This meta-analysis synthesizes research findings on the effects of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) based on its three main elements: (1) the collaboration per se, (2) the use of ...computers, and (3) the use of extra learning environments or tools, or supporting strategies in CSCL. In this analysis, 425 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2016 were extracted and coded, and these generated the following findings. First, the collaboration had significant positive effects on knowledge gain (ES effect size = 0.42), skill acquisition (ES = 0.64), and student perceptions (ES = 0.38) in computer-based learning conditions. Second, computer use led to positive effects on knowledge gain (ES = 0.45), skill acquisition (ES = 0.53), student perceptions (ES = 0.51), group task performance (ES = 0.89), and social interaction (ES = 0.57) in collaborative learning contexts. Third, the use of extra learning environments or tools produced a medium effectfor knowledge gain (ES = 0.55), and supporting strategies resulted in an ES of 0.38 for knowledge gain. Several study features were analyzed as potential moderators.
Online collaborative learning is increasingly used in online courses in higher education, but assessing student online collaborative learning presents unique challenges as well as interesting ...opportunities. Thus, it is critical to gain a clear picture of online group collaboration assessment strategies, including group learning assessment methods and examining the effectiveness, challenges, and opportunities in online education. The present study systematically reviewed 12 empirical studies on online collaborative learning assessment in higher education published in journals from 2011 to 2021. The results show that diverse strategies were used to facilitate group collaboration, including group agreements, project planning, role assignments, problem-based projects, and instructor feedback. The reviewed studies primarily evaluated learners through instructor evaluation, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation methods. The most common strategy was instructor assessment, while self-evaluations were used the least. The findings of this mapping review provide practical examples for future online group collaborative learning assessment research and practice.
•We propose a novel federated learning scheme using knowledge distillation technology for heterogeneous model architecture called MHAT.•We train an auxiliary model on the server to realize ...information aggregation, which significantly improves the speed of model convergence while maintaining acceptable model convergence accuracy.•We conduct various experiments to validate our scheme achieves a good performance.
Federated Learning allows multiple participants to jointly train a global model while guaranteeing the confidentiality and integrity of private datasets. However, current server aggregation algorithms for federated learning only focus on model parameters, resulting in heavy communication costs and low convergence speed. Most importantly, they are unable to handle the scenario wherein different clients hold different local models with various network architectures. In this paper, we view these challenges from an alternative perspective: we draw attention to what should be aggregated and how to improve convergence efficiency. Specifically, we propose MHAT, a novel model-heterogenous aggregation training federated learning scheme which exploits a technique of Knowledge Distillation (KD) to extract the update information of the heterogenous model of all clients and trains an auxiliary model on the server to realize information aggregation. MHAT relaxes clients from fixing on an unified model architecture and significantly reduces the required computing resources while maintaining acceptable model convergence accuracy. Various experiments verify the effectiveness and applicability of our proposed scheme.
Social network analysis (SNA) is a promising research method for analyzing relational ties in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)—activities in which learners interact towards a common ...learning goal with the aid of computers—because they share the same underlying assumption that learning and behavior are influenced by one's relations. This methodological review examines whether CSCL research (n = 89) (1) reflects the diversity of actors (learners and artifacts) and relational ties that are important in CSCL environments; and (2) relates these relational ties as measured by SNA indices to CSCL learning outcomes. The results suggest that SNA applications in CSCL (1) do not reflect this diversity of CSCL actors and relational ties, investigating only one-mode networks of learners connected by communication-based relational ties; and (2) are limited to a descriptive reporting of SNA results. Future directions for CSCL are focused on filling these gaps by (1) integrating technical, instructional and knowledge artifacts as SNA actors, and (2) relating SNA findings to cognitive, social and motivational CSCL outcomes using statistical analysis.
•SNA in CSCL does not reflect the diversity of CSCL actors and relations.•CSCL interactions are often characterized by SNA as direct communication between learners.•Results are limited to a descriptive reporting of SNA outcomes.•Future SNA in CSCL could investigate mediated interactions via artifacts.•Statistical analyses could be used to relate SNA findings with learning outcomes.
Cognitive load theory has traditionally been associated with individual learning. Based on evolutionary educational psychology and our knowledge of human cognition, particularly the relations between ...working memory and long-term memory, the theory has been used to generate a variety of instructional effects. Though these instructional effects also influence the efficiency and effectiveness of collaborative learning, be it computer supported or face-to-face, they are often not considered either when designing collaborative learning situations/environments or researching collaborative learning. One reason for this omission is that cognitive load theory has only sporadically concerned itself with certain particulars of collaborative learning such as the concept of a collective working memory when collaborating along with issues associated with transactive activities and their concomitant costs which are inherent to collaboration. We illustrate how and why cognitive load theory, by adding these concepts, can throw light on collaborative learning and generate principles specific to the design and study of collaborative learning.
This descriptive study focuses on using voice activity detection (VAD) algorithms to extract student speech data in order to better understand the collaboration of small group work and the impact of ...teaching assistant (TA) interventions in undergraduate engineering discussion sections. Audio data were recorded from individual students wearing head‐mounted noise‐cancelling microphones. Video data of each student group were manually coded for collaborative behaviours (eg, group task relatedness, group verbal interaction and group talk content) of students and TA–student interactions. The analysis includes information about the turn taking, overall speech duration patterns and amounts of overlapping speech observed both when TAs were intervening with groups and when they were not. We found that TAs very rarely provided explicit support regarding collaboration. Key speech metrics, such as amount of turn overlap and maximum turn duration, revealed important information about the nature of student small group discussions and TA interventions. TA interactions during small group collaboration are complex and require nuanced treatments when considering the design of supportive tools.
Practitioner notes
What is already known about this topic
Student turn taking can provide information about the nature of student discussions and collaboration.
Real classroom audio data of small groups typically have lots of background noise and present challenges for audio analysis.
TAs have little training in how to productively intervene with students about collaborative skills.
What this paper adds
TA interaction with groups primarily focused on task progress and understanding of concepts with negligible explicit support on building collaborative skills.
TAs intervened with the groups often which gave the students little time for uptake of their suggestions or deeper discussion.
Student turn overlap was higher without the presence of TAs.
Maximum turn duration can be an important real‐time turn metric to identify the least verbally active student participant in a group.
Implications for practice and/or policy
TA training should include information about how to monitor groups for collaborative behaviours and when and how they should intervene to provide feedback and support.
TA feedback systems should keep track of previous interventions by TAs (especially in contexts where there are multiple TAs facilitating) and the duration since previous intervention to ensure that TAs do not intervene with a group too frequently with little time for student uptake.
Maximum turn duration could be used as a real‐time metric to identify the least verbally active student in a group so that support could be provided to them by the TAs.
Researchers have explored the benefits and applications of virtual reality (VR) in different scenarios. VR possesses much potential and its application in education has seen much research interest ...lately. However, little systematic work currently exists on how researchers have applied immersive VR for higher education purposes that considers the usage of both high-end and budget head-mounted displays (HMDs). Hence, we propose using systematic mapping to identify design elements of existing research dedicated to the application of VR in higher education. The reviewed articles were acquired by extracting key information from documents indexed in four scientific digital libraries, which were filtered systematically using exclusion, inclusion, semi-automatic, and manual methods. Our review emphasizes three key points: the current domain structure in terms of the learning contents, the VR design elements, and the learning theories, as a foundation for successful VR-based learning. The mapping was conducted between application domains and learning contents and between design elements and learning contents. Our analysis has uncovered several gaps in the application of VR in the higher education sphere—for instance, learning theories were not often considered in VR application development to assist and guide toward learning outcomes. Furthermore, the evaluation of educational VR applications has primarily focused on usability of the VR apps instead of learning outcomes and immersive VR has mostly been a part of experimental and development work rather than being applied regularly in actual teaching. Nevertheless, VR seems to be a promising sphere as this study identifies 18 application domains, indicating a better reception of this technology in many disciplines. The identified gaps point toward unexplored regions of VR design for education, which could motivate future work in the field.
► Arguing, critical thinking and reasoning are essential objectives in education. ► Learning to argue and arguing to learn have been CSCL research focus. ► Online learning environments lend ...themselves for constructing and sharing arguments. ► Classification of ABCSCL research (108 publications) based on Biggs’ (2003) model. ► Overview of ABCSCL studies on design, curricula, analysis, focus, subject, location.
Learning to argue is an essential objective in education; and online environments have been found to support the sharing, constructing, and representing of arguments in multiple formats for what has been termed Argumentation-Based Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (ABCSCL). The purpose of this review is to give an overview of research in the field of ABCSCL and to synthesize the findings. For this review, 108 publications (89 empirical studies and 19 conceptual papers) on ABCSCL research dating from 1995 through 2011 were studied to highlight the foci of the past 15 years. Building on Biggs’ (2003) model, the ABCSCL publications were systematically categorized with respect to student prerequisites, learning environment, processes, and outcomes. Based on the quantitative and qualitative findings, this paper concludes that ABCSCL environments should be designed in a systematic way that takes the variety of specific conditions for learning into account. It also offers suggestions for educational practice and future research.
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