Lukiolaiset yksilöllisinä ja yhteisöllisinä internetlukijoina

Secondary school students’ collaboration during dyadic debates face-to-face and through computer chat

Communicative competence needed in today's constructive learning environments both in virtual and physical classrooms requires most of all critical and argumentative thinking skills as well as abilities to use reciprocal and collaborative language. This study clarifies the quality of secondary school students' collaboration in dyadic face-to-face and computer chat debates during argumentative discussions. The speech acts produced in 24 debates were first classified into either on-task or off-task categories. The on-task speech acts were then further classified into six collaborative and two non-collaborative categories. The students commonly presented questions and made requests for clarifi…

Visualising knowledge from chat debates in argument diagrams

This study investigates whether combining chat discussion and construction of an argument diagram stimulates students to formulate new ideas in practising argumentation. In this study, 16 secondary school students discussed vivisection and gender equality in pairs using both free and structured chat tools. In structured chat, the students selected and completed partial sentences provided by the computer. After the discussion, they jointly constructed either argument diagrams freely based on the previous discussions with an Internet tool or modified a diagram the computer had constructed automatically during the structured chat. The freely constructed diagrams contained more of the students'…

University Students as Composers of a Digital Video

This paper introduces a university course in which digital video composing was used as a study method. The aim of the course was to empower future teachers to use digital and multimodal literacy practices in their own teaching. Students in education, 13 in total, participated in the course on digital literacies. The course achievement was measured with the task in which students composed a video in small-groups. The students’ videos were supposed to convince a pedagogical target group about the usefulness of a teaching method or need for a reform. In the last meeting, student’s videos were watched and the contents of the videos were discussed. The experiences on composing a digital video we…

From Online Role-Play to Written Argumentation

This chapter reports on a teaching experiment conducted during a blended learning course in social work in a Finnish university of applied sciences (polytechnic). The aim was to investigate how students’ multidimensional understanding of social problems could be fostered. As argumentative methods, the study used writing tasks, online role-play, and drama work. The data consisted of essays written by 65 students (experimental group 29; controls 36) in each of three phases, plus online discussions. The essays were based on 1) the students’ personal experiences, 2) general facts, and 3) a fictional case taken from the online role-play. Varying the focus of the writing task affected students’ s…

Computer‐based and Face‐to‐face Collaborative Argumentation in Secondary Schools in England and Finland

Abstract This article focuses on the analysis of secondary school students’ argumentative interactions in England and Finland, within specific face‐to‐face and computer‐based environments. We propose that a combination of learning environments, in conjunction with teacher input and support, is important for developing argumentation skills in the classroom. Face‐to‐face argumentation, in particular, offers ample opportunity for concentrating on the quality (through deeper exploration) of arguments; such learning can enhance the construction of well‐structured arguments often associated with some computer‐based environments, such as synchronous computer chat.

Argumentation in Secondary School Students' Structured and Unstructured Chat Discussions

Joint construction of new knowledge demands that persons can express their statements in a convincing way and explore other people's arguments constructively. For this reason, more knowledge on different means to support collaborative argumentation is needed. This study clarifies whether structured interaction supports students' critical and elaborative argumentation. The study compares the quality of secondary school students' argumentation during structured and unstructured chat interaction. The data consist of 16 dyadic chat discussions: 8 discussions concerned vivisection and 8 gender equality. Half of the discussions were carried out through structured chat, and the other half through…

Argumentation Skills as Prerequisites for Collaborative Learning Among Finnish, French and English Secondary School Students.

International audience; Argumentation skills of secondary school students were evaluated in Finland (n = 290), France (n = 54), and England (n = 41). The data were collected from 4 tasks comprising 7 variables. The results indicated that most of the students had correctly justified arguments and conclusions, and composed clear claims and relevant arguments. However, many students had difficulties in recognising the main claim and arguments for it in an expository text, and in commenting analytically on an argumentative text. Thus the students possessed the prerequisites for argumentative reasoning and writing but need further practice in analytical and critical reading.

Online Learning Environments, Scientific Argumentation, and 21st Century Skills

A workshop held at the National Academies in the United States in 2007 highlighted five broad categories of skills that appear valuable across a range of jobs for people working in modern global economies. Engaging students in scientific argumentation can support the development of these 21st century skills. Unfortunately, opportunities are rare in typical classrooms for students to learn how to engage in scientific argumentation. Over the past ten years several online environments have been developed to support students engaging with one another in scientific argumentation. This paper considers how engaging students in scientific argumentation through the activity structures and scripts in…

Students evaluating Internet sources – From versatile evaluators to uncritical readers

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources in an authentic learning task. Upper secondary school students ( n = 25) were asked to look for source material on the Internet in order to write an essay. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts during the material gathering process. Their verbalizations and actions on the Internet were recorded and analyzed. The five evaluation profiles eme…

Collaborative Learning Through Chat Discussions and Argument Diagrams in Secondary School

AbstractThis study clarifies whether secondary school students develop their argumentation skills through reading and collaboration. The students first constructed an individual argument diagram on genetically modified organisms, read three articles, and improved their diagrams. Next, they engaged in a chat debate, reflected on their debate by constructing a collaborative argument diagram on it, and finally finished their individual diagrams. The analyses compared the diagrams students finished after the debate and reflection with the diagrams they constructed before the debate. Collaboration not only encouraged students to elaborate their previous arguments but also helped them to recall a…

Skillful Internet Reader is Metacognitively Competent

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interrelations between information searching, textprocessing, information evaluation, and metacognition when upper-secondary school students are using Internet as a source for an essay. Students (n = 24) were asked to search for source material from the Internet in order to write an essay on a given topic. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts while they were gathering their source material. Their verbalizations and actions were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that students who had difficulties in locating relevant information had to monitor their orientation and keep track of what to do next. Skillful students, in contrast…

Written arguments and collaborative speech acts in practising the argumentative power of language through chat debates

Abstract This study deals with the quality of argumentation and collaboration in students’ chat debates. The argumentative interaction between students is analysed by categorising their speech turns into seven functional categories. The argumentative task-related parts of the students’ discussions are further analysed into collaborative and non-collaborative speech acts. Argumentation patterns are revealed when the results of both analyses are combined with observations on the students’ writing styles. Students ( n  = 24) participated in 12 dyadic debates concerning either nuclear power (NP) or genetically modified organisms (GMO). We found that the majority (67.2%) of the speech turns in N…

Näkökulmia tutkivan nettilukemisen opettamiseen

Tutkiva nettilukeminen on ongelmalähtöistä, tavoitteellista lukemista, jossa lukija etsii internetistä tietoa asettamiinsa kysymyksiin, arvioi löytämänsä informaation luotettavuutta, laatii synteesin useiden nettitekstien pohjalta ja kertoo oppimastaan muille (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek & Henry, 2013). Tutkiva nettilukeminen ei ole siten vain netissä surffailua tai yksittäisten faktojen tarkistamista vaan tavoitteellista, oppimiseen tähtäävää toimintaa. Tutkivalle nettilukemiselle on ominaista pitkäjänteisyys, asiaan paneutuminen ja netistä löydetyn informaation soveltaminen. Tutkiva nettilukeminen edellyttää yleensä monilukutaitoisuutta, koska internet on monipuolinen tekstiympäristö. Luuk…

Working on understanding during collaborative online reading

This study examines how students in Finland (16-18 years of age) constructed meaning and knowledge in a collaborative online reading situation. Student pairs ( n = 19) were asked to write a joint essay on a controversial issue. First, the pairs discussed the topic freely to activate their prior knowledge. Next, they gathered source material on the Internet. Finally, they composed a joint essay. The data were collected using an interaction approach to verbal protocol data, along with video screen captures. In the analysis, three units were employed: episodes ( n = 562) for describing online reading practices; utterances ( n = 944) for identifying collaborative reading strategies; and collab…

University Students´ Knowledge Construction during Face to Face Collaborative Writing

Collaborative writing combines social processes of writing with cognitive knowledge construction processes, and thus may lead to deeper learning than individual working. This study examined students’ knowledge construction during face-to-face collaborative writing. University students (n = 21) prepared themselves for the collaborative task by reading about developmental theories in a course book and writing individual summaries of them. In small groups, the students discussed each others’ summaries and wrote a joint essay on one of the theories. The data comprise the students’ individual summaries (n = 21), the students’ discussions during the essay writing (8177 speech turns), and the stud…

Online and face-to-face role-play simulations in promoting social work students’ argumentative problem-solving

This paper reports on a teaching experiment in which social work students (n=38) practiced problem solving through argumentative tasks. A teaching experiment was carried out at a Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences in Finland in connection with a course concerning preventative work against alcohol- and drug abuse. This quasiexperimental study investigated whether role-play simulation conducted either online (15 students) or face-to-face (14 students) improved students’ problem solving on social issues. As a pre-test, the students wrote an essay after having watched a dramatization of problematic cases on elderly people’s use of alcohol. The students also attended lectures (30 x 45 min) o…

Visualising knowledge from chat debates in argument diagrams

This study investigates whether combining chat discussion and construction of an argument diagram stimulates students to formulate new ideas in practising argumentation. In this study, 16 secondary school students discussed vivisection and gender equality in pairs using both free and structured chat tools. In structured chat, the students selected and completed partial sentences provided by the computer. After the discussion, they jointly constructed either argument diagrams freely based on the previous discussions with an Internet tool or modified a diagram the computer had constructed automatically during the structured chat. The freely constructed diagrams contained more of the students'…