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Volume 4 Issue 1 March 2006
Collaborative Online Teaching – the inevitable path to deep learning and knowledge sharing?
Karin Tweddell Levinsen
Copenhagen Business School, Institute of informatics, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Literature of Collaborative Online Learning often stress that this pedagogic approach supports learners’ shared knowledge building within collaborating groups as well as the individual construction of knowledge. Online collaboration also supports the formation of ongoing learning Communities of Practice. In recent years, the challenge of improving the outcome of Collaborative Online Learning has become an increasingly important issue where the design of virtual learning environments and the implied roles of teachers and students are considered key factors along with the support and coordination of the collaborative learning process and intervention in terms of feedback and mediation.
The focus of improvement has been concentrated on how to design environments, model students’ and teachers’ activities and how to intervene in discussion fora. To some extent, it might appear as if the processes of knowledge construction and the formation of Communities of Practice are considered the inevitable outcome of collaborative educational models based on constructivist learning theory owing to these models’ inherent attributes and qualities. A recent case study of a Danish Master’s programme demonstrates that the emerging collaborative practice displays tendencies contrary to the generally accepted assumptions.
The paper argues that the outcome of ongoing processes staged within the framework of collaborative e-learning models is not only based on the models and their attributes. The outcome is also affected by the emerging practice and the interaction among participants during a course. From this perspective, it becomes vital to look at the possibilities and obstacles encountered by teachers in their efforts to support the learning process though intervention such as mediation, coordination, scaffolding, coaching, etc.
Keywords:
Collaborative Online Learning, Knowledge Construction, Communities of Practice, Emerging Practice, Proaction, E-learning.
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