DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES
When You Can Ask a Question,
You Already Understand Something About the Problem
Students’ Questions
During
the CSCL Nettilehtori -pilot Project
by
Anu Muhonen
1 INTRODUCTION ... 2
2 BACKGROUND OF CALL ... 4
3 RESEARCH ON CALL ... 7
4 CSCL -THEORIES ... 11
4.1THE ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT ... 13
4.2CONSTRUCTIVISM ... 14
4.3PROBLEM BASED LEARNING ... 16
4.4SITUATED COGNITION ... 19
4.5COGNITIVE APPRENTICERSHIP ... 20
4.6DISTRIBUTED COGNITION ... 22
4.7SELF-REGULATED LEARNING ... 24
4.8COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY THEORY ... 25
5 THE NETTILEHTORI-PILOT, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND DATA ... 29
5.1THE NETTILEHTORI-PILOT ... 29
5.2RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND DATA ... 36
6 ANALYSIS ... 38
6.1QUESTIONS TO OTHER STUDENTS ... 39
6.1.1 Personal questions ... 40
6.1.2 Language questions... 49
6.1.3 Technical questions ... 55
6.1.4 Questions about the exercises ... 56
6.2QUESTIONS TO THE TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS ... 62
6.2.1 Language questions... 63
6.2.2 Technical questions ... 65
6.2.3 Questions about the exercises and task assignments ... 73
7 DISCUSSION ... 74
8 CONCLUSION... 86
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 91
1 INTRODUCTION
Computer networks provide excellent new opportunities for twenty-first century communication. Global demographic and technological changes are leading to unpredicted levels of contacts in both domestic and international contexts. For us, language teachers, these changes present numerous exciting opportunities as well as significant new challenges.
Since electronic technologies first appeared in educational settings, there have been important changes to literacy practises associated with their use. Technology can be used in word processing, electronic mail (e-mail), hypertext or the Internet, and these technologies always alter the way language is produced, processed and used. Applications of these technologies influence the generation, manipulation, storage, retrieval and revision of texts as well as the products at the end. The rapidly expanding use of computer networking in many parts of the world is changing the way people communicate and produce knowledge today. Foreign language teaching is reaching a new era hand in hand with these technological changes.
Foreign language teaching has also gone through many changes during the past decades. The focus of teaching has developed from structural perspective and teaching grammatical rules into more constructive approaches, which place specific pressure on communicative skills. Today’s language learners start communicating and using language in real life (IRL) situations in a rather early state of foreign language learning, whereas not a very long time ago students used to practise drilling exercises in a closed language laboratory, which did not particularly foster interactiveness. Another major change currently occurring is that foreign language teaching has also started to make a distinction between spoken and written language. In addition to the new dualition, e-mail is forming yet another new concept of language, which also brings interesting new aspects to language teaching.
One of the most significant changes of foreign language teaching and learning is the newest innovation in language learning: Computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL), which is defined by Crawley (2002: 4), as the use of computers to support and promote shared experience, peer exchange, interaction among equals, the development of shared mental models, shared purpose, common practices of interaction and communication and the formation of bonds in educational co-operation. In general, CSCL can provide possibilities for successful learning, as according to Scardamalia and
Breiter (1996: 258), CSCL fosters knowledge building discourse, which is characterised by “focus on problems and depth of understanding, decentralized, open knowledge environments for collective understanding and productive interaction within broadly conceived knowledge-building communities”. Therefore, CSCL provides an environment that is profitable also for language learning.
For many foreign language learners, especially for those who study LWULT (less widely used, learnt and taught) languages like Finnish, the contacts with the target language are often limited. Students living on the other side of the world, such as in the United States, receive foreign language input and communicative practises often only in the classroom settings, created by an individual teacher. Teachers, on the other hand, use the material they have available such as textbooks, tapes, videos and CDs to provide that. In the worst case, LWULT language teachers may not have money to attain the latest teaching materials, as the number of students is often rather small and the financial and material support from the local university may be very little. Therefore, the use of the new technologies is bringing something good and useful particularly to teachers of LWULT languages and, naturally, to the language learners.
Computer serves as a transparent vehicle for real-life situations and also for interpersonal communication. As Bolter (1998: 11) mentions, computers can be used to simulate the real world and to create natural interaction between students that are separated by long distances. Therefore, for many foreign language teachers, the Internet provides a significant and useful media for language input helping the students to get in touch with the real language use.
It goes without saying that people learn language by using it. People learn to communicate by communicating. Therefore, the Internet in particular has become very useful medium of communication and aid to support foreign language teaching. Teachers today are currently exploiting the potential of new channels of communication to develop students’ language and communication skills. An example of such collaborative and communicative foreign language learning and teaching course, the Nettilehtori-pilot, was carried out during the autumn semester 2001 among several North-American universities second-year Finnish as a foreign language classes. Nettilehtori-pilot was a CSCL project, which goal was to offer a new opportunity to use Finnish and get in touch with other Finnish students in the US. The project was
designed around interactive virtual environment in which students were able to perform both group and pair activities as well as make use of group and pair discussion facilities. The Nettilehtori-pilot will be later introduced in detail in the present study.
As Nettilehtori-pilot was collaborative and based on groups of students communicating via the Internet, the purpose of the present paper is to take a closer look on the questions that were asked during the Nettilehtori-pilot course. The main focus of the present study is: What kind of questions do the students ask each other, teachers and administrators of the course? It will also be interesting to examine in what language are these questions addressed. The core theoretical frame of reference for the study is formed by computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) -theories.
In the following, the background of computer supported language teaching and the previous research on the field will be reported. Also the concept of CSCL-theory will be further discussed in depth and integrated to the Nettilehtori-pilot project. Before the analysis, the Nettilehtori-pilot course will be introduced. The reseach questions are then formulated based on the CSCL-theories and the Nettilehtori-pilot project. After the analysis, also some suggestions for future CSCL Finnish as a foreign language courses will be introduced.
2 BACKGROUND OF CALL
It is important for today’s language teacher to see the history, as well as the present and the future, of the use of computers within the rather long educational context. In order to understand the present and the future of the rapidly changing discipline, it is important to explore the history of research of computers in foreign language teaching and learning. Computers did not arrive suddenly and the technology has developed within a long period of time.
Computer technology that has been used in language teaching reflects the same universal patterns and theoretical perspectives as language teaching in general. It has been developing from the so called structural perspectives into the present communicative language teaching and learning approaches. The shifting contexts of language teaching and learning orientations reflect also the way computers have been and are being used in language teaching. These gradual shifts also parallel
developments in technology from the mainframe to the personal and the networked computer (Warshauer and Kern 2000: 7). CALL, computer assisted language learning, defined by Levy (1997: 1) as “the search for and study of applications of the computer in language learning and teaching”, has been made possible by the invention and subsequent development of the computer. The nature of CALL depends on the level of development of the technology.
The earliest CALL programmes consisted of grammar and vocabulary tutorials, drill and practise programs and language testing instruments that put the main focus on the structural aspects of the language. These programs were designed for mainframe computers in 1960s and 1970s and the purpose was to provide immediate feedback to learners on the formal accuracy of their language use. (Kern and Warshauer 2000: 8.) This was consistent of the, so called, structuralist approach, which believed that repeated drilling exercises were essential and useful in foreign language learning. For much of the twentieth century, traditional language teaching emphasised the formal analysis of the language and, according to Warshauer (2000: 3), these structural methologies conceived language learning as a habit formation and were designed to
condition learners to produce automatic and correct responses to linguistic stimuli. After the use of the early drilling CALL exercises, the material started to shift
agency to the learner. These, so called, cognitive approaches started to see that computers can be used as a tools and resources, not just controllers of learning. Learners started to construct new knowledge, which provided opportunities for problem solving and hypothesis testing allowing learners to test use their existing knowledge in order to attain new understandings. (Kern and Warshauer 2000: 9.)
The new more advanced and sophisticated computer programs had a significant role. According to Kern and Warshauer (2000: 9), they contained full-motion videos, sounds, graphics and texts, allowing learners to “wonder or walk” around and to explore simulated environments. These applications also consisted of many tools for language comprehension, and as Kern and Warshauer (2000: 9) add, they helped the learner to understand sometimes challenging spoken language by giving students samples of many language functions, such as greetings and expressing feelings. It seems that these cognitive approaches were significantly advanced compared to the early structural behaviouristic CALL materials because they provided new kind of input and means for
analytic procedures. Yet, even after that, CALL materials have greatly developed and changed.
As CALL materials developed further, the so called socio-cognitive approaches shifted the language learning dynamics from learner’s interactions with the computers to interaction with other students via the computer. They provided alternative contexts for social interaction facilitating access to new discourse communities. This is also the nature of the present Nettilehtori-pilot project, as will be later demonstrated. Naturally, this is made possible by more efficient and technologically advanced hardware and software. It is easy to say that at the present stage where the computers can be used as tools for interaction, it is evident that computers, networks and the Internet have also further developed. According to Warshauer (2000: 11), socio-cognitive approaches provide alternative contexts for social interaction: they facilitate access to existing discourse communities and the creation of new ones.
According to Kern and Warshauer (2000: 11), computer networking today in the language classrooms stems from two important technological and social developments: computer mediated communication (CMC) and globally linked texts, the so called World Wide Web. CMC has been explained as a way of communication that:
“--Allows language learners with network access to communicate with other learners or speakers of the target language in either asynchronous (not simultaneous) or synchronous (simultaneous, in real time) modes. Through tools such as e-mail, which allows participants to compose messages whenever they choose, or the Internet Relay Chats, that allow individuals all around the world to have simultaneous conversation by typing at their keyboards, CMC permits not only one-to-one communication but also one-to-many communication. It therefore allows a teacher or students to share a message with a small group, the whole class or a partner class, or an international discussing list involving hundreds or thousands of people. Participants can share not only brief messages but also lengthy documents, thus facilitating collaborative reading and writing. (Kern and Warshauer 2000: 11-12.)
Computer networking allows students to have an access to other students as well as to infinite degree of information and data in the World Wide Web. As Kern and Warshauer (2000: 12) continue, globally linked hypertexts represent a new important medium for linking, organizing and accessing information: It features multi-linear strands linked electronically, integration of graphic, audio and audiovisual information together with texts, rapid global access and easy and low cost of international publications. Therefore, the WWW gives language students uncountable possibilities to get in touch with the target language input, by, for example, reading texts, newspapers,
listening to the radio or music and watching television. Many students also take part in Chat environments.
It is easy to say that the new advanced technology takes the language learning into a completely new phase by creating new learning environments. Therefore, as also Warshauer (2000: 12) mentions, the so called new pedagogy of networked computers must take a rather broad view taking into an account the role of information technology in language learning in the present information technology societies. Computers are just not machines to utilize but every day life for post-modern people, as they, in general, already compose a widely used and familiar medium for local and global communication. Naturally, this poses new aspects also for today’s foreign language teachers.
As Kern and Warshauer (2000: 11) state, the so called artificial intelligence (AI) does already exist but the costs and technical demands are yet far too demanding to be implemented into use in every day language learning. Yet, one can speculate, whether the next phase in the development of CALL will be the “intelligent CALL”, with software where real interaction takes place. This would mean even more meaningful IRL communication. As face-to-face communication is currently being integrated to the computer supported language learning practises, the interpersonal communication with
the artificially intelligent computer may follow in the near future educational practises.
3 RESEARCH ON CALL
Although CSCL is already rather widely used today, there is not much research on the topic. Most of the written material is on CALL or Network based language teaching (NBLT), which can be defined as language teaching, that involves the use of computers connected to another in either local or global networks (Kern & Warshauer 2000: 1). Written information can also be found on the computer mediated communication (CMC), which typically occurs in one or two formats: synchronous and asynchronous. In a synchronous format, participants exchange messages in a spontaneous chat mode in which postings simultaneously appear on the screen one after another. Students participate in these online chat exchanges within a networked computers employing software that allows them to do so. The software usually includes a format for sharing
messages by adding one’s own message to subsequent already existing messages as a continually scrolling window. Software, used for asynchronous exchanges, allows participants to post messages that are read and responded to by others at their leisure without the pressure of engaging in an online chat mode. (Beach and Lundell 1998: 93-94.). In the Nettilehtori-pilot course, CMC took place in a synchronous format, as the software consisted of chat reached and used by all the participants.
As one takes a look on today’s newspapers and magazines, computers in education is a very popular topic and constantly under discussion (see, for example, Alamäki 2001 and Halonen, 2002). Yet, most of the published papers seem to be reports by single projects led by an individual teacher (see, for example, El-Wardi &Johns 1997/1998, Lam 2000, Tuomainen 2000). According to Warshauer (2000: 41), the small number of systematic studies that have been published report on narrow aspects of the field, such as the outcome of particular class sessions (Kern 1995) or students use of particular discourse features (Chun 1994). To stress, most of the written data is on CALL, and not directly on CSCL.
The research and written documents on the role of computers in language learning have changed diachronically together with the paradigms of CALL. The early reports paid attention to the language performance of students using CALL programs. The attempt was to determine, whether CALL programs were superior to other classroom methods in gaining structural accuracy. The cognitive paradigm focused research on the development of individual process, strategies and competencies by using measures such as motivational surveys, observations, recordings and think-aloud protocols. The socio-cognitive paradigm and the emphasis on learning through computers networks had its focus on how the discourse and discourse communities have developed during use of computer networks. (Kern and Warshauer (2000: 13-14.)
Most CALL research has been reported on teaching English as a foreign language. Warshauer (1999) completed a two-year ethnographic study of on-line learning in four college language and writing classrooms in Hawaii. The purpose of the study was to attempt to achieve a holistic understanding of the actual implementation of online learning e.g. attempting to understand how the students and teachers themselves perceive CALL experiences. Warshauer (1999) reports that using computers seems to raise people’s expectations and feelings that they fully participate in a meaningful activity, so that they are frustrated when they are not given the opportunity. The study
also shows that authentic purpose generally coincides with rhetorical appropriateness and that e-mail has its own rhetoric features. Warshauer (1999) also mentions that although authentic communication is a necessary condition for meaningful electronic language use, it is not sufficient. In the study, after initial enthusiasm, students later tired of communicative on-line activities. Yet, they showed high motivations and serious engagement on tasks that students perceived as being tied to larger important goals, such as writing skills or maintaining their language. Lastly, Warshauer (1999) also reports that the Internet appears to be a particularly important medium for fostering the exploration and expression of cultural and social identity. This is an important aspect that should be paid attention to in foreign and second language teaching. In situations where contacts with a particular culture are rare or difficult to reach, the Internet may provide a useful medium for these contacts. The Internet can also support one’s cultural identity by providing a medium for identity searching and maintaining in situations, where one is separated from the secondary culture with a long geomethrical distance. In summary, electronic learning activities should be learner-centered, based on authentic communication in ways rhetorically appropriate for the medium, be tied to making some real difference in the world and provide students an opportunity to express and explore their identity (Warshauer 1999).
Pellettieri (2000) reports on a descriptive study of non-native speaker chats with twenty students from the undergraduate Spanish program at the University of California Davis. The purpose of the study was to see, whether negotiation of meaning occur in task-based synchronous NBC as it does in oral interaction and whether the negotiations facilitate mutual comprehension and whether the negotiated interactions foster the provision of correct feedback. Pellettieri’s (2000) study demonstrated that task-based synchronous NBC, such as chatting, can foster the negotiation of the meaning. Learners involved in NBC chats negotiated over various aspects. In addition, learners provide and are provided corrective feedback. It also indicates that NBC routines facilitate mutual comprehension and successful communication. (Pellettieri 2002.)
There have been several studies of classroom chatting (see, for example Bump 1990) that emphasise that learners accept the new medium as a good way of communication. These studies show that during NBC chats, learners felt reduced anxiety about participating and increasing motivation for using the target language. Current research indicates that chatting can also foster the development of
socio-linguistic and interactive competence. Chun (1994) made a survey on the language production of first and second semester learners of German during 15-20 minute short chats about current topics of importance. He came into a conclusion that language learners produced a wide variety of discourse structures and speech acts: they greet each other, initiate meaning negotiations, ask and answer questions and discuss various topics. Chun (1994) also gives a list of modificational interactions that learners produce during the NBC chats, such as clarification and confirmation requests (I don’t understand, “Is that a question?). Yet, the question how these discussions enhance mutual comprehension and foster learning was not further discussed. Beauvois (1992: 460) reports on a study concerning the production of Portuguese language learners in chats and reports that students were actively involved in the discussion and their responses to each other show that students understand each other and are willing to reply. Therefore, it seems that NBC does foster some positive results in language learning by providing a medium for communication that would otherwise be lacked which then seems to raise motivation to communicate.
Some studies within the collaborative learning (CL) can be found. Collaborative learning allows students working together to achieve common learning goals. Stevens et al. (1987) made a study on students doing reading and composition exercises in a co-operative process and reported that students working in a collaborative groups significantly outperformed those receiving traditional instruction on standardised measures of reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, language mechanics, language expression and spelling. They also performed better on writing sample and oral reading measures. (Stevens et all. 1987.) In foreign language instruction, Bejarano (1987) assessed the effects of two small-group co-operative techniques and a whole-class method on the academic achievement of 665 seventh grade pupils and found that students in the small-group methods significantly outperformed students in the whole-class method.
There is some literature that can be found on collaborative writing. Mackler (1987) studied the collaborative course work writing among 49 US undergraduates and reported that “the majority of respondents felt that the group produced a stronger, higher quality paper than the one that they could have produced alone” (Mackler 1987: 7). Beck (1993) reports on a survey of the experience of collaborative writing of 23 academic authors and found that more discussion took place during writing than before
or after. There was also a correlation between responses to statements about group wide discussions on the organization of work and well as on the content and structure of the documents. Beck (1993) also shows that there is an element of collective responsibility running in parallel with individual or sub-group responsibility in the joint writing project. Yet, according to Pellettieri (2000: 59), there is no published research that demonstrates that NBC chatting holds the same potential for the development of grammatical competence as the oral interaction.
In general, finding objective scientific information about the previous research on the field was rather difficult in Finland. Many articles have been written and most of them adress the positive outcomes of CSCL. Yet, only few really possess significant information. It must also be mentioned that there is not much written research on Finnish as a second/foreign language in connection to CSCL, NBC or NBLT. Particularly, nothing could be found written in Finnish on CSCL. Therefore, the fact that not much written data exists on the topic justifies the role of the present paper as giving new information for future CSCL Finnish as a foreign language projects. The present research information thus supports the fact that CSCL –courses, such as the Nettilehtori-pilot course are useful, as stated, for example, by Warshauer (1999).
4 CSCL -THEORIES
As Nettilehtori-pilot project was both constructivist and communicative in nature, the so-called CSCL theory forms the core theoretical frame of reference for the present study. According also to Lin Hsiao (2002: 1), computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) forms a very useful theoretical and methodological framework for computer supported learning today. Nevertheless, I was forced to note that finding a single definition for CSCL was not an easy task. As Crawley (2002: 1) mentions, CSCL is in very close relation to computer supported collaborative work (CSCW), which can be defined as “a computer-based network system that supports group work in a common task and provides a shared interface for groups to work with”.
The difference between CSCW and CSCL is that CSCW focuses on the communication techniques themselves, and CSCL ‘s focus is on what is being discussed. As Crawley (2002: 2) explains: “
The obvious difference between CSCL and CSCW is context or purpose; learning and work. The two fields both support group collaboration, but the intention is different. CSCW supports collaboration for the purposes of achieving a joint goal. Certainly, learning can occur as a result of this but that learning is incidental and the result of no specific pedagogical aim. For group collaboration through CSCL, however, the goal is primarily to learn.”
Therefore, CSCL is usually used in educational settings and its purpose is to effectively support students collaborative learning.
Within CSCL lies the assumption that computer supported systems can support and facilitate group process and dynamics in ways that are not achievable in face-to-face communication. Yet, it must be remembered that CSCL facilities and tools are not by any means designed to replace interpersonal communication in face-to-face situations. CSCL systems are typically designed for use by multiple learners working at the same work station or across networked machines. This can thus support communicating ideas and information, accessing information and documents, and providing feedback on problem solving activities. (Lin Hsiao 2002: 1.). The present Nettilehtori-pilot project did provide means for communication that would have otherwise been missing from the participating students separated by longs distances, and therefore gave students a channel for communication that they would have otherwise lacked.
CSCL includes features from many different theories. As Lin Hsiao (2002: 2) writes, the emergence of these theories are: sociocultural theory, based on Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), constructivist theory, self regulation learning, situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeships, problem based learning, cognitive flexibility theory and distributed cognition. All these will be later defined and explained. The fusion of the present theories composes a very complete unity that rather exceptionally builds up a theoretical framework for the present Nettilehtori-pilot project. In the following, the ideas of CSCL –theory will also be reflected to the Nettilehtori-pilot project in order to justify the particular choice of theoretical framework in the present study.
CSCL aims at providing both authentic environments and multiperspectives in learning that can be integrated to students’ prior knowledge. Computer supported
systems work as cognitive tools that can team individuals with the technology to form a joint intelligence that shares the work during the group process. The explicit goal of CSCL is to facilitate deep understanding, and although CSCL software’s can differ, they all have a general characteristic to promote reflection and inquiry that assists the in-depth learning. (Lin Hsiao 2002: 2.)
One can easily state that the Nettilehtori-pilot possesses all these ideas within its software, exercises and the functional principles. It is designed to foster individual language learner group work in an authentic writing environment and students active reflection with others who study Finnish. As Tuomainen, Lehtonen and Nurmela (personal communication, 2001, 2002) also reflect, it provides the students with the possibility for in depth language learning in collaboration with other students of Finnish as a second/foreign language in a meaningful contexts.
4.1 The Zone of Proximal Development
The oldest theory that contributes to the CSCL theory is Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning. As mentioned in, for example, Confrey (1991: 28), Vygotsky places social interaction into an essential role: Activity is inherently social, and it is through the engagement of activity, in the company of other people that intellectual development inspires. In other words, mental functioning occurs first between people in social interaction and then within individual’s inner mental process. This implies that thinking and learning, reasoning, problem solving or memory can be carried out in collaboration by several people as well as by an individual.
Vygotsky (1978: 85) intended the notion of zone of proximal development (ZPD) to capture the fact that “learning should be matched in some manner with the child’s developmental status”. He also argues that one cannot understand learners’ developmental level unless one considers the actual developmental level and the so-called potential developmental level. Learning should therefore support intentional learning. “The zone of proximal development is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers”. (Vygotsky 1978: 86.) In other words, actual level refers to the functions that child can perform independently and the ZPD refers to
the functions and activities that one needs assistance with or is capable to achieve with assistance.
Social interaction creates such zone of proximal development that can operate initially only in collaborative interactions. Gradually, as Vygotsky (1978: 90) adds, the learning process is “internalised” and becomes part of the “independent developmental achievement”. Thinking is a social activity initially shared by people but eventually internalised to individuals achievement and learning. Vygotsky’s view of learning in the zone of proximal development can, therefore, be seen as a two stage process: In the initial phase of problem solving students encourage, support and work together, and after that come into their individual understanding and conclusions based on their experiments. Yet, proper and correct instruction is also essential to the Vygotsky’s theory of learning. According to Rogoff and Wertsch (1984: 3) in Vygotsky’s view, instruction is good only when it proceeds ahead of development, when it rouses to life the functions, which are in a stage of maturing.
Vygotsky’s socio-cultural learning and ZPD can be successfully employed to the present Nettilehtori-pilot project studying in the computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment, as they apply many of the same ideas as the Nettilehtori-pilot project. As Tuomainen (personal communication, 2001) and Lehtonen (personal communication, 2002) also mention, one of the main ideas in the Nettilehtori-pilot course was to give students input in Finnish for individual, peer and group work. The given language input was deliberatively designed to be a little above the individual students actual language level, in other words, to Vygotsky’s ZPD, in order to facilitate deeper learning and understanding by working in collaboration. This would then lead to individual learning giving the students the language learning experiences they individually are ready and capable to achieve.
4.2 Constructivism
Although constructivism alone does not compose a single unified theory of learning, a great deal has been written about it and its ideas have widely spread into all fields of studies. Collaborative knowledge constructing is in a significant role in constructivism. According to Tynjälä (1999: 37) constructivism ties together ideas of knowledge constructed by individual learners together with learner communities and it strongly
rejects the idea that objective knowledge can be constructed just by separate individual experiences. Tynjälä (1999: 38) continues that constructivism sees information as active cognitive process in which learners reflect new knowledge with the already existing one. Constructivism encourages language learning in an authentic environment and places an emphasis on the social interaction, meaning negotiations, collaborative working and constructing meanings in a real life (IRL) surroundings.
As learning is not passive reception, but learner’s active doing, the emphasis of teaching is special too. In the light of constructivism, teaching is not just giving input but merely guiding and helping the students to find their own knowledge and ways of learning. Students are in a central role. Because constructivism believes that students construct new knowledge based on the old one, teaching recognises the existing knowledge, and therefore, constructivism places extra emphasis on the students’ meta-cognitive awareness and strategies. This further encourages them to so called self-learning. As constructivism greatly appreciates understanding and meaning construction, it tries to prefer understanding to learning things “by heart”. The knowledge that is understood is essential. (Tynjälä 1999: 60-62.) Yet, it does not ignore the importance of learning so called facts, but tries to connect them into real life situations and students previous knowledge with the learning tasks at present.
Constructivist ideas especially emphasise that learners are different and try to take different types of learners into consideration by creating and addressing different kind of exercises to different types of learners. Constructivism also supports the idea that learning is most effective in connection to the environment, situation and to the surrounding learning environment. (Tynjälä 1999: 63-64.) This goes hand in hand with the social interaction within the meaning construction. Constructivism believes that in interaction with others learners can get new ideas, reflect their own ideas, and also give and receive social support. Constructivist learning also gives new means for grading: As learning is seen as a continuous process of building new knowledge, the emphasis or student grading is within the process, not only in the language output. (Tynjälä 1999: 65-66.)
Constructivist approach to learning prefers authentic, challenging projects that include students, teachers and experts working in a learning community. Its goal is to create learning communities that are closely related to the collaborative practise of the surrounding real world. When students work collaboratively in an authentic activity,
they bring their own framework and perspectives into the activity. Therefore, they can see different perspectives, negotiate and generate meanings through shared understanding. Crucial elements of the active participation in dialogue are shared experiences and activities, such as discourse and decision making in order to support negotiation and creation of meaning and understanding. (Lin Hsiao 2002: 3.)
One can easily state that the present Nettilehtori-pilot project greatly supports constructivist ideas: It is collaborative in its nature and requires active student participation in every stage of the process. Students perform a role of active agents of learning and meaning negotiation in dialogue is encouraged and essential when students work together in pairs or small groups with collaborative language learning tasks. Also grading supports constructivist ideas. As it was mentioned by Tuomainen and Mitrunen (personal communication, 2001), the grading of the Nettilehtori-pilot course was merely based on the active participation and communication and not on the final outcomes of the exercises. Formal accurate language output was not the main goal, but the social interaction of students, who actively wanted to learn. The Nettilehtori-pilot required meaning negotiation in a rather authentic learning environment, in a situation, where authentic language input is lacking. As a whole, the Nettilehtori-pilot formed a larger learning community, where teachers’ role was to guide students to their individual learning. Also different kind of learners were taken into consideration in the Nettilehtori-pilot by giving students with different learning styles and strategies a change to engage themselves in exercises that provided numerous kinds of learning possibilities.
4.3 Problem Based Learning
The third of the theories that contribute to the CSCL theoretical framework is problem based learning (PBL), also referred as anchored instruction, a student-centered, contextualized approach to teaching (Lin Hsiao, 2002: 3). Its goals are to create environments that are conductive to co-operative learning and which include interpersonal communication about one’s ideas and arguments as well as effective critiquing towards argument that others present. In PBL, learning begins with a problem to be solved rather than content to be mastered. Anchored instruction tries to overcome the so called inert knowledge problem, the move from fact-oriented problem solving
into the problem oriented approaches of learning. (The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt 1993: 58-59.)
According to The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt (1990: 2), anchored instruction includes the establishment of semantically rich, shared environments that allow students and teachers to find and understand the problems at present. PBL emphasizes the importance of creating anchors, which usually are technologically based problem solving environments. Anchor creates a focus that generates interest and enables students to identify and define problems and pay attention to their own perceptions and comprehensions (Lin Hsiao 2002: 4). Students are encouraged to identify their own questions, goals and issues that arise from the “anchors”.
As The cognition and technology group at Vanderbilt (1990: 2) argue, the recent computer technologies make it easier to achieve these objectives. When certain technological context is used as a tool in learning, students learn about the tool: they learn what it is and when and how to use it. It was argued that when people learn new information in the context of meaningful activities with the help of the “anchors”, they are more likely to perceive the new information as a tool for learning rather that as an arbitrary set of facts or procedures. Authentic activities based on the anchors can be defined as “ordinary practises of the culture”, and therefore, anchored instruction projects simulate apprenticeships that comprise authentic tasks. (The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt 1990: 3,6.) This also applies to the Nettilehtori-pilot course, as the computer supported software, Pedanet, provided the students an apprenticeship for their authentic language use.
As mentioned by The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt (1990: 2), anchors enable the exploration of a problem for extended periods of time from many perspectives. They also include a great deal of embedded data that can be explored. It is also essential that students can revisit the scenes, which has an implication for transfer. Anchors also encourage students to find the information they find necessary to explore and, in an ideal situation, to work it out in collaborative learning groups. (The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt 1990: 8-9.)
An interesting aspect of anchored instruction is, that teachers role changes from a “provider of information” into a coach and sometimes even to a fellow learner. In order to support student generated learning, teachers must be flexible. They cannot, for
example, follow fully prewritten lesson or course plans. As teachers also cannot always be experts in each topic that students place their interest in, so they must, therefore, sometimes become learners themselves. (The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt 1993: 54.)
As The cognition and technology group at Vandebilt (1993: 56) suggest, when students engage themselves in activities with anchors, they are encouraged to consider multiple possible solution plans, define sub-goals necessary to accomplish each plan, identify relevant data and separate it from the irrelevant, calculate appropriate answers in order to evaluate various plans and communicate one’s reasoning with other members of one’s group. Lin Hsiao (2002: 4) adds that active learning used in PBL promote self-directed learning strategies and attitudes needed for lifelong learning. Self-directed strategies and lifelong learning receive an even greater emphasis within the computer supported learning, as technology develops rapidly. Therefore, this approach can be seen as very significant to CSCL theories and meaningful also in reflection to the Nettilehtori-pilot.
In various aspects, the Nettilehtori-pilot applies to the ideas of PBL and anchored instruction. First of all, the anchor, the computer supported learning tool, Pedanet, allows the students to visit the exercises and familiarise oneself to language input numerous times without time limit and completing the exercises requires that students have to consider the aspects of language form various perspectives. Secondly, with anchored technologically supported instruction students are able to find as well as solve problems, compare and to experience the same issues from multiple perspectives. It comes into realization particularly well in the Nettilehtori-pilot. Exercises also require problem solving, meaning negotiation and co-operation. As a whole, the language input during the course was provided by a single story, “Torakan tehtävä”, as will be demonstrated in the analysis. Yet, data embedded in the story was unlimited.
Thirdly, the aspects of teachers role introduced by anchored instruction also greatly apply to the work of the Nettilehtori-pilot teachers: They were more like helpers and sometimes also “fellow students”, at least when students and teachers together tried to solve the mysteries of how to use the Pedanet- software. Even the concept of making lesson and course plans support the ideas of anchored instruction: It was almost impossible to form a certain objective course plan, as the Nettilehtori-pilot course could
not be anticipated fully in any stage of the autumn semester, as reflected also by Mitrunen and Flint (personal communication, 2001).
4.4 Situated Cognition
In a very close relation to the anchored instruction is the concept of situated cognition. Situated cognition believes that conceptual knowledge cannot be abstracted from the situation in which it is learned and used and knowledge is, therefore, situated, a part of the product of the activity, context and culture in which it is developed and used. The activity in which knowledge is developed is nor separable from learning and cognition, nor is it neutral, but an integral part of what is learned. Therefore, learning and cognition are fundamentally situated. (Brown, Collons and Duguid 1989: 32.) As Lave and Wenger (1991: 29), in addition, report, learning viewed as situated activity needs to be defined with a process that they call “legitimate peripheral participation”, which puts an emphasis on the fact that learners always participate in communities of practitioners and that mastery of knowledge and skill requires participation in the sociocultural practises of a community.
Brown et al. (1989: 40) mention that in situated cognition, students eventually learn to behave as practitioners, not as students, and develop a conceptual understanding through social interaction and collaborative action in the culture of the domain, not any more in a particular culture of the school. This applies to the ideas of the Nettilehtori-pilot, as one of its goals is to encourage students to use language learned at school in real life contexts. Therefore, cognitive apprenticeship promotes learning within the nexus of activity, tool and the present culture (Brown et al. 1989: 40). Brown et al. (1989: 33) emphasise that learning is a continuous, life-long process resulting from acting in real life situations. Situated cognition emphasizes apprenticeship, coaching, collaboration, multiple practise and articulation of learning skills, stories and technology (Brown et al. 1989: 32-42). In the Nettilehtori-pilot, students used Finnish language in many ways, as will be demonstrated and reported in the analysis. The Nettilehtori-pilot course mainly took place outside the class room time and it, therefore, was also able to connect the use of Finnish into the every day life of the students not just to the context of learning language at school.
Situated cognition also reflects the important notion of enculturation, as the activities in a domain tool must be framed by its culture. In other words, language is never separate from the culture and learning a language is a process of enculturation (Brown et al. 1989: 34). As Brown et al. (1989: 34) underline, it is of immense importance for the process of learning that students pick up “products” of the ambient culture rather than of explicit teaching. It could be argued that any authentic information, when brought to the classrooms or as part of the course plan, stops being authentic and representative of the mainframe culture. Yet, in the computer supported environment, such as the Nettilehtori-pilot, the perspective is different: The students work independently, outside the classroom time and formal language teaching. This enables them to learn from the culture, while they work with exercises in connection to Finnish language and culture. This is an another important aspect of foreign language learning and teaching. CSCL programs and the Internet provide access to cultural phenomena that would otherwise be out of reach of its distant members.
In addition to learning about culture directly via the Internet, an interesting aspect of CSCL environments is also that it provides other ways for enculturation: learning about culture from the other participants. As some of the students taking part in the Nettilehtori-pilot course had been in Finland or had more experiences with the Finnish culture than others, students often shared their experiences, asked questions and gave information to others, which provided an excellent opportunity for enculturation. Another rather significant and essential aspect for students during the Nettilehtori-pilot course, as will be demonstrated in the analysis, was enculturaltion as a supporter of their Finnish identities. The Nettilehtori-pilot, in addition to the important language learning aspect, also worked as a medium for sharing cultural experiences, for example, in situations, where students’ identity as a member of the Finnish culture was often under confusion.
4.5 Cognitive Apprenticership
Cognitive apprenticeship is closely related to the image of knowledge as a tool (Brown et al. 1989: 33). In recent studies cognitive apprenticeship approach has been associated with computer-based learning environments (see, for example, Järvelä 1996). Cognitive apprenticeship supports learning in a domain by enabling students to acquire, develop
and use cognitive tools in authentic domain activity. The tools that teachers provide and support students with work as scaffolds, while the students develop cognitive strategies. Cognitive apprenticeship is a culture that permits peers to learn through their interactions, to build stories about common experiences and to share the knowledge building experiences with the group in collaborative work. (Lin Hsiao 2002: 5.)
Cognitive apprenticeship methods try to enculturate students into authentic practices through activity and social interaction in craft apprenticeship (Brown et al. 1989: 37). As Brown et al. (1989: 38) continue, cognitive apprenticeship methods foster the following procedures:
“By beginning with a task embedded in a familiar activity, it shows the students the legitimacy of their implicit knowledge and its availability as a scaffolding in apparently unfamiliar tasks. By allowing students to generate their own solution paths, it makes them conscious creative members of the culture of problem solving--and, in enculturating through this activity, they acquire a shared vocabulary and means to discuss, reflect upon and evaluate in a collaborative process--”.
This view tries to expose students to the authentic ways of thinking from cultural and conceptual viewpoint. In learning, students are engaged in a process, which leads from embedded activity to general principles of the culture with the help of coaching in the beginning and collaborative social network along the process. This collaboration, therefore, leads to articulation of the learning strategies, which then can be discussed and reflected on. It also includes the deliberate use of the physical and social surroundings. (Brown et al. 1989: 37-39.) As Järvelä (1996: 6) adds, cognitive apprenticeship sees learning as a constructive process, where students meaningfully incorporate new knowledge into the excisting knowledge structures via learning through activity and learning in interaction with other people.
Cognitive apprenticeship actualises greatly in the Nettilehtori-pilot by simply forcing the students to collaboratively discuss and reflect on the use of the data together with their peers and their teachers. Although the Nettilehtori-pilot course did not include discussion about different learning styles and strategies in a collaborative level, based on the way students worked and gave feedback on the process afterwards, one can clearly see some great differences. Students expressed their ideas and opinions on working with the language exercises. These opinions differed and where some students refer to the group writing opportunity as a stressfree medium for informal chatting,
some more analytical students found it demanding and stressfull, as will be later reported in the present paper.
4.6 Distributed Cognition
Another relevant theory within the CSCL-theories is distributed cognition, which puts an emphasis on the interaction among individual, environment and cultural artefacts, and says that the development and growth of cognitions of individuals should not be isolated events but reciprocal processes. Distributed cognition begins from individuals mind and continues through the reciprocal teaching to acquainting with the tools. This leads to subsequent joint performances with the technological tools and products, which can, thus, improve competencies. (Lin Hsiao 2002: 4.)
Salomon, Perkins and Globerson (1991: 1) argue that computer technologies can support intellectual performance and enrich individual minds. These intelligent technologies have two kinds of cognitive effects: effects with and effects of
technologies. Effects with technology are obtained during intellectual partnership with the technological equipment. It can have an affect in what, how well and when students do the task they are engaged in. Another effect, what one calls the effect of working with intellectual technology, concerns the relatively lasting changes in students’ general cognitive capacities in consequence of interaction with these machines, the cognitive residue and better mastery of skills and depth of understanding this partnership leaves behind. Yet, according to the distributed cognition approach, these cognitive effects with the computer tool greatly depends on the mindfull engagement of the learners in the tasks. (Salomon et al. 1991: 1-2.)
In order to attain the, so-called, mindful engagement, students are required to make an effort on it, as it does not come automatically. As stated in Salomon et al. (1991: 4), working with an intelligent tool requires that the students make extra effort on exploring, designing, probing, writing and testing their learning in ways that double their mindful engagement with the tools intelligence, as a joint effect with the technology.
This is very true in the present Nettilehtori-pilot project. First of all, the students would simply lack the language input and contact of other students without the computer supported Nettilehtori-pilot course. Therefore, as Salomon et al. (1991: 4)
argue, the computer tools can be seen as cognitive tools of technologies of the mind. These can develop from, for example, intelligently guided writing, as in the present Nettilehtori-pilot project. The intellectual partnership with the tool provides the students the ability to access prior knowledge and construct new knowledge even faster and with lesser effort, and therefore, the partnership between human and technology can be more intelligent than the performance of human alone. (Salomon et al. 1991: 4.)
The other dimension of distributed cognition is the effect of technology, which is a rather interesting issue. Salomon et al. (1991: 8) mention,
“--the effect with technology can redefine and enhance performance as students work in partnership with intelligent technologies, those that undertake a significant part of the cognitive processing that otherwise would have to be managed entirely by the individual person. Moreover, effect of technology can occur when partnership with technology leaves a cognitive residue, equipping students with thinking skills and strategies that reorganise and enhance their performance even away from the technology.”
It is an essential aspect of CSCL and will surely attain a greater role in the future educational discussion. It was also argued by Salomon et al. (1991: 6) that current intelligent technologies directly and effectively guide the user to positive transfer in the usage of applicable thinking strategies in situations in which students become engaged in mindfull procedures and self-regulation.
Salomon et al. (1991: 5) emphasise that there is always a human element in all learning, and “even if technology became as ubiquitous as the pencil”, students would still face an infinite number of problems to solve, new kinds of knowledge to mentally construct and decisions to make, for which no intelligent technology would be available or accessible”. The cognitive effects of the interaction with computer tools always pertain for certain skills and abilities such as generalized ability to self-regulation and guidance: While students, for example, become better writers with using the tool, it also has an effect on their writing for example, with just pen and paper. Salomon et al. (1991: 6.) As can be interpreted from Salomon et al. (1991), it seems evident that when computers become central in education, the whole culture of school will change from knowledge imparting to self-guided exploration and knowledge recreation. Therefore, computers and intellectual tools may have an effect on all the activities students are engaged in, at all the levels: technology, activities, school and learning culture, teacher’s role and culture etc. Although the effects of intellectual technologies in CSCL may not yet have been profoundly examined, one can be rather certain that there are effects of it,
and they may play a rather great part in the future education and learning context. It is relevant that the effects of technology will be more comprehensively studied because it will give useful information to CSCL.
Naturally, it is almost impossible to measure learning and by any means not even justified to do within the present study. Yet, the Nettilehtori-pilot surely included some effects with the computer, as students were engaged in many kind of language activities with the computer. The constructivist nature of the Nettilehtori-pilot course includes the fact that the effects of the technology cannot always be clearly stated, and were naturally different between individual students. Yet, it is important to remember, that without the use of technological tool, the Nettilehtori-pilot software, students would have not been able to experience the collaborative learning course in a first place. Therefore, there were some effects of technology regardless of the aspect of measuring language learning.
4.7 Self-regulated learning
According to Brown (1980: 453), metacognition, also called as self-regulated learning (SRL), refers to “deliberate conscious control of one’s own cognitive actions”. These actions have “ecological validity” and are recognizable in real-world situations (Brown 1980: 454). Self-regulated learning occurs when students’ self-generated behaviour systematically orientates towards attaining their learning goals: The learning process involves goal-directed cognitive activities that students instigate, modify and sustain and activities such as attending to instruction, processing and integrating knowledge and rehearsing information to be remembered as well as beliefs and outcomes about the anticipated learning. (Schunk 1989: 83.)
Zimmerman (1989: 4) defines that there are certain characteristics connected to self-regulated learning: students are seen as metacognitively, motivationally and behaviourally active participants in their learning. SRL is also well known for its purpose for self-oriented feedback loop during the learning process. This loop refers to a cyclic process in which students monitor their effectiveness in learning methods and strategies. An integral part of SRL is also how and why students choose to use particular self-regulated processes, strategies and responses. (Zimmerman 1989: 4.)
To mention, the Nettilehtori–pilot was based on the very idea of students being motivated, active and metacognitively aware students. Self-regulated learning was, indeed, a must during the course: all the participants willingly agreed on the basic idea of trying to attain goals of the course simply by completing the exercises. As the Nettilehtori-pilot was a very short course not much attention was paid to students learning skills or strategies, nor did any collaborative learning monitoring take place. Yet, as a whole, the Nettilehtori-pilot did provide perfect means for it and therefore, applies also to the ideas of self-regulated learning.
4.8 Cognitive Flexibility Theory
Last in the series of theoretical applications in connection to the present CSCL theories is the cognitive flexibility theory. All the earlier mentioned theoretical views have mainly emphasised the positive and advanced outcomes of the computer supported learning. Yet, cognitive flexibility theory arises from the inevitability and probability of a failure in many instructional systems. The aspect of failure cannot be ignored, as it is a realistic part of every learning process. Also in reflection of the Nettilehtori-pilot project, as will be discussed later in more detail, the software presented many unexpected difficulties both for the participating students and the teachers.
There is a common basis for failure in many instructional systems. Cognitive flexibility theory offers a constructivist view of learning and instruction, that emphasizes the real world complexity and ill structuredness of many technological knowledge domains. Cognitive and instructional neglection of problems related to content complexity and irregularity can lead to learning failures that take a common form, such as to inability to apply knowledge into new cases. Therefore, learning deficiencies related to domain complexity require learning processes that involve a greater cognitive flexibility. In order for the learners to develop cognitively flexible processing and learning skills and to acquire contentive knowledge structures to support flexible cognitive processing in the flexible learning environments, such as the Nettilehtori-pilot, it is required to permit the same items of knowledge to be presented, as well as a variety of different ways and for variety of different purposes. (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson and Coulson 2002: 1.)
The computer can be seen as ideally suited tool for fostering cognitive flexibility because it has a complex and irregular nature itself. In particular, the multidimensional and nonlinear hypertext systems have the power to convey ill-structured aspects of learning and promote features of cognitive flexibility (Spiro et al. 2002: 1-2). Computer based environments contain “characteristics of ill-structuredness”, which can be a serious obstacle to advanced learning goals, such as life-long learning in situated cognition and self-regulated learning introduced in constructivist ideas. Yet, it was argued that cognitive flexibility is able to give a remedy to those structured aspects, which can pose problems for the advanced knowledge acquisition. ( Spiro et al. 2002: 2.) By ill-structured knowledge domains, Spiro et al. (2002: 3) mean that all knowledge application typically involves the simultaneous involvement of multiple, wide-application conceptual structures, multiple schemas and perspectives and organizational principles each of which is individually complex. (Spiro et al. 2002: 3.)
The objectives of learning in all the earlier presented theories aim at introductory to more advanced learning e.g. to the expertise of the initially learned issues. It is interesting to note that cognitive flexibility theory takes the consideration of the issue somewhat further. It can be said that in the beginning of learning process, teachers are usually satisfied if the students can demonstrate a superficial awareness of the key concepts or the facts, such as knowing the meaning of a word in the particular situations and contexts. Sometimes learners are not even expected to master the complexity of the acquired knowledge into a new situation. Yet, Spiro et al. (2002: 4) argue that failure to attain the goals of advanced knowledge acquisition is common and learning can easily lead to oversimplification. These errors can thus compound each other and build networks of consequential misconceptions.
The advanced learning goals become prominent only later, when students try to use the same skills in a more advanced treatment of the same subject matter. It is not until then when the conceptual mastery and flexible knowledge applications become goals and the complexity and across-case diversity of these ill-structured domains becomes a problem for learning and instruction. (Spiro et al. 2002: 3.) Yet, ill structuredness is not always a problem. Spiro et al. (2002: 5) argue, that reconceptualization of learning and instruction is required for advanced knowledge in ill-structured domains.
As Spiro et al. (2002: 6) tell, cognitive flexibility theory arises from constructivism and constitutes as, what they call, the “New constructivism theory”: an integrated theory of learning, mental representation and instruction and a response to the difficulties of advanced knowledge acquisition in ill-structured domains. It emphasises that understanding is constructed by using prior knowledge to go beyond the given information and the prior knowledge is itself constructed rather than retrieved intact from memory. Therefore, it can be said that the cognitive flexibility theory takes the concept of constructivism slightly further, as it is based on the assumption that constructive mental process occurs in many levels.
Understanding seems to go beyond the presented information also in the Nettilehtori-pilot. What is needed for the learner to comprehend a text is not just in the linguistic information of the text. Comprehension involves the multi dimensional construction of meaning: the information within the text must be combined with the real life information. In ideal case that was also the purpose of the Nettilehtori-pilot exercises: for example, the “Torakan tehtävä” (written by Sirpa Tuomainen) was designed around familiar places and people. It forced the students to see the story in connection to real life experiences. It was impossible, and not by any means were students expected to, understand, know or learn all the information embedded in the story.
As cognitive flexibility theory claims, knowledge must be used in far too many different ways for them to be anticipated in advance. Emphasis of the learning must be shifted from the retrieval of specific knowledge structures to support the construction of new understandings, and instead of retrieving from memory for how to think or act, one must bring together from various sources an appropriate ensemble of information suited to particular understanding or problem solving useful for the situation in hand. ( Spiro et al., 2002: 5.) It, in addition, as Spiro et al. (2002: 6) demonstrate, gives responses to the special requirements for attaining advanced learning goals, given the impediments associated with ill-structured features of knowledge domains regarding specific deficiencies in advanced-learning and knowing what is going wrong, provide a strong clue on how to fix it. Cognitive flexibility theory also claims that revisiting the study material at different times for different purposes and from different perspectives is essential for attaining the goals of advanced learning (Spiro et al. 2002: 6).
