Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Debate Prep:
Con: Virtual learning (online classes and virtual reality) has positive impact on student learning
Ideas:
Student Participation OR learn* & Online Learning
Conversation & Collaboration in learning
Traditional Classroom
Instructional Effectiveness
Learning and Movement
Main Ideas:
In Person Collaboration (Peer to Peer)
Teacher-Student Relationship - positive impact on student learning
Peer Social Development
Learning Space (Collaborative Classroom) & Movement
Negatives to Online Learning:
Digital Divide - Equitable access to technology
Online Security/Safety/Bullying
Main Ideas -
Human interaction and relationships and class community are vital to positive learning
experiences for students
Social Constructivist model of teaching and learning - students learn by social
interactions and discussion.
Nurturing Self-Regulated Learners: Teacher, Peer, and Parental Support of
Strategy Instruction - Positive relationships with peers can also lead to the
development of academic competencies through the sharing of advice and
modeling of relevant behavior...It may be that some students feel more
comfortable turning to their peers for clarification and advice on helpful learning
strategies (p. 299-300). Students learn by interacting with peers and teaching
content to others. Information is solidified in memory when it is taught to
someone else. Through their experiences with adult and peer models, students
internalize thinking, planning, and reflective strategies to enhance their learning
and understanding. The development of self-regulated learning strategies is
supported by learning environments where students are immersed in a culture of
conducting research, collaboration, and scientific communication (p. 300).
Learning strategies are solidified in situations where students are collaborating.
Teacher Perceptions of Learner-Learner Engagement at a Cyber High School -
The students who valued an emotional connection and sense of community with
their peers commonly reported that it had a motivational effect that enabled them
to complete more of the coursework (p. 235).
A certain amount of social presence is necessary for students to co-construct
knowledge together because students need to feel comfortable communicating
with each other prior to having meaningful content-centered discussions (p. 242).
Collaborative Learning & Collaborative Classrooms - Effectiveness of Blended
Cooperative Learning Cooperative learning involves students working together
in small groups to accomplish shared goals. Typically, cooperative groups are
heterogeneous in membership, especially in terms of achievement, motivation
and task orientation...they recognize that all students have different abilities and
characteristics. As there is constant dialogue and sharing in class, students
participate more in lessons. During group work, even though some students have
difficulty understanding the subjects, students will help each other in the group to
solve the problem (p. 270). Students are comfortable working with their peers
around them and students get used to working with others that have different
strengths and abilities.
Collaboration, Intragroup Conflict, and Social Skills in Project-Based Learning -
Collaborative-Problem Based Learning is known to have many benefits, such as
development of collaboration skills, improvement of critical thinking and creative
thinking, complex problem solving, transfer of learning, and positive attitudes
towards tasks.
Creating Innovators - Design Lab classroom environment supports problem
solving and collaboration - Wagner
Creating a classroom community of learners - Effectiveness of Blended
Cooperative Learning - creating a classroom community is something that all
teachers try to do so that students feel safe, comfortable, and challenged.
students feel themselves as a member of the group. In addition, it is also defined
as sense of belonging that occurs thanks to the feelings of confidence and
connectedness among members. Thus, when students feel themselves as part of
a group or a community, they will be more willing to participate actively in group
works and discussions and to support the other members of the group (p. 271).
When there is a strong sense of community students feel comfortable to express
their ideas, try new things, and learn in a place without fear. Studies
demonstrate that a strong classroom community sense helps establish and
develop positive interdependence between group members, leads to social
support, learning support, commitment to group goals, cooperation and
information sharing between group members and thus results in satisfaction in
learning experiences (p. 271) The skills that are built in these classroom
communities are all important for students to develop - for example -
communication, collaboration, confidence, and cooperation.
Communication - Reclaiming Conversation, Sherry Turkle - Turkle argues that
through conversation we as people interact, practice empathy, and grow.
Technology has moved us away from meaningful, deep interactions and this has
happened in the classroom as well. Students are not learning empathy. But
conversation can heal...we should provide opportunities in our classrooms for
these conversations and that cant all happen online
Briefly reference ideas we will expand on later: Virtual Learning can have a negative
impact on student learning (reference, but will focus on later)
Furthers the digital divide - resources and infrastructure is necessary for success
on online learning
Cyber bully can persist in the learning environment
Impact on cognitive development
Rebuttal Part 1- Katie (4 min): Multitasking & impact on cognitive development and social
Interactions
Over the past decade, the amount of time 8-18 year olds multitask with media
has increased by 120%
Studies show that such multitasking involves two forms of processing,
1. simultaneously juggling activities such as listening to music while
reading and
2. task switching, rapidly toggling from one task to another in different
browsers
According to, Digital Technology and Student Cognitive Development: The
Neuroscience of the University Classroom- And while students acquire
valuable skills through exposure to digital technology, these gains exact a
toll, namely the erosion of deep processing skills Studies show...
Divided attention causes a cognitive overload and shortchanges comprehension,
deep processing, prioritizing information, and the ability to second guess
everyday wisdom -all the strategies that teachers work so hard to build from the
very beginning of a childs reading instruction (asking and answering questions,
inferring, comparing/contrasting, making connections, etc)
Task-switching has high costs:
time and attention is negatively affected especially for unfamiliar or
cognitively challenging tasks. Students have a harder time problem
solving and focusing on tasks that take a longer time to complete.
Even when a task is smaller or less challenging, it takes them longer to
complete because of the multitasking that they put themselves through
Additionally, multitasking negatively affects memory and recall because
the child is never fully engaged in one thing, so they never fully absorb the
content that they are reading
As print franchises (Barnes and Noble) fall and the adoption of screen
technology rises in early childhood we have seen a national and international
decline in test scores in U.S. literacy and math -digital reading fosters partial
attention
References
Cavanaugh, J. M., Giapponi, C. C., & Golden, T. D. (2016). Digital technology and student
Dolan, J. E. (2016). Splicing the divide: A review of research on the evolving digital divide
peer, and parental support of strategy instruction. Educational Forum, 80(3), 294-309.
Idsoe, E. M. C. (2016). The importance of social learning environment factors for affective well-
Lee, D., Huh, Y., & Reigeluth, C. M. (2015). Collaboration, intragroup conflict, and social skills in
Rice, K. L. (2006). A comprehensive look at distance education in the K-12 context. Journal of