Search

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).

Wiki-based writing possesses a great deal of educational potential, yet students face difficulties while writing a shared document. Revising a shared document, in particular, seems to be a demanding activity for students. This study investigated whether collaboration scripts can help to improve students' revision activities and overall text quality. We compared scripted (script+) with unscripted (script-) collaboration in a wiki-based writing setting that was adapted for educational purposes. Students from two university courses participated in a one-week collaborative writing activity. Results showed that students in the scripted condition outperformed students in the unscripted condition with respect to revision behavior and text coherence. Furthermore, we found that students' revision behavior correlated positively with text coherence. Results from analyzing students' discussions during the writing activity revealed more frequent coordination with respect to task division and increased communication frequency for students in the scripted condition. Results also indicate that collaboration scripts can foster coordination. Our findings suggest that collaboration scripts are promising means of structuring collaboration during wiki-based writing. Highlights? University students hesitate to engage in revision during wiki-based writing, that is, students working on a shared document. ? Students' hesitation might be due to increased coordination demands. ? A collaboration script adjacent to the discussion board helps students to engage in more coordination activities. ? A collaboration script yields positive effects concerning revision activities and the quality of the wiki-text. ??Collaboration scripts are promising means of structuring collaboration during wiki-based writing.

There is an underexploited potential in enhancing massive online learning courses through small-group learning activities. Size and diversity allow for optimizing group composition in small-group tasks. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how groups formed based on learner behavior affect productivity of students in a small-group task. Students classified as high, average and low were randomly assigned to homogeneous or heterogeneous groups. Results indicate that overall, heterogeneous groups were either similarly or a bit more productive than homogeneous groups. Yet, we found that homogeneous groups classified as high-level were as or more than heterogeneous groups. However, heterogeneous groups were still more productive than homogeneous-average and homogeneous-low groups suggesting heterogeneous groups are the best choice for the entire community. Students classified as low-level were more productive in homogeneous groups, suggesting that grouping less active students together, makes social loafing more difficult and students participate more.

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.

In open online learning courses such as MOOCs, peer feedback has been regarded as a powerful method to give elaborated feedback on weekly assignments. Yet motivating students to invest effort in peer feedback on top of existing work load is difficult. Students might give insufficient feedback or do not give feedback at all. Students' hesitation to provide feedback might be related to the lack of visibility of spent effort during feedback provision. Alternatively, students might provide less feedback due to lack of perceived benefits. In this study, we investigated the effect of two incentive types on peer feedback provision on weekly assignments. In total, 91 students enrolled in a semi-open online course were announced to receive either (1) a peer rating on their feedback or (2) open access to assignment solutions or (3) no incentive. Results indicate that the incentive type did not affect feedback provision in general, yet it had an impact on the content of the feedback. Students receiving (1) a rating-feedback incentive wrote longer and more specific feedback in comparison to students receiving (2) an information-access incentive or (3) no incentive. Results contribute to findings from peer assessment research that students are more likely to provide detailed feedback if students feel that feedback is attended to. Furthermore, results inform teachers and practitioners on how to encourage students to provide peer feedback in open learning environments.

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.

In this paper we present an agent-based architecture to monitor and analyse students' behaviour while working with a simulation tool. This architecture is based on the blackboard principle and implemented using a Tuple-Spaces approach. The agents are divided into several groups according to their tasks to maximise autonomy and reusability. This separation was done with the idea of perceive-react-cycles in mind. An implemented example scenario that demonstrates how agents interact in generating meaningful context-aware student feedback is described. The visualisation of the agents' analysis results facilitates a deeper understanding of the learners' activities.

Moderating multiple e-discussions at a time puts high demands on teachers as moderators. Therefore, to be able to provide effective moderation, teachers should be given adequate awareness support. We evaluated our e-moderation system called "Moderator's Interface" comparing moderation with and without awareness support. Following a within subject design, our cases were two teachers who were asked to moderate discussions of their students and to choose and prepare a discussion topic compliant with the curriculum. Results indicate that additional awareness support was deliberately used during moderation when available. An analysis of data from the teachers' answers to 120 questions and tasks indicates that in the awareness condition, both teachers performed better on the tasks as compared to moderating without awareness support. However, it could not be corroborated that teachers gained additional knowledge about the discussion solely from using the awareness support in absence of an external task.

Investigated the effects of 3 kinds of instructional support on students' inquiry learning. In a computer-based simulation setting for inquiry learning of scientific principles, 79 students (53 female, 15-16 years old) from 2 Swedish schools were divided into a basic-inquiry group (22 participants, received only basic inquiry support), an explanation group (29 participants, received only explanation prompts), and a regulation group (28 participants, received both explanation and regulation prompts). A knowledge test and an application (transfer) test were completed after an introductory lesson, a knowledge pretest, and the varying experimental learning conditions. Results show that regulation prompts have a positive effect on students' test performance in both the knowledge and application test, with the regulation group outperforming both of the other groups. Interestingly, the explanation group did not outperform the basic-inquiry group. Also, the regulation group seemed to have internalized the regulation of their flow of thoughts since even in the absence of regulation prompts these students outperformed the other groups in terms of scientific reasoning. Possible reasons for the lack of a significant effect of explanation prompts on learning outcomes are discussed.

Representational flexibility can be seen as one of the essential advantages of pen based input over conventional computer tools, especially for creative and problem solving tasks. We have tried to demonstrate this benefit in the area of Sudoku solving. However, it turned out that the supposedly obvious affordances of the pen based environment were not really exploited in our exploratory studies. This finding should be further explored and considered in an integral design and introduction of pen based applications.demonstrate this benefit in the area of Sudoku solving.

In 5 years 9 patients with a total of 16 painful ear nodules (chondrodermatitis helicis) have been treated as follows. A small excision is carried out with local anaesthesia for histological examination. The rest of the nodule or any other nodules are carbonized by means of the argon laser, also with local anaesthesia, including the surface of the cartilage under the nodules. There have been no cases of postoperative inflammation or infection. New nodules occurring several months after treatment have been successfully treated in the same way. There have been no real recurrences. The cosmetic result is very good in all cases. The patients are free of pain immediately after the laser therapy. Laser therapy for painful nodules of the ear has good and lasting results, with a lower rate of recurrences than any other form of treatment.

Die Mikrofilmdokumentaion ermoglicht eine kartenahnliche Dokumentation von melanozytaren Hautveranderungen. Das Problem der Lokalisation entfallt, da das Bild ab-gefahren werden kann, die Ubersichtsaufnahmen konnen 24- bis 48-fach vergrosert werden. Der Vergleich des vergroserten Dias und des Patienten ist bei Tageslicht moglich. Die Erfassung von Veranderungen in der horizontalen Wachstumsphase sollte die 5-Jahres-Uberlebensrate verbessern.