Computer Supported Collaborative Work

Environments:
Their use and effect in promoting Metateaching

A DFEE BPRS Research Project

David Thomas ICT Curriculum leader
Ringmer Community College 2001
Contents:

Introduction.................................................................................................................................................... 3
Metateaching ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Thinking Schools ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Metacognition................................................................................................................................................ 3
Piaget ............................................................................................................................................................. 4
Vygotsky ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
Learning style................................................................................................................................................ 4
METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................................................... 7
Group one ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Group Two..................................................................................................................................................... 8
The Test Environment: Think.com............................................................................................................. 8
Data Collection ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Observations of GUI .................................................................................................................................... 9
Verbal Feedback of users ........................................................................................................................... 9
Work pattern Inventory ................................................................................................................................ 9
Task five Introduction................................................................................................................................. 16
Broad Aims.................................................................................................................................................. 18
Specific Aims .............................................................................................................................................. 19
Task One ..................................................................................................................................................... 19
Task Four .................................................................................................................................................... 19
Task Five ..................................................................................................................................................... 20
Conclusions and suggestions for further action cycles ........................................................................ 21
Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 23
Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………………………...24

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Introduction
This study aims to discuss the ‘educational relevancy’ of online Computer Supported
Collaboration (CSC) and also the difficulties faced in adopting this technology into the accepted
culture of the school or college.
There has been some reemphasis of late on thinking skills and accelerated learning practice. For
example DFEE, McGuiness (1999).
The use of CSC and it’s role within this ‘new’ paradigm of thinking schools is one that McGuiness
and other researchers comment on within recent research papers. More work needs to be done
on the effect that CSC use has on the teaching environment, pupils, teachers and education
system as a whole.
The increasing pressure on schools and their students and teachers to perform well is evident.
How could CSC help to improve motivation, engagement and further home study?

This report begins to look at practical use of CSC environments and their relationship if any with
relevant educational theories.

Metateaching

Metateaching is a phrase that has recently been used to describe a new paradigm of teaching. By
new I don’t mean revolutionary, more like a collective phrase to describe the increased
awareness within the teaching profession on reflective thought on how people learn and therefore
be educated. This phrase seems to sum up the history of educational research since Lawrence
Stenhouse first started his seminal work on teacher led educational research. Stenhouse
describes a model curriculum, which has been called:
‘Liberating or emancipatory because it encourages independence of thought and argument on the
part of the pupils, and experimentation and the use of judgement on the part of the teacher’
(Hopkins D 1985). This ‘new’ type of teaching seems to reflect good practice and use of a varied
teaching style. It has foundation blocks seen in accelerated learning and preferred learning style
theories.

Thinking Schools

A recent DFEE commissioned report ‘From Thinking Skills to Thinking Classrooms’ (Mcguiness
99) commented on the use of ‘critical thinking skills’ using various methods within our schools and
made some conclusions on the impact that ICT could have on this whole schools approach.

‘Information and communication technologies can be linked to the thinking skills framework in
several ways and provide a tool for enhancing children’s understanding and powers of reasoning
through exploratory environments/micro worlds, multi-media and hypermedia. Networked
communication (local and wide area) provides special opportunities for collaborative learning.
Considerable evaluation remains to be completed on learning outcomes for both individual and
whole class learning.’(Mcguiness 99)

Metacognition

Meta-teaching approaches try to activate the metacognitive process with any students thinking.
‘Metacognition, or learning ‘how to learn’, is now recognised as a vital aspect of learning.
Metacognition refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive process and products or
anything related to them… Metacognition refers, among other things, to the active monitoring and

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consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to cognitive objects or
data on which they bear, usually in service of some concrete goal or objective’ (J.Flavell 1976)
Many of our students would actually find this process of increasing awareness not only useful but
also pivotal to their continued life long education and future examination results.

Piaget

Piaget believed that children produce hypotheses, try to back them up, manage to change them
under certain conditions, and follow a direction in their research. He believed that children acted
very much like scientists in their knowledge construction. This constructivist approach to
education has been the norm for many years and is the predominant theory taught within teacher
training establishments in Great Britain.

‘When I discuss and I sincerely seek to understand someone else, I become engaged, not just in
avoiding contradicting myself, in avoiding playing on words, etc., but also in entering into an
definite series of view points other than my own…It is a moving equilibrium….,the
engagements….that I make by nature of cooperation lead me I don’t know where.’ (Piaget 1928)

Within this statement we can start to get a feel for Piaget’s thoughts on interaction between
children. He saw that social interaction involves cognitive conflict, which can be used by children
to further construct their knowledge. Piaget’s staged approach to cognitive development differs
from more non linear thinking.

Vygotsky

Vygotsky’s work on proximal development seems to contradict some of the accepted theories
above. Piaget’s view of a cognitive conflict can be juxtaposed by Vygotsky’s sense of cognitive
understanding being scaffolded by a mutual ‘zone of proximal development’. Vygotsky’s paradigm
of apprenticeship seems to me to be more appropriate where students work together in novice
and expert roles. This method of working closely together in a zone of proximal development
(ZPD) to jointly solve problems can be seen in any group work situation. We have all used pier
teaching methods to help with teaching and learning and they seem to be on the whole effective
for given situations. Vygotsky also made an important link with language and it’s use within the
structure of knowledge. I am increasingly aware within my own practice of this importance of
language within conceptual understanding.

Learning style

There has been renewed interest in learning styles within the last decade. These include multiple
intelligence theory, new thoughts in neuro-science, theories in environmental design and the use
of accelerated learning practices including Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Amongst the most important feature of these areas is the concept that we are all very individually
different and must be exposed to varying types of stimuli. Howard Gardners work on multiple
intelligences has been widely quoted as one of the seminal studies of how we learn and gain
intelligence.

Gardner proposed:
‘ The IQ movement is blindly empirical. It is based simply on tests with some predictive power
about success in school and, only marginally, on a theory of how the mind works. There is no
view of process, of how one goes about solving a problem: there is simply the issue of whether
one arrives at the correct answer….’ (Gardner 1993)

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He proposes that we can look at intelligence under three main headings and then further
subdivide these groups:

!" The personal related - Interpersonal intelligence

- Intrapersonal

!" The language-related - Linguistic

- Musical

!" The object-related - Kinesthetic

- Mathematical/Logical
- Visual/spatial
th
- Naturalist (8 )

These seven plus one intelligence types can be used to develop teaching materials in innovative
ways. The use of CSC could at the very least build on these theories and help deliver-teaching
materials in metacognitive ways.

Model map produced with E Mind map 1.01

Honey and Mumford (1986) proposed that there are four learning styles within which we have
different levels:

Style Learn Best when

ACTIVIST Working with others, brainstorming

REFLECTOR Analysing data, working alone

THEORIST Evaluating ideas, integrating theories

PRAGMATIST Solving problems, implementing ideas

David Kolb developed the learning styles inventory in the 70’s. This consisted of sets of questions
designed to predict behavior when related to experiential learning. Kolb postulated that there are

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two primary dimensions within the learning process that of concrete and abstract. This could be
seen as forming a continuum through Action to Observation.

Concrete Analytical
(Actor) (Observer)

Kolb proposed four learning styles:

CONVERGER - They can focus on specific problems using deductive reasoning

DIVERGER - They can view things from many perspectives and then
organise and synergise them.

ASSIMILATOR - They can analyse data and devise theoretical models.

ACCOMODATOR They carry out plans and solve problems by trial and error.

Surface or Deep Learning

Research has been done with tertiary and higher education students This tested the theory that
they can use a very ‘deep learning’ approach to their studies i.e. better access to metacognitive
approaches. Marton and Saljo (1976) within their work with reading and language formed theories
of deep and surface learning. Students who use a deep approach to learning were found to have
the following traits:

• Personally involved in the task and seek to obtain some underlying meaning.
• Use a deep approach and in addition they aim to understand relationships between the
immediate task and other tasks or contexts.
• Read extensively around a given topic, to discuss the topic and ultimately to achieve higher
grades on assessment tasks than students who use a surface approach.
Biggs (1989)

Students can in fact act as an independent learner who is in control of his/her own learning. This
approach to learning is complementary to other developed teaching theories. It may be
encouraged by teachers, who adopt metateaching approaches. Fox (1983). I propose to use the
phrase ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’ to explain levels of cognitive understanding.

CONCERN
Could CSC help to make the cultural shift needed to encourage us to create thinking schools and
make teachers change their existing styles to a more Meta-teaching approach? It is this
awareness of thinking skills and their effect on the daily work that we do as practicing teachers
that concerns me. The awareness of ‘thinking about thinking’ is low in both students and staff at
the vast majority of schools. Indeed, do staff who have come through the traditional school model
of examination ever ‘think about thinking’?
“ I know a lot about teaching but not much about learning” is a comment that I often find within
staff of various experience levels. My own knowledge of how we learn has now started to develop
but how could we vouchsafe the use of critical thinking skills within our curriculum?

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Metacognition as Flavell put it, surely is at the heart of the matter? It concerns me that, as I
continue through my teaching experience, we are tied up in process based discourse about the
lack of achievement and accountability to achievement to potential. Surely the true meta-teacher
needs to ‘scaffold learning’ within a framework of support structures which not only allow students
to achieve their potential but also to question the very way they think about everyday educational
tasks such as, problem solving, analysis, recall and synthesis. The continuing concern is how can
we develop methods that best fit these goals within the modern educational environment? ICT is
perhaps the catalyst that will enable these many processes to permeate throughout our education
system. This project instigates action to address some of this discourse by using CSC
environments to target learning styles and challenge thinking, leaving both teacher and student
as better metacognitive practioners.

METHODOLOGY
This project takes the form of an action research model. It is to this model, I will constantly refer,
to give direction to the project and to check that a sound methodology is being followed.

Action research is:

• Concerned with social practice
• Aimed towards improvement
• A cyclical process
• Pursued by systematic enquiry
• A reflective process
• Participative
• Determined by practitioners (Hopkins 1985)

I very much see this project as a first phase of a longer study in to the effect and impact of CSC
on both teacher and student.

Concern Questions
I will need to set up a series of data collection exercises and tasks to qualitatively assess if using
CSC is effective in answering the following questions:

Teachers:

• Could CSC help to make the cultural shift needed to help create thinking schools and make
teachers change their existing styles to a more Meta-teaching approach?
• If a ‘cultural shift’ indeed does take place, what are the factors involved within this?
•
Students:
• Could we build scaffolded structures with the use of a CSC environment?
• How can the use of CSC environments promote critical thinking skills?
• Can the use of CSC environment be used to better effect than traditional methods of
annotating or note taking, i.e. promote deep learning?
• How could CSC help to improve motivation, engagement and further home study?

Sample
The initial project plans to look at the introduction to CSC with two groups of students and staff.

Group one

To establish a reflective understanding of the use of CSC with a group of students I will use my
own teaching group. This group will be a group of yr10 students who are undertaking a combined

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GCSE in Design and Technology and Information Communication Technology. The group is by
all indicators fairly average with average CAT scores. I will introduce this group to CSC through
the use of an online workspace environment and observe the effects if any on their understanding
of the subject and engagement to it. I will also look at my own teaching as regards using
metateaching approaches encouraging deep metacognitive learning in pupils.

Group Two

The second group will be a mixture of both students and staff from both my college and a
partnership college. The curriculum area involved will be modern foreign language (MFL). A MFL
project was set with DFEE funding with the express aim to apply an accelerated learning process
to the teaching of French to a group of Yr8 students. The partnership exists between my college
and one from the independent sector. The staff from both establishments are eager to see if the
use of CSC environments can help with the accelerated learning process and also bridge the
geographical divide of some 20 miles between campuses. I will look at the difficulties of using and
teaching using CSC from the perspective of these ‘non-expert’ staff, I will also look at their use of
metateaching approaches within their teaching of the sample group.

The Test Environment: Think.com

Think.com started life as ‘Scoop’ an experimental collaborative environment designed to give
children tools with which to collaborate with online. The team at Anglia University’s Ultra Lab led
by Stephen Heppell helped form the environment to fulfill Oracle’s promise of providing
technological backup to the children of our increasingly Cyber centric world. Heppell’s seemingly
single handed crusade to provide “creative” opportunities for children and young adults to use
technology is based around research projects undertaken at Ultra lab.

“To be able to build engaging learning communities that children really want to join, and support
the ones they already belong to (their schools or sports clubs for example), needs many
ingredients. The permanent individual on-line identity for all of course, but also: a sense of
belonging and membership; the ability to create, edit, review and annotate work with ease;
different types of discussion group that are familiar and that fulfill different roles; a sense and
indication of time and of audience; multiple media; a service that works anywhere from any
computer on any system at any time in any country; compelling opportunities not available
elsewhere; and of course very considerable experience from the designers who need to start with
children's needs, wants, dreams and ambitions.” (Heppell 2000)

I have chosen Think.com as the Graphic User Interface (GUI) for my CSC environment see
(appendix iii ) for a number of reasons. The chance of becoming an earlier adopter of the scheme
seemed too good to miss and the technology involved is very advanced. The GUI uses Oracles
database technology to share data between a server and an ‘on the fly’ generated web page.
Other systems exist and some have good and bad points but most either cost an exorbitant
amount or don’t have the functionality for multimedia use as Think.Com has. I will attempt to
evaluate this CSC environment and comment on its good and bad points, but the task is to look at
CSC within an educational setting and I feel it would be unnecessary to dwell too much on the
workings of Think.Com.

Data Collection

Data collection will take the form of structured analysis of observable factors and feedback from
the students themselves.

Data types:

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• Observations of direct use of the workspace graphic user interface (GUI)
• Verbal feedback of users on their use of the system
• Work pattern inventories
• Class room dialogue transcripts
• Analysis of teaching and learning using a hierarchical device

I will extend the same data collection methods to ‘group two’ sets of students but will also try to
use staff as observers and gain feedback from them. The groups have already physically met
which I hope will help to make a cohesive set of classes, using the CSC environment to enhance
what is in theory already going on.

Observations of GUI

I intend to use some simple software to enable me to record screen activity and save this as a
replayable file type. This will be built up into a bank of behaviour-based actions which I can
comment on later outside of the classroom environment almost as if it were a computerised
version of a videoed lesson. Observational notes will then be formulated from these ‘videos’.

Verbal Feedback of users

I will use verbal feedback within the lessons to help with reflection and the evaluative report.

Work pattern Inventory

The work pattern inventory will be set up to establish how often the CSC environment is used
within the college day and also at home. This will mainly be carried out by observational records
kept on the content of CSC environments of individuals and the dated entry logs of usage and
tool use.(appendix ii)

Classroom Dialogue Transcripts

I will attempt to note any relevant dialogue that occurs within the classroom introduction and use
of the CSC environment. These transcripts will be useful to illustrate points and to reference.

Analysis of Teaching and Learning using a Hierarchical Device

I would like to assess if using a CSC allows better access to higher levels of cognitive
understanding and development. This brings up many issues of whether this type of development
is a linear process and can be assessed in this hierarchical way. I need at this stage a ‘yard stick’
something that I can broadly say is measuring this access. I will therefore use Benjamin Bloom’s
Taxonomy, a six point scale.

Dialectics

With the two target groups already mentioned I hope to create research dialectics. These
contrasts within organisational or social structure will help to highlight strengths and weaknesses
within the use of CSC with differing groups. I hope that these references will also be useful for the
evaluative report.
The contrast between:
• Expert user staff introduction (myself) and non-expert staff introduction and associated
problems.
• Student focus group using ICT as a curriculum area and student focus groups using MFL
target language as a curriculum area.

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• Student focus group subjects with home computer access and student focus group subjects
without home computer access
• Gender use in all groups
• Relationship between online collaborative meetings and face to face collaborative meetings
• Asynchronous methods and synchronous methods

My own assumptions, expectations of what might happen in practice will also be useful in creating
this dialectic discussion.

The Development of Metacognitive tasks

I need a set of simple tasks, which use the multimedia aspects of the Think.com GUI. These
tasks can then be used to assess the validity of my reflective thought on this use of CSC.
Examples of tasks:

Task one:

The self-perception inventory as detailed by Howard Gardner can easily be developed into a
spreadsheet. This could then be stored as a file on Think .com and students asked to use this
tool to instigate an online discussion on learning styles. The pie chart can be copied as an image
and presented on the students Think space.

Task two:

The material for an exam board set project is presented in one style, a paper document. I
propose to reproduce the exam board document using intermedia. This can act as a learning
style differentiated resource. This will also be posted on Think.com community space for the
relevant group.

Task three:

I will use a piece of software called ‘E Mindmap’ to develop sets of mind maps for specific
sections of theory that need to be covered within this subject area. These graphically rich mind
maps will then be posted as part of the community area. There is an example of such a map used
within this work to look at learning styles in the introductory section. (see page 5 example)

Task four:

Introduce a set of toolbox tasks to introduce the GUI of Think.com and initiate some responses
from students.

Task five:

I will use observation notes to assess student’s response to theory style questions. I would like to
use dialectic between a lesson taught in a fairly traditional manner and one taught through the
use of CSC environment. The notes will use a simple hierarchical scale to assess access to
deeper learning.

Blooms taxonomy is a scale devised to measure the cognative depth of learning. As you can see
from the descriptive levels below: Level 1 is a low level of cognative learning and teaching such
as fact recall, the highest level 6 represents the deep learning skills of evaluation such as making
judgements and comparing data etc.

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1. Knowledge: remembering of previously learned material; recall (facts or whole theories);
bringing to mind.
- Terms: defines, describes, identifies, lists, matches,
names.

2. Comprehension: grasping the meaning of material; interpreting (explaining or summarizing);

predicting outcome and effects (estimating future trends).
- Terms: convert, defend, distinguish, estimate, explain,
generalize, rewrite.

3. Application: ability to use learned material in a new situation; apply rules, laws, methods,
theories.
- Terms: changes, computes, demonstrates, operates,
shows, uses, solves.

4. Analysis: breaking down into parts; understanding organization, clarifying, concluding.

- Identify parts; See Related Order; Relationships; Clarify.
- Terms: distinguish, diagrams, outlines, relates, breaks
down, discriminates, subdivides.

5. Synthesis: ability to put parts together to form a new whole; unique communication; set of
abstract relations.
- Terms: combines, complies, composes, creates,
designs, rearranges.

6. Evaluation: ability to judge value for purpose; base on criteria; support judgment with reason.
(No guessing).
- Terms: appraises, criticizes, compares, supports,
concludes, discriminates, contrasts, summarizes,
explains.
-

Task Choice

I will not be able to cover every task that I have stated here. I need to choose perhaps two to
three tasks to enable this report to start the action research cyclical process in motion. I have
chosen to use tasks one, four and five. These seem to be a manageable workload amount and
also introduce some key concepts to the students.

Interim Evaluation

I really am rambling some of the time, no all of the time. I seem to know inside what I have to say
or perhaps were I want to go but I find myself colliding with ideas and events. I suppose these
collisions are within themselves evidence of the process of action research.

Action research: research with and not on.

This phrase is one that I need to revisit .The confusion that is occurring in clarifying ideas,
thoughts etc is rather odd. I feel that I have revisited a need to be reflective and to look at my own
practice. I intend to look more closely at some of my own teaching practice and how using a CSC
can impact on this practice. This introspection is fairly natural, as I feel that I have probably
always done it throughout my teaching, but with no real validation of my thoughts. Reading
material on action research methodologies and the theories of education and learning has helped

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‘scaffold’ my own learning and embed vocabulary and processes into my own reflection. Writing
has been increasingly difficult though and I have made slow progress often only managing one
hundred words in some hours it seems. This seems to be another awakening the fact that I could
actually start to write in a dialogical form and not just in a factual report format I will try to keep
some of these interim evaluation or thoughts sections personally dialogical. I am going to
introduce the first group of pupils to the CSC environment shortly and I will need to think of how
best to implement Task Four. I have included the following short report on the features of this
environment and screen shots of the GUI.

Introduction to Group one

I introduced the concept of using a collaborative online area to this group. We talked about it
during an ICT GCSE theory lesson on ‘The social Impact of ICT’. The surprise was that every
student had used some form of online communication other than e-mail. Many of these students
were using messaging agents like MSN and AOL. We talked about how they used these and
other forms of online collaboration and contact:

Transcript 1

ME: ‘What do you use online messaging for?’

Jason: ‘Entertainment, talking to other people, meeting people!’

Ben: ‘Asking friends from college what the homework was for that night.’

Andy: ‘I use Napster!’

ME: ‘Is using Napster working together with people?’

Andy:’ Well you are sort of working together because you can make you files available for other
people to download.’

Steve: ‘That’s illegal Andy!’

Andy: ‘No it’s not is it Sir?’

(We then have a prolonged discussion about the legality of sharing copyrighted music online with
others)

ME: ‘Lets get back to the point. Has anyone used some form of online community to gain
information or help?

Richard: ‘Yes I have, I use a forum to post messages to.’

ME: ‘What about?’

Richard: ‘It was when I wanted to try to program a cheat into a game and I could not do it so I
asked anyone if they could help.’

ME: ‘Did you get the reply you wanted?’

Richard: ‘Yes, this guy replied that seemed to be some kind of expert or something. He knew
exactly what I was doing wrong and he helped me get it right!’

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Andy: ‘Cool!’

We continued to chat about the differences of asynchronous and synchronous chat and the
difference between face-to-face contact and that in a virtual world of chat. The level of use of ICT
constantly amazes me in some of the groups I teach. The vast amount of use of this type of
technology seems to be for entertainment or play. We should not be too critical about this type of
play because we know that play is an essential part of human development perhaps a key to
successful ICT use. The conclusion could be from this episode is that I have to carefully think of
introducing the CSC environment tools correctly so that students get the right balance of play,
entertainment and work. The skills are there in most students in this group to pick up the use of
the interface.

Thoughts:

I am initially pleased with the response of pupils to the introduction of collaboration as a vehicle
for not only entertainment but also work. The initial response needs to be tempered with the
novelty factor that probably exists. I have introduced Task Four, a set of Toolbox use tasks as
follows:

• Add a picture from clip art or scan and use a digital camera to input a picture into the gallery
and also use this picture for your logo (appendix iii)
• Go to the Community College space and take part in the Brainstorm on ‘Pocket Computer
Technology’. (appendix iii and iv)
• Add your own newspaper article to your page.

Observation notes for Brainstorm Task:

This task seemed to be a good introduction to the Brainstorm tool. This tool can be used to add a
Brainstorm to your page which other users can add thoughts. The question posed was how would
pocket PC technology affect our lives in the future and was used to add to a theory lesson on the
effect of ICT on society.(appendix iv)
The brainstorm was used well by the majority of pupils with some interesting points made. There
was some usual play involved with this. I asked the pupils some questions on what they found
different in answering questions in this way.

Transcript Two:

ME: ‘How does using this Brainstorm tool differ from using a piece of paper or taking part in a
discussion using the whiteboard?’

Andy:’ I felt it was useful because I could think longer about my answer and also check it for
mistakes before I showed it to everybody’

Alex: ‘ I found it useful because it allowed me to try to explain what I thought more easily’

Thoughts:

I am already starting to see the power of this type of technology for allowing students to view their
own interaction with each other. Perhaps this is the most powerful part enabling a developing
person to think more about their own processes. This strikes me as almost being equal to the
accelerated learning and thinking skills strategies that we see in recent writings by Hughes and
Smith. There seems to be a sense of peer teaching going on which is sometimes difficult to see in
groups of students. The Vygotskian theory of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) seems to
be valid here as students are connecting together to give each other tips on how best to use the
tool within the GUI. They are, in some cases, doing this within the lesson but in many others are
doing this remotely using the workspace at home. Could I harness this ‘Buzz’ about using such a

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system to reach more lofty education goals? The next work pattern inventory should be a focus
for evidence.

Introduction to Group Two

This has already been problematic. I am trying to ask a member of the MFL staff to work with me
to show her how such a system could work. The skills gap is evident and the time factors involved
for this staff member to use the environment personally are already an issue. I am seeing the use
of the CSC environment from my point of view, a teacher with a good amount of computer hours
under their belt. My colleague seems to be hesitant to use the system. I eventually manage with
technical support to get them using a CSC environment, which uses chat. We host the first chat
room using the target language of French with a group of yr 10 pupils and a similar group from a
private sector school some 15 miles away geographically. This was a mild success but wrought
with technical problems. The pupils, as ever, were enthusiastic and intuitive in their use of this
type of system. The members of staff involved were less enthusiastic because of the technical
difficulties.

The next step is to try and develop some strategies for success:

• Initiate staff training for the use of the CSC environment

• Initiate starter lesson introduction to the target group with a team teaching approach
• Show the MFL staff a working example of how the use of this type of system could be
used effectively within the target language
• Solve access problems by initially using the CSC for a homework based task

Interim evaluation

I am starting to feel the project is underway at last with real data starting to be collected and real
students using CSC. I am still unhappy with the tear between trying to keep reflection practical
and my evidence base realistic and rigorous. I have read comment that action research can
become very anecdotal so I am aware of the need to not just write in a narrative form. I am
starting to re evaluate my own perceptions of what teaching is and how best to transfer the
knowledge skills and understanding that I intend my students to gain by the end of a lesson. I am
seeing that this perception is in fact a catalyst. I have completed some work on belief systems
whilst working as a sports coach and this seems to be an appropriate use of these skills. Am I in
fact becoming less of a teacher whilst using CSC with students and more of a coach drawing out
the best possibly performance in their understanding and knowledge construction. This self-
perception and any changes made to it through this project are also an interesting point, which I
could build upon. There is some research pointing to the effect on the perception of teaching and
its effect on students learning approaches.
‘We believe we have established the existence of two orientations to teaching and learning:
learning facilitation, and knowledge transmission. The orientation affects the curriculum design,
the approach to learning of the students. Therefore, if it is considered desirable that students
adopt meaningful approaches to learning, it seems more important to direct initial attention toward
the lecturers conception of teaching’
(Gow and Kember 1993)
The process of reevaluating my own conceptual understanding of teaching effectively for all
learning styles is starting to move forward. The theory of many of the research papers and texts
that I have read are slowly becoming clearer. This process is doing more than any of my research
data to aid in answering the question ‘How can the use of CSC environments promote
metateaching approaches to teaching?’
Nussbaum and Novick sets out a paradigm for action in this important step towards the’ cultural
shift ‘talked about within the introduction to this work.

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1.A process for diagnosing conceptual frameworks and revealing them to the participants.

2. A period of disequilibrium and conceptual conflict, which makes participants, dissatisfied with
existing conceptions.

3. A reconstruction or reforming phases, in which a new conceptual framework is formed.

(Nussbaum & Novick 1982)

It is this ‘conception of teaching’, which I will need to look more closely at. This lack of Meta
teaching, acting in a responsive manner to students and reacting to their needs as individuals or
as a group is the essence of the concern. The ICT systems that I see in my dreams develop
these metacognitive skills in both student and teacher. They act as social frameworks that enable
students to develop an increasing self-awareness of how they work or what type of learning style
works best for them. This is what I want CSC to bring to the education place. The very nature of
the technology enabling an ‘anytime anywhere’ approach to this awareness could be the most
powerful aspect of using an online system.
The use of a textually rich environment is also an interesting point, Vygotsky and others have
pointed out the importance of language in learning and it is this fact that gives me a focus for
many of my GCSE revision lessons on key terms and technical vocabulary. Can the use of CSC
environment be used to better effect than traditional methods of annotating or note taking?
The theory of knowledge construction is well documented could the inclusion within this self-
constructed world be a catalyst that enables pupils to learn effectively. Papert(Papert 1980) and
Senge (Senge 19??) have both theorised on the use of Microworlds and the power of
construction and play in these ‘worlds’. Do we need to look more closely at using ‘virtual spaces’
to enable this play. Will students as Heppell says just be creative with this type of technology and
take it for granted as another tool such as the calculator of ballpoint pen? (Heppell 2000)

Task one introduction

To enable a link to some of the theories looked at the review of concepts at the start of this work I
have developed the Gardner self-perception inventory system into a spreadsheet file. This file will
be accessed within the CSC environment and is easy to complete. The addition and scoring of
responses to questions is automatically completed for the user and a graphical analysis is
available to help analysis proportional relationships between types of intelligence. This task also
enables the file download section of the CSC environment to be used and also the graphic can be
shared on a user workspace. This enables others to form opinions about intelligence strengths
and start a debate about learning styles. The graphic below shows the output from this file.

Kinesthetic
Linguistic Linguistic

Intrapersonal Mathmatical
and logical

Mathmatical and
logical Visual and
spatial

Musical

Interpersonal Interpersona
l
Visual and
spatial
Musical
15
Transcript Three: Discussion forum task
Task five Introduction
The first part of the task was using traditional methods of class and group work to initiate
responses to a typical theory question set by examination boards. This type of in context ‘critical
thinking’ is used more and more now within my own practice but would the traditional approach
differ from one scaffolded by a CSC environment? I have used another observer to make
observation notes on the traditional lesson on a similar subject area and check these notes
against a Blooms Scale.
The transcript below is taken from an online discussion forum within the CSC environment and
the subject was posted by the pupils themselves. The task was set as:

‘Take part in the current online forum discussion on the effect of ICT on society. You may add
your own subject areas if you wish.’

Transcript Three: Discussion forum task

Subject: How do you feel about the way the Internet has changed people’s lives?

ME: “I feel that the Internet has already changed peoples lives. Speaking personally I am now in
touch with more people because of it. I use email very regularly and I also run about three web
sites which are used to share information with anyone in the world who wants to see it. I bank
online. I catch up with the latest technology online and I frequently work on line storing files by
using an online drive. If I look back to only 6-7 years ago I did not do any of these things. I would
say that the Internet has already effected my life in a major way.”

Alice: “I think that the internet has made communication, so much easier, and I feel that although
this may mean that people stay in instead of going out to meet friends it also means that you talk
to people who you don't tend to talk to. I also think that this helps people with communication
problems.
BUT this technology excludes people that can't afford it.”

Lauren: “The Internet has changed my life. Everyone does things over the Internet now. I have
made loads of friends over the net and it’s very addictive. I think that it has made people more
lazy now as they don’t need to go out to do things like shopping because it can be done over the
net.”

Ben: “I do think the Internet will change peoples lives because it already is. But considering the
amount of time that the Internet has been around it hasn’t changed huge amounts and in my view
should be. It is still not easy for someone who knows little about the Internet to easily find the
information that they are looking for, probably because there is to much information.”
Tim: “though it's done a lot of good surely people who don't have access to the Internet are being
left out. If they can't get connected, will an irreparable gap appear in society through the
technological age? Will people who don't have a net connection be looked down on?”

Tom:” I agree with Tim as more people in world are getting connected to the Internet, the people
with out a connection will be left behind. E.g. what we are using to do this. If a person didn't have
the access they would be left out, but I don’t think it will go as far as people looking down on
someone just for the pure reason they aren't connected”

Jenny: “yes, but there are many places where people can get connected to the Internet if they do
not have a computer at home, such as cyber cafes and schools. This ensures that everyone can
use this technology to find information and communicate with others. Also, as computers are
becoming less expensive these days, as they are not the very latest technology, more people can
afford them and so less are left out. I therefore feel that a gap will not appear in society and that
everyone can benefit from the Internet.”

16
Alice:” I agree, not only is there people who can't afford it but people who don't know how to you
this.”

Luke: “Well Hannah the power and potential of the Internet is just being realised. For instance in
the future you could have electrical products at home with a computer in such as a fridge. The
fridge could know what is in it and when you have run out of something for example milk the
fridge could order some more via the internet. Also with new broadband technology such as
ADSL instead of going to the cinema to watch a film you could go to a web site and pay with a
credit card and watch the film on your computer. The uses of the Internet are endless, just use
your imagination and no matter how sci-fi it may seem chances are it will be possible via the
Internet.”

17
Evaluative Report
Within this report I aim to review the process and the outputs of this action research cycle. The
initial writing of this work has been very difficult for me as a non-practiced researcher trying to
understand the very process of this type of research. I believe that the process has been a
positive one and that my understanding of this type of work has greatly increased.

I will outline this final review with the following structure referencing the previous elements of the
report as a whole:

• Broad Aims
• Specific Aims
• Suggestions for further Action Cycles

Broad Aims

The broad aims stated within the first part of this project were to try to discuss the ‘educational
relevancy’ of using CSC environments. I feel that my findings confirm that there is a great deal of
positive response to using a CSC environment either within the classroom or as a tool for
extending school work to within the home, contributing to life long learning. I have seen within
some of the log statistics (appendix i) and work pattern inventories that students use CSC very
naturally whilst ‘away’ from the classroom situation. I believe that this in itself is having a positive
effect on the effectiveness of teaching and learning within my school. The access log confirms
that most pupils were using the CSC environment between the hours of 5pm to 7pm; this
extension of the concept of learning could be very powerful. This element of independence in
learning is of course evident in many adults’ and older students’ work patterns who are skilled ‘life
long learners’. This aspect of ‘cultural shift’ where students of a younger age are taking more
control over their own learning seems to be happening in other countries education. Thomas
Carroll, USA Education Department, whilst addressing teachers at a national conference in 2000,
stated that teachers were becoming “less the sage on the stage and more the guide on the side”
(Carroll 2000). He also commented on the idea of ‘kid power’ becoming more important in
American society where online learning has been in place for some years and is more common in
the education system.
I now better understand the opportunities available to all learning organisations to use CSC
environments to enrich their work. I have reflected on my ‘learning practice’ over the past years
and noted a change within my own learning from reluctant school child to practicing teacher. The
last 6 years have showed some remarkable changes within my own personal use of CSC
environments and computer technologies for my own learning.

The use of these systems to ‘scaffold’ or support learning is an increasingly important subject to
understand. The full impact of the use of such systems is perhaps still to unfold with the un-
metering of local loop telephone services on the horizon and the rollout of Broad Band services
throughout Great Britain as a whole. The decreasing cost of the technology and eventual
possibility of embedded technologies with even the most domestic of products becoming
commonplace will have their effects.

My review of past and current thinking on pedagogy and learning has brought together some
interesting threads. The constructivist theories of classical education psychologists like Piaget are
still used within many educationlists thinking and proponents of these theories have used them
with variation to great effect for computer mediated use. (Paperts constructionist approach to
Microworlds 1980) Perhaps a more fitting approach is Vygotskian ideas on ZPD and the use of
language as a central spine for knowledge construction. Some of the tasks completed use online
text systems to communicate concepts and also involve a great deal of pier and teacher/mentor
collaboration.

18
The learning styles theory put forward by Kolb(1984), Honey & Mumford(1983) and MI theories of
Gardner (1993) have contributions to make to the understanding of the importance of students
preferred learning style and the need for a ‘scaffolded’ and perhaps uniquely individual approach
to delivery of resources and materials.

Specific Aims

More specific aims of this report were to address some concerns perceived over the past years of
teaching:

Could CSC help to make the cultural shift needed to encourage us to create thinking schools and
make teachers change their existing styles to a more metateaching approach?
This question is obviously only partly answered. I believe that the action of using CSC
environments has shown that these types of systems are useful to promote the concepts of
‘critical thinking’ in both staff and students. The biggest concern over a ‘cultural shift’ is the
dialectic between expert and non-expert staff. It is this skills gap that is holding back any cultural
change. The current plans by both government and other organisations to train new teaching staff
and update existing staff can only help to close this. The report initially outlined using two groups
of staff and students. This second group was eventually not used for any observations. This is
outlined on page 13 and was predominantly caused by lack of staff skills and training issues.
Other cultural issues will be:

• Organistional change
• Parental perspectives
• Examination Board perspectives

The obvious cultural change group, the students themselves, seems to be the least of the
problem. A huge amount of students already use CSC environments mainly for entertainment.
The shift is an easier one to change from entertainment use of CSC environments to educational
use. It may be that this very aspect of ‘play’ is the important factor that students find motivating.
The importance of play within a ‘micro world’ has been noted by many researches including both
Papert (1980) and Senge (1990). It is this very ‘buzz’ of enthusiasm that I refer to within the
‘Thoughts’ section on page 12.

Task One

The tasks I chose to use within the CSC environment were successful within their own rite. They
enabled me to assess what the CSC environment could be used for and highlighted some of the
problems of use. Task One showed how students could easily access task information and
automate a process, which would have taken some degree of skill, was error prone and not easily
shared by other methods. The MI inventory could be completed and an accurate result obtained
very quickly. The process itself was also a good introduction to the student’s own growing
awareness of MI and preferred learning styles. The collaborative plus points of being able to
share these results easily and quickly became obvious. Discussion could take place on the
accuracy of MI theory and the accuracy of the inventory itself. Inventory ‘swaps’ could be made
with students completing a chart for their partners and comparisons made to their own
perceptions. My assumption is that both the CSC environment and the use of a computer-
generated inventory heavily ‘scaffolded’ the learning within this task and achieved ‘deep’ levels of
learning. The idea of play seemed to be always underlying the task. Students were synthesising
and evaluating. Many or the students used the file at home on brothers, sisters, mothers and
fathers, this promoted further discussion.

Task Four

This task was very necessary to help develop the student’s knowledge of how the CSC
environment worked and help to make it and acceptable form of communication within the group.

19
The ‘Brainstorm’ and discussion forum tools were popular with students being able to work
asynchronously. As highlighted in Transcript Two on page 12, students like the in built ‘thinking
time’ within the asynchronous use of these tools. The very public nature of being able to add
items to your Think space was important to students and they seem, to not only enjoy sharing
these pieces of work, but have a sense of ownership of them. I have often found that not all of
this group takes part in class based discussions even when directed questioning is used. The use
of the CSC environment seemed to break down some of the social barriers that existed within the
group. Some students were talking to each other online when they found face-to-face talk difficult.
Charles Crook (1994) and others have explored these scaffolded social encounters in more
detail. A difficult area to comment on would be that of achievement to potential within some of
these tasks. My instant qualitative reaction would be to comment on the structured collaborative
tools helping achieve entry into a ZPD. Students of all ability ranges were motivated by the CSC
environment use and were achieving better quality of understanding and output with regards to
their potential. To make this statement valid I would obviously need to undertake a full qualitative
study.

Task Five

Within task five I wanted to try to make a better judgment of my own style of teaching and the
support that I would gain, if any, from using the CSC environment. The difficulty arose in choosing
some type of yardstick measure for the level of learning taking place within this lesson. I did state
at the start of this report that I would try to steer clear of a very quantitative report style. I feel that
an action research model should be about professional opinion and reflective thought and I make
no apology for this. I will obviously, at some point, have to be more quantitative in approach to
data collection if I am to validate my theories of the positive effects of using CSC. I felt it was
important to use some form of observation device so that another teacher could observe my
lesson and I could then perhaps ask them to use the same scale, to look at work carried out
within the CSC environment.
Blooms Taxonomy can be used to look at the cognitive domain under a six-point scale. The
observation of the lesson where a more traditional approach to the theory topic was used showed
that the lesson for the majority of the time covered the scale within the 1-4 levels. Essentially my
assumption is that shallow learning was experienced. One could of course argue that the
teaching style and pace could also have a significant affect on this level.
The less traditional approach used the CSC environment to set questions and to encourage
thoughts. The type of feedback response given by the majority of the students was excellent. This
level of response was judged at being within the full range of the scale 1-6. The shift to deeper
learning seemed to exist here. Some of the responses made by the students were also self-
generated i.e. they decided the pace and subject of the discussion within given guidelines.
Once again we seem to have a positive effect of using the CSC environment. Students used the
discussion tool over a long period of time typically a week. They would log back into the system
and add another point after a period of time. These continued pieces of discourse seemed to
back up theories of ‘deep learning approaches’ by Marton & Saljo (1976) and Biggs (1989) as
referenced on page 5.
The assumptions that I have within review of completion of this task echo those in task four. Do
the students once again because they are using the CSC environment have better access to a
ZPD. The level of feedback seems to indicate that students are achieving more to potential
mainly by high levels of pier group interaction over longer periods of time.

20
Conclusions and suggestions for further action cycles

A new future seems to be outlining itself with the increased use of home computer purchase, the
introduction of interactive services on digital television and the concept of ‘Web TV’. The
education place that has mostly been kept within the bounds of the school gates is now starting to
observe that actually there are no boundaries. The notion of a ‘connected learning community’ is
slowly becoming a reality.
The plus factors for using CSC seem to out weigh the negative points. During this small journey
of discovery I have been able to begin to analyse why some of these technological systems work.
There is still much to do if I am to truly prove some of the assumptions made within this report.
The two main factors effecting success in using these systems is of course ‘cultural shift’ and
‘appropriateness of use’. I have already seen that some teaching staff find it difficult to see the
benefits initially of using CSC and there is still a skills gap, which needs to be addressed. Why
should they see the benefits, when they have been using paper based, more traditional systems
for some time and with success. The task of making clear the benefits of such a systems use is a
problematic one.The increasing pressure from the world around us will help to give increased
confidence that CSC is becoming a norm for business and industry, and is an effective way to
engage students and their families in educational activities.

‘The number of network-users grows exponentially each month. Four years ago at the beginning
of 1996,the total worldwide online population stood at 50 million. Currently, at least at the start of
2000, it has increased four- fold to 206 million and by the start of 2005 it is estimated that it will be
750 million.’ (Monteith 2000)

As you can see from the above figures the potential for using CSC is growing exponentially. I see
the use of these systems as an essential tool if we are as teachers to engage our pupils in an
increasingly digital world and also cater for their preferred learning styles. The question of does
CSC help students reach their potential is one that I would like to follow with further study. Is
Vygotsky’s theory on ZPD valid here? What role has language to play in all of this?

We must be vigilant and use CSC in appropriate ways. There are tasks, which are easily
transferable, and others, which would be better done by more traditional methods of teaching.
Appropriateness is as much part of the cultural shift needed than anything else.

Bill O’Neill of Ulster University has recently published papers on multimedia tool use and
collaboration. He submits that ‘..Teachers need to find ways to place the technology in the hands
of children…’ (O’Neill 1996) He comments on an overlapping cycle of elements:

1. Ownership
2. Language
3. Representation
4. Reflection

His findings seem to link several of the elements that I have commented on within this report. The
students ‘ownership’ of the files in task one and eventual ownership of the whole ‘Think space’
help to ensure success and engage them. I have already talked at several points about language
and it’s importance in linking aspects of CSC use together. Representation can be linked to the
use of multimedia tools i.e. graphics, text, video, animation and sound. The importance of
students being able to represent their understanding of the world, using these rich tools, their link
with MI theory and preferred learning style. The concept of ‘ micro world’ construction as outlined
by Papert, Senge and Crook is also connected to this type of representation model. This powerful
problem-solving paradigm connects with ‘critical thinking skills’ talked about earlier in this report.

21
Reflection is the process, which connects all of the above together and helps with ‘critical thinking
strategies’.

I have found this journey fascinating. It is rich in ideas and thoughts, which I would now like to
explore further in my studies. I have started in part to answer my concerns commented on in
page 5 of this report. I have instigated ‘Action’ and evaluated it although the action research
model seems to be blurred at times. I have developed and changed my understanding of using
CSC throughout this report and the very process of writing this has caused a personal ‘cultural
shift’. The reading has been absorbing, the focus difficult. I have no doubt that there are areas of
this report that are ‘fuzzy’ and other areas, which need a more rigorous structure. The important
step for my own professional development is being able to relate some of the instinctive ‘what
works’ thoughts to the theory and connect some of my own ideas together and give them a sense
of professional validity. I am often perceived in my professional role as being an ‘idealist’ or a
‘dreamer’, the person who tries to ‘sell’ using technologies that have no real educational merit. My
professional role as ICT Curriculum Leader is to make information and communication based
technologies work to their full potential within my ‘learning community’. I see a world that uses
ICT systems to affect this learning community and make both student and teacher better
metacognitive practitioners. I also increasingly understand the importance of the role that ‘teacher
perception’ has on the success of this community.

22
Bibliography

Flavell,J. Metacognitive Aspects of Problem solving, in The Nature of Intelligence, L.Resnick

(ed.),Erlbaum,Hillsdale,New Jersey, 1976.

Mcguiness,C. From Thinking Skills to Thinking Classrooms, DFEE research brief no 115 April
1999
Nussbaum & Novick, Alternative frameworks, conceptual conflict and accommodation toward a
principled teaching strategy, Instructional Science 183-200

Papert, S. Mindstorms: Children,Computers and Powerful Ideas. The Harvester Press: Brighton
1980
th
Senge,P. The 5 Discipline 1990

D Kolb, Experiential Learning , Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall 1984

H Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Basic Books 1993

Honey,P & Mummford,A Using Your learning styles 1983

Piaget,J. ‘Logique genetique et socilogie’ reprinted in Revue Philosophique de la France et de

l’Estranger 1928 53: 161-205

Pachler N and M Leask, Learning to Teach Using ICT in the Secondary School, Routledge 1999

Heppell, S., Learning gains from using Scoop, a paper published within the Think.com workspace
found at http://www.think.com 2000

Heppell, S., How might e Learning really change educational policy and practice? A web based
resource found at http://www.ultralab.ac.uk/papers/elearning/ 2000

Gow, L., & Kember, D. "Conceptions Of Teaching And Their Relationship To Student Learning."
BJEP, 63: 20-33. 1993

Crook,C. Computers and the Collaborative Experience of Learning, Routledge 1994

Hughes,M. Closing the Learning gap , The school effectiveness series, Network educational
Press 1999

Smith,A. Accelerated Learning in Practice, Network educational Press 1998

Hopkins,D. A Teacher’s guide To Classroom Research, Open University Press 1985

Biggs, J. Approaches to Enhancement of Tertiary Teaching. Higher Education Research and

Development, Vol 8, No. 1, pp. 7-25 1989

Marton, F. and Saljo, R. On qualitative differences in learning:1 - Outcomes and process'. British
Journal of Educational Psychology 46, pp. 4-11 1976

Fox, D. Personal Theories of Teaching. Studies in Higher Education, Vol.8, No2., pp. 151- 164.
1983

Timson, W. The Metateaching Instructional Map a set of web based notes found at
http://www.colostate.edu/Orgs/CTLearn/Thinking/ 1997

23
Monteith,M (ed). IT for learning Enhancement, Intellect 2000

Loveless,A and Ellis,V (ed), ICT,Pedagogy and the Curriculum, Routledge Falmer 2001

O’Neill,B. New ways of Telling: Multimedia Authoring in the Classroom; IT for learning
Enhancement, Intellect 2000 1996

Johnstone,C, Fostering Deeper Learning, University of Melbourne Economics Department

Research paper found at
http://www.ecom.unimelb.edu.au/tluwww/workingPapers/fostDeepLearn.htm 1994

24
 Appendix
i)

ii)

Work Pattern Inventory observation table: Think.com tool use

Student Sex Cat AV Home Stickie Image Brainstorm Discussion Article Intermedia
PC
Student M 6.7 !" ! ! ! !
101
Student S 4.7 ! ! !
102
Student M 5 !
103

25
 iii)

Screen Shots of the Think.Com GUI

This screen shot shows the Think.com

GUI. It is graphically interesting and clear.

iv)

This screen shot shows the

Brainstorm in action. Red
colours show the newest
ideas and Blue the oldest.

26
v)

This screen shot shows a discussion tools used

by the pupils with no tuition this type of
intuitiveness seems to be prolific amongst the
group.

27