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Over the past two decades, formative peer assessment has become a popular instructional approach. Initially, it was more readily applied in higher education but has since expanded to other educational levels, including primary and secondary education. The popularity is understandable given the increased amount of feedback by multiple peers and enhanced awareness of performance criteria. Although it is increasingly acknowledged by the research community that formative peer assessment is inherently a social endeavour, the collaborative nature is simultaneously the least-explored mechanism. The contributions in this special issue address this gap conceptualising peer assessment and peer feedback as both an individual and a collaborative learning practice. Furthermore, we highlight core learning conditions: learner characteristics, domain and task characteristics, and, finally, instructional scaffolds.

The act of revising is an important aspect of academic writing. Although revision is crucial for eliminating writing errors and producing high-quality texts, research on writing expertise shows that novices rarely engage in revision activities. Providing information on writing errors by means of peer feedback has become a popular method in writing instruction. However, despite its popularity, students have difficulties in leveraging the potential of peer feedback: feedback uptake is low and students engage in little revision. Instructional support might help learners to make sense of peer feedback and to reflect on the provided information more deeply. The present study investigated the effect of sense-making support on feedback uptake as well as on revision skills, in particular problem detection and problem correction. In an experimental study, 73 university students were randomly assigned to conditions with or without sense-making support. The results indicate that feedback uptake improved concerning two out of three variables: students in the condition with sense-making support made fewer new errors and rejected more incorrect feedback comments. Students’ revision skills only improved with regard to problem detection. Overall, we were able to show that peer feedback alone might not be sufficient to make successful changes in the text and improve revision skills. Sense-making support proved to be effective to some extent and partially helped to maximize the benefits of peer feedback.

An important feature of inquiry learning is to take part in science practices including exploring variables and testing hypotheses. Computer-based dynamic visualizations have the potential to open up various exploration possibilities depending on the level of learner control. It is assumed that variable control, e.g., by changing parameters of a variable, leads to deeper processing (Chang and Linn 2013; de Jong and Njoo 1992; Nerdel 2003; Trey and Khan 2008). Variable control may be helpful, in particular, for acquiring intuitive knowledge (Swaak and de Jong 2001). However, it bares the risk of mental exhaustion and thus may have detrimental effects on knowledge acquisition (Sweller 1998). Students (N = 118) from four chemistry classes followed inquiry cycles using the software Molecular Workbench (Xie and Tinker 2006). Variable control was varied across the conditions (1) No-Manipulation group and (2) Manipulation group. By adding a third condition, (3) Manipulation-Plus group, we tested whether adding an active hypothesis phase prepares students before changing parameters of a variable. As expected, students in the Manipulation group and Manipulation-Plus group performed better concerning intuitive knowledge (d = 1.14) than students in the No-Manipulation group. On a descriptive level, results indicated higher cognitive effort in the Manipulation group and the Manipulation-Plus group than in the No-Manipulation group. Unexpectedly, students in the Manipulation-Plus group did not benefit from the active hypothesis phase (intuitive knowledge: d = .36). Findings show that students benefit from variable control. Furthermore, findings point toward the direction that variable control evokes desirable difficulties (Bjork and Linn 2006).

Science Created by You (SCY) is a project on learning in science and technology domains. SCY uses a pedagogical approach that centres around products, called 'emerging learning objects' (ELOs) that are created by students. Students work individually and collaboratively in SCY-Lab (the general SCY learning environment) on 'missions' that are guided by socio-scientific questions (for example 'How can we design a CO2-friendly house?'). Fulfilling SCY missions requires a combination of knowledge from different content areas (eg, physics, mathematics, biology, as well as social sciences). While on a SCY mission, students perform several types of learning activities that can be characterised as productive processes (experiment, game, share, explain, design, etc), they encounter multiple resources, collaborate with varying coalitions of peers and use changing constellations of tools and scaffolds. The configuration of SCY-Lab is adaptive to the actual learning situation and may provide advice to students on appropriate learning activities, resources, tools and scaffolds, or peer students who can support the learning process. The SCY project aims at students between 12 and 18 years old. In the course of the project, a total of four SCY missions will be developed, of which one is currently available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discovery learning in mathematics in the domain of probability based on hands‐on experiments is normally limited because of the difficulty in providing sufficient materials and data volume in terms of repetitions of the experiments. Our cooperative, computational modelling and simulation environment engages students and teachers in composing and simulating stochastic experiments, e.g. throwing dice or drawing balls, playing lottery games. It also facilitates validation and presentation. Engaging teachers in the design process led to the complementary development and evaluation of several learning activities in German secondary schools. Evaluating the results of our action research work indicated the potential of our approach for expanding traditional mathematics instruction when assisting students to develop a sustainable conceptual basis of probability principles, offering them a higher degree of responsibility for their learning.

Using wikis for educational purposes has become a common activity in learning contexts. Despite its frequent use for learning, we still know little about the demands of wiki-based writing taking into account novice writers' needs. In this paper we describe a study in which we investigate whether a communication facility in form of a structured discussion board, results in more active writing, particularly adding and revising text. Students from two university courses participated in a three week writing activity either in a Discussion+ condition in which a discussion board was available or in a Discussion- condition with no discussion board available. Results show that the availability of a discussion board alone does not help learners to overcome their hesitation to add text-sections or revise text of others. However, further analysis showed that students who did use the discussion board also contributed more to the wiki-text. Findings suggest that increased demands exist in wiki-based writing and that additional support is needed for learners to succeed in wiki-based writing.