HOW TO DESIGN CLASSROOM PRACTICES FOR COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY?

Minna Lakkala

Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki

http://www.helsinki.fi/science/networkedlearning

Minna.Lakkala@helsinki.fi

Inquiry Learning, building bridges to practice, May 2006

Introduction

Classic models of instructional design are not very

applicable to collaborative inquiry because they mainly

concentrate on individual processes of learning and are

based on the strict pre-structuring of content and

activities. The pedagogical design of collaborative inquiry is more

like establising the elementary preconditions for the

inquiry culture to emerge. Like ”indirect design” of CSCL (Jones & al. 2006)

--> Designing pedagogical infrastructures for inquiry (Sfard,

2000; Bielaczyc, 2001; Paavola & al., 2002; Lipponen &

Lallimo, 2004; Guribye, 2005).

Pedagogical infrastructures for collaborative inquiry

COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY PROCESSStudents’ participation & Teacher guidance

Technical infrastructure 4

Social infrastructure

Epistemological infrastructure

Cognitive infrastructure

Forward

Features shaping the technical infrastructure

Providing of the technology and technical advice for the

members of the learning community. Organizing the use of technology and situations in which

the technology is used. The diversity and nature of tools provided.

4

Back

Features shaping the social infrastructure

The explicit arrangements to advance and organize

students’ collaboration and social interaction. Openness and sharing of the process and outcomes. The integration of face-to-face and technology-mediated

activity.

Back

Features shaping the epistemological infrastructure

The conception of knowledge that the practices reflect. Explicitness of knowledge-creating inquiry in the process. The role of knowledge sources used in the course. Students’ and teachers’ role in creating and sharing

knowledge.

Back

Features shaping the cognitive infrastructure

Explicit modelling of the strategies of inquiry. Guidance provided for the students. Methods used to promote metacognitive thinking. Cognitive scaffolding for collaborative inquiry embedded

in tools.

Back

Case: 10 Secrets – Progressive inquiry in history

The idea was to interpret historical pictures from various

time periods to understand history. Two classes from the

same school conducted similar units and collaborated. Subject domains: history, native language Grade: 5th grade in a Finnish elementary school Age of students: 11-12 years Number of participants: 29 + 27 students & two teachers Duration: 8 weeks, 4 to 8 hours per week Context: The project was carried out during the

international ITCOLE project funded by European Union

(Innovative Technology for Collaborative Learning and

Knowledge Building, http://www.euro-cscl.org/site/itcole)

Progressive Inquiry as a pedagogical model in the project (Hakkarainen, 2003)

Setting up research problems

Creating the Context

Constructing Working Theories

Critical Evaluation

Searchin Deepening Knowledge

Constructing New Working Theories

Shared expertise

Generating Subordinate Questions

Collaborative technology used:FLE3 (http://fle3.uiah.fi)

Open Source and Free Software; The pedagogical model of Progressive Inquiry is

embedded in the FLE design; Knowledge building (KB) module

threaded discourse forums

labelling of notes by a category of inquiry scaffold;

Virtual WebTops for storing and sharing documents; Jamming for sharing and structuring the versions of

elaborated, shared artefacts.

FLE3’s Knowledge Building area

Examples of historical pictures

Database

Related publications

Lakkala, M., Lallimo, J., & Hakkarainen, K. (2005).

Teachers' pedagogical designs for technology-supported

collective inquiry: A national case study. Computers &

Education, 45(3), 337-356. Lakkala, M., Muukkonen, H., & Hakkarainen, K. (2005).

Patterns of scaffolding in computer-mediated

collaborative inquiry. Mentoring & Tutoring, 13(2), 281–

300. Lakkala, M., Ilomäki, L., & Palonen, T. (in press).

Implementing virtual, collaborative inquiry practices in

middle school context. Behavior & Information

Technology.