New Zealand specialist courses in the arts at undergraduate level, and one year diplomas in teaching have been reduced. Visual art advisory time allocated to primary school teachers has also been reduced. As a result teachers' confidence in teaching visual art is under threat. This study focused on a group of generalist primary school teachers as they worked to develop their confidence in the teaching of visual art. They worked as a non-hierarchical collaborative group, using action research to analyse the voices of the children in their school, and to reflect on their own practice. Following their reflections they used their developed confidence to develop a visual art self-assessment system. Their developed confidence in teaching visual art enabled them to offer support in the teaching of visual art to other teachers within the school. However, the narrow focus of the study did not allow exploration of why the participants were motivated to develop their expertise in the teaching of visual art. The limitations of the data also failed to reveal whether the participants were able to sustain their collaborative working relationship after the study ended. The study recommends further research into the long-term sustainability of teacher collaborative groups and the motivation that enables teachers to develop their confidence in the teaching of visual art.</p>

Developing Confidence: Visual Art Teaching in a Primary School

<p>In New Zealand specialist courses in the arts at undergraduate level, and one year diplomas in teaching have been reduced. Visual art advisory time allocated to primary school teachers has also been reduced. As a result teachers' confidence in teaching visual art is under threat. This study focused on a group of generalist primary school teachers as they worked to develop their confidence in the teaching of visual art. They worked as a non-hierarchical collaborative group, using action research to analyse the voices of the children in their school, and to reflect on their own practice. Following their reflections they used their developed confidence to develop a visual art self-assessment system. Their developed confidence in teaching visual art enabled them to offer support in the teaching of visual art to other teachers within the school. However, the narrow focus of the study did not allow exploration of why the participants were motivated to develop their expertise in the teaching of visual art. The limitations of the data also failed to reveal whether the participants were able to sustain their collaborative working relationship after the study ended. The study recommends further research into the long-term sustainability of teacher collaborative groups and the motivation that enables teachers to develop their confidence in the teaching of visual art.</p>

INITIATIVES AND ROLE OF WOMEN SCIENTIST FORUMS WITH MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES IN STEM

Women scientists are strategically positioned to drive the current initiatives for achieving targeted sustainable development goals (SDGs). Many women are celebrated today, who have made significant contributions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), despite hurdles they have been faced with in their science careers. Engaging in normal scientific collaborations was difficult for some of them and simply impossible for others. They were not encouraged by the predominantly male environments of university and business worlds, barred from the communities in which male scientists met and conversed, these women in science struggled against discrimination based on gender. While many of these women have been nearly lost to history in a changing world, some achieved such pinnacles as the Nobel Prize by surmounting these hurdles. This paper investigates factors that inhibit women in science. To this end, a survey design based on random sampling technique using a questionnaire instrument was designed, to retrieve information from individuals engaged in science careers. The study population involved one hundred and fourteen post-graduate science students of the University of Benin. Data was collected and analyzed using SPSS 20.0 for descriptive and inferential statistics. The result revealed that females view mentorship as a very important factor towards their career progression in STEM, but 29% lacked mentors. 73% of the women were not aware of women scientist forums with mentorship opportunities. They were faced with the barrier of funding, lack of mentors and personally encountered gender bias amongst other barriers. From our result, it is evident that the role of mentors to mentees and women scientist initiatives alongside forums with mentoring activities, cooperation, networking and collaborative groups is needed to increase the participation of women and girls in STEM. It is recommended that mentoring forums and strategies should be adopted in schools and organizations to encourage girls and women in science.

Theoretical and Empirical Modeling of Identity and Sentiments in Collaborative Groups

Theoretical and Empirical Modeling of Identity and Sentiments in Collaborative Groups (THEMIS.COG) was an interdisciplinary research collaboration of computer scientists and social scientists from the University of Waterloo (Canada), Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and Dartmouth College (USA). This white paper summarizes the results of our research at the end of the grant term. Funded by the Trans-Atlantic Platform’s Digging Into Data initiative, the project aimed at theoretical and empirical modeling of identity and sentiments in collaborative groups. Understanding the social forces behind self-organized collaboration is important because technological and social innovations are increasingly generated through informal, distributed processes of collaboration, rather than in formal organizational hierarchies or through market forces. Our work used a data-driven approach to explore the social psychological mechanisms that motivate such collaborations and determine their success or failure. We focused on the example of GitHub, the world’s current largest digital platform for open, collaborative software development. In contrast to most, purely inductive contemporary approaches leveraging computational techniques for social science, THEMIS.COG followed a deductive, theory-driven approach. We capitalized on affect control theory, a mathematically formalized theory of symbolic interaction originated by sociologist David R. Heise and further advanced in previous work by some of the THEMIS.COG collaborators, among others. Affect control theory states that people control their social behaviours by intuitively attempting to verify culturally shared feelings about identities, social roles, and behaviour settings. From this principle, implemented in computational simulation models, precise predictions about group dynamics can be derived. It was the goal of THEMIS.COG to adapt and apply this approach to study the GitHub collaboration ecosystem through a symbolic interactionist lens. The project contributed substantially to the novel endeavor of theory development in social science based on large amounts of naturally occurring digital data.

La búsqueda de un modelo de evaluación competencial en educación básica. Un estudio de caso en el colegio los pinos de Algeciras

Entre el conjunto de los parámetros que miden la calidad de los sistemas educativos, se encuentra la evaluación, el elemento curricular que lo abarca todo, convirtiéndose en la pieza clave del dispositivo pedagógico (Sanmartí y Jorba, 1993). En estos momentos, la educación, y con ella la evaluación educativa, se encuentra inmersa en un proceso de transformación hacia un nuevo paradigma de la educación basado en competencias (EBC). Un modelo que asigna a la escuela una nueva función, dirigida a formar ciudadanos competentes, preparados para resolver problemas en situaciones reales, con capacidad de aprender a lo largo de toda la vida. El panorama de la educación española, medido en porcentaje de fracaso escolar, requiere que se adopten medidas urgentes al respecto. Y, aunque tocar la evaluación educativa siempre es un tema de controversia por las consecuencias implícitas, tanto sociales como económicas, muchas investigaciones (Tonda y Medina, 2013) confluyen en que, solo tocando la evaluación desde el nivel micro del sistema, puede modificarse el currículo y, para ello, se necesita una transformación en la mentalidad docente. Y mientras los docentes se resisten a dejar sus metodologías tradicionales, una alerta sanitaria mundial paraliza sus actuaciones, haciéndoles dudar de su modelo educativo. El nuevo panorama de la educación basado en competencias (De la Orden, 2011) encuentra su oportunidad abriéndose paso entre las enseñanzas tradicionales basadas en la evaluación de objetivos educacionales y apostando por la evaluación competencial. En ese contexto se desarrolla la tercera fase de esta investigación (Tonda, 2012), que culmina con la implementación de un modelo de evaluación competencial en un centro educativo de Algeciras (Cádiz), el colegio Los Pinos, en sus etapas desde Infantil a Secundaria. Reinventar la evaluación, utilizando la adversidad como una oportunidad para crecer y transformarse, a través de la formación de grupos colaborativos de docentes que trabajan la investigación-acción. Utilizando estrategias formativas basadas en la elaboración de mapas evaluativos competenciales y en la reflexión vertical para encontrar la escalera de contenidos más ajustada que permita conseguir el desarrollo competencial pleno del alumnado. Educational assessment, the key piece of the pedagogical device (Sanmartí y Jorba, 1993), along with the rest of the parameters that measure the quality of education systems, is undergoing a process of transformation towards a new paradigm of education based on competences (EBC). A model that assigns a new role to schools, aimed at training competent citizens, prepared to solve problems in real-life situations, with the ability to learn throughout life. The picture of education in Spain, measured in terms of school failure rates, requires urgent action. And, although touching on educational assessment is always a matter of controversy because of the implicit consequences, both social and economic, many studies (Tonda and Medina, 2013) agree that the curriculum can only be modified by touching on assessment at the micro level of the system and, for this to happen, a transformation in the mentality of teachers is needed. And while teachers are reluctant to abandon their traditional methodologies, a global health alert paralyses their actions, causing them to question their educational model. The new landscape of education based on competences (Ministerial Order, 2011) finds its opportunity to break through traditional teaching based on the assessment of educational objectives and to focus on competency-based assessment. It is in this context that the third phase of this research is developed, culminating in the implementation of a competence assessment model in an educational centre in Algeciras, in its stages from Pre-school to Secondary Education. Reinventing evaluation, using adversity as an opportunity for growth and transformation, through the formation of collaborative groups of teachers working on research-action. Using training strategies based on the development of competency-based assessment maps and on vertical reflection to find the most appropriate content ladder to achieve the full competency development of students.