2,000 research outputs found
Exploratory talk within collaborative small groups in mathematics
No full textThis report describes one aspect of a wider research study on exploratory talk within collaborative small groups in secondary mathematics lessons. It outlines students’ views of using collaborative activity to learn mathematics. The fuller research study explores the extent to which exploratory talk occurs in collaborative peer groups in secondary mathematics classrooms
Assessment of (computer-supported) collaborative learning
No full textWithin the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CS)CL research community there has been an extensive dialogue on theories and perspectives on learning from collaboration, approaches to scaffold (script) the collaborative process, and most recently research methodology. In contrast, the issue of assessment of collaborative learning has received much less attention. This article discusses how assessment of collaborative learning has been addressed, provides a perspective on what could be assessed, and highlights limitations of current approaches. Since assessment of collaborative learning is a demanding experience for teachers and students alike, they require adequate computer-supported and intelligent tools for monitoring and assessment. A roadmap for the role and application of intelligent tools for assessment of (CS)CL is presented
SemCW: Semantic Collaborative Writing using RST
No full textDuring collaborative writing each author works on a copy of the shared document. These copies are then merged to produce the final document. This asynchronous work is supported by several collaborative writing tools. While these tools are excellent at merging and detecting syntactic conflicts, they are not able to easily recognise semantic inconsistencies. This hinders the coherence of the document because while each individual copy might be well constructed, they may not be after the merge. To address this, we investigate the combination of the Rhetorical Structure Theory with Operational Transformation approach. In this paper, we define a data model, a set of operations to manipulate the RST structures and a set of transformation functions. A validity checker alerts the authors to areas in the text with possible semantic lapses in the merged documents
A narrative-based collaborative writing tool for coherent technical documents
No full textOne important feature of an effective document that makes it easy to read and understand is known as coherence. Technical documents produced collaboratively are often incoherent due to a lack of group consensus and misaligned contributions by the individual authors. However, current document planning techniques and writing tools do not provide explicit support for improving coherence. The goal of this research, therefore, is to develop and evaluate a new technique and tool that helps teams of authors to structure coherent technical documents. The coherence of a document can be attributed to the story (or narrative) it conveys to the reader. If this story is consistent and coherent, the same can be said about the document. A discourse theory such as Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) that has been developed by linguists helps further to analyse and improve a narrative. RST explains the coherence of a text by virtue of relationships (such as “paragraph A justifies paragraph B”) between parts of the text. This research has combined the ideas from these parallel strands of research to develop a new document planning technique called narrative-based writing. The method involves writing down an explicit précis of the story (called a document narrative or DN) and then analysing it using RST. The DN and RST analysis are then used to structure the eventual document. To extend the usability of narrative-based writing to geographically-dispersed authors, I have designed and implemented a collaborative tool that allows co-authors to edit, analyse and review DNs. The thorough design for the tool uses a combination of three models (conceptual, business process and functional) culminating in a set of functions that enable collaborative narrative-based writing. This dissertation discusses how, in the future, these functions could be incorporated in existing collaborative writing tools. Implementing this tool, albeit in its current prototypic state, has been invaluable in understanding the complexities of modelling and manipulating DNs and RST structures. Initial investigations using the new technique and tool have been positive, encouraging me to continue the research and evaluation in this field
Bullies and victims in a primary classroom: Scaffolding a collaborative community of practice
No full textThis paper is based on a year long research project that examined changes in participation of 31 students in a Year 4/5 classroom, where bullying was occurring. The teacher (first author and researcher) facilitated authentic learning opportunities to make the social practices explicit during weekly class meetings. A socio cultural perspective and an action research process framed this qualitative study. Data sources included school behaviour records, sociograms, semi-structured interviews, teacher observations and students' reflection logs. Rogoff's planes provided the analytical framework to examine how to scaffold a collaborative community of practice. The case studies of two students, Denis and Nathan, provide exemplars of how the teacher scaffolded students' social understandings within small social groups through collaborative leadership opportunities and values education. Results spanning the school year indicated that Nathan, like many of his peers, developed confidence to make new friends and become more assertive. Although Denis took longer to adopt pro-social goals, by the end of the school year, he refrained from bullying Nathan. The significance of this research supports recent findings that a focus on the social dynamics of the classroom can bring about positive change in student behaviour
Experiences of learning through collaborative evaluation from a masters programme in professional education
No full textThis paper presents findings from a collaborative evaluation project within a masters programme in professional education. The project aimed to increase knowledge of research methodologies and methods through authentic learning where participants worked in partnership with the tutor to evaluate the module which they were studying. The project processes, areas of the course evaluated and the data collection methods are outlined. The findings focus on key themes from evaluating the effectiveness of using a collaborative evaluation approach, including: enhanced student engagement; creativity of the collaborative evaluation approach; equality between the tutor and students; and enhanced research skills. Discussion focuses on the outcomes and effectiveness of the project and tutor reflections on adopting a collaborative approach. This paper highlights lessons from the project relevant to those interested in staff-student partnership approaches and those facilitating postgraduate learning and teaching programmes and educational research courses
The Impact of Group Size on Collaborative Search
No full textCollaborative search, where the activities of multiple users are combined to satisfy their information need, is an effective tool to to handle complex search tasks. People search collaboratively in groups of varying sizes. Various collaborative search systems have been studied in previous work, but they only investigate a fixed group size. Therefore, the impact of group size on retrieval effectiveness in collaborative search is an open research question. We investigate the effect of group size on retrieval effectiveness in collaborative search in a crowdsourced study with a total of 305 participants, in groups varying in size from one to six. We use a web-based system for collaborative search in this study called SearchX. We extended SearchX with two features for algorithmic mediation, which aims to support users in division of labour and sharing knowledge with collaborators. We investigate three variants of our system with and without features for algorithmic mediation to investigate its effect on retrieval effectiveness for groups of varying sizes. Our results show that the group recall increases linearly with group size. In contrast to a previous simulation study by Joho et al. [20] we do not find diminishing returns in group recall with increasing group size, suggesting that larger groups may increase group recall further. We also find that the investigated algorithmic mediation features do not significantly affect retrieval effectiveness. We conclude that the simulation results do not translate to our study, and that future collaborative search systems should be designed while taking the effects of mediation features on real users into account.Information ArchitectureComputer Science | Data Science and Technology | Information Architectur
Paracetamol and antibiotics in childhood and subsequent development of wheezing/asthma: Association or causation?
No full textBackground: Several studies found an association between early administration of paracetamol and antibiotics and development of wheezing. This could be due to confounding: wheeze and asthmatic symptoms in early childhood are difficult to distinguish from respiratory tract infections that are widely treated with these drugs; in case of persistence of symptoms up to school age, this could explain the observed relationship. Methods: We investigated the association between paracetamol and antibiotics use in the first year of life and wheezing phenotypes, i.e. wheezing starting in different time periods (early, persistent and late-onset) in the SIDRIA-2 study, a cross-sectional survey of 16 933 children aged 6-7 years. Directed acyclic graph (DAG) was used to depict the causal structure. Results: Paracetamol and antibiotics administration in the first year were associated with early wheezing (first 2 years of life only) [odds ratio (OR): 2.27; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.98-2.62 and OR = 3.76, 95% CI: 3.31-4.27] and with persistent wheezing (first 2 years + last 12 months) (OR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.49-2.10 and OR = 3.06, 95% CI: 2.60-3.60), whereas the association with late-onset wheezing (in the last 12 months only) was weak (OR = 1.12, 95% CI: 0.97-1.31 and OR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.02-1.38 for paracetamol and antibiotics, respectively). DAG shows that even in the absence of a direct (causal) arrow from early drugs use to wheezing at school age, the two are associated due to confounding (through the 'infection' node). Conclusions: It is important to take into account different phenotypes in order to disentangle the association of paracetamol and antibiotics with wheezing. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association. © The Author 2011; all rights reserved
About Parallel Programming: Paradigms, Parallel Execution and Collaborative Systems
No full textIn the last years, there were made efforts for delineation of a stabile and unitary frame, where the problems of logical parallel processing must find solutions at least at the level of imperative languages. The results obtained by now are not at the level of the made efforts. This paper wants to be a little contribution at these efforts. We propose an overview in parallel programming, parallel execution and collaborative systems.Parallel Programming, Parallel Execution, Collaborative systems, Collaborative parallel execution
Discussion, cooperation and collaboration: group learning in an online translation classroom
No full textThe study is an empirical investigation into the implementation of a variety of grouplearning structures in an online translation classroom. Drawing on the academic literature in the fields of translation didactics, social constructivism and e-learning, it describes the design and implementation of an online module in economic translation at Dublin City University during the academic years 2003/4 and 2004/5. The main body of the work evaluates the comparative strengths and weaknesses of three group-learning structures implemented in the online module. These are labelled 'discussion groups', 'cooperative groups' and 'collaborative groups' respectively.
A case-study approach is adopted in the study, with transcripts of online discussions representing the main data source. These are analysed using the 'Community of Inquiry' Model, a content analysis model derived from the research literature on Web-based learning. Findings from this analysis technique are triangulated with numerical measurements of student participation and online interaction, and with qualitative evaluation of student perceptions, in order to establish which task structures are most effective in promoting learning on the basis of group interaction via text-based computer conferencing. In addition, the study draws conclusions about the methodologies available for the study of group learning in an online environment, the advantages of Web-based translator training, and the disadvantages and challenges arising from such an approach.
The study has a contribution to make on a number of fronts. It explores the implications of designing translation instruction for Web-based delivery, it adds to the literature on online group-learning structures, and it presents a model for instructors and researchers to investigate the quality of the educational experience in an online translation classroom
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