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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Challenges for the Teacher's Role in Promoting Productive Knowledge Construction in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Contexts

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This chapter discusses challenges related to teachers’ pedagogical activities in facilitating productive discussions among students in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) contexts. In the light of two different cases from secondary-level and higher education contexts, the authors examine how teachers’ pedagogical choices influenced the quality of students’ activity, namely Web-based discussion. The results of our studies indicated that rich moments of collaboration were rare and distributed unequally among the students. The obvious weakness from the perspective of teachers’ pedagogical activities was that in neither of the studies was the students’ interaction in the discussion forum supported in any way. A future challenge is, therefore, to develop both pedagogical and technological tools to support the monitoring and enhancement of students’ learning process during online learning. Furthermore, we discuss how teachers’ professional development (TPD) is challenged by new technological tools in formal learning environments.