Trialogical Learning Handbook Teachers Final Kp-lab

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TRIALOGICAL LEARNING A HANDBOOK FOR TEACHERS January 2010 Anne-Christin Tannhäuser Sally Reynolds Michela Moretti Elena Cariolato Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to express our thanks to the whole KP-Lab project team whose partners shared their ideas with us and provided us with their input and feedback. Particular thanks goes to Sami Paavola and Jerry Andriessen for their valuable input concerning trialogical learning in different contexts. Without their help and advice, we would not have been able to compose this handbook. We would also like to thank Simona Feletti for all her work on the layout of this book. Disclaimer: The content of this document does not necessarily reflect the view or legislation of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor the project partners or any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the information in this document. Page 2 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................................3 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................5 PURPOSE OF THIS HANDBOOK ................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 2 THINK TRIALOGICAL OR THE GENERIC PROCESS MODEL FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING..........................................................................................................................8 HOW TRIALOGICAL LEARNING EVOLVED - BACKGROUND ................................................................. 8 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING PROCESSES – VISUALISED AND EXPLAINED ................................................ 13 SO WHAT IS INNOVATIVE ABOUT TRIALOGICAL LEARNING? – ......................................................... 17 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN A NUTSHELL – 8 BASIC IDEAS ............................................................. 18 CHAPTER 3 TOOLS FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING..............................................................19 THE KNOWLEDGE PRACTICES ENVIRONMENT (KPE).................................................................... 19 Different “views” for different purposes.........................................................................................20 CREATING, TRANSFORMING AND ELABORATING KNOWLEDGE ARTEFACTS ......................................... 22 Document management..................................................................................................................23 Wiki..................................................................................................................................................23 Note Editor ......................................................................................................................................24 Sketch Pad .......................................................................................................................................25 Comment and Semantic Tagging.....................................................................................................25 Visual Modelling (Language) Editor.................................................................................................27 PLANNING, ORGANIZING AND COORDINATING PROCESSES............................................................. 28 ToDoTool .........................................................................................................................................29 Calendar...........................................................................................................................................30 Chat – One-to-one and context-bound ...........................................................................................31 Map-IT and Meeting Management Tool (M2T)...............................................................................32 MANAGING SOCIAL RELATIONS AROUND SHARED OBJECTS ............................................................ 34 Group management ........................................................................................................................35 Forum ..............................................................................................................................................35 Group emailing ................................................................................................................................37 Page 3 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 4 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN ACTION OR A PROCESS MODEL FOR TEACHERS ....38 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SCENARIO IN TEACHER EDUCATION ......................................................... 38 Context ............................................................................................................................................38 This scenario demonstrates.............................................................................................................39 Learning Objective...........................................................................................................................39 Activities ..........................................................................................................................................40 Tools ................................................................................................................................................43 MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDENT TEAM WORK AND A REAL CUSTOMER............................................... 44 Context ............................................................................................................................................44 This scenario demonstrates.............................................................................................................44 Learning Objectives .........................................................................................................................44 Activities ..........................................................................................................................................45 Tools ................................................................................................................................................46 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN OTHER PEDAGOGICAL SETTING ............................................................. 48 CHAPTER 5 DESIGN YOUR OWN TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SYSTEM ....................................49 BEFORE STARTING: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AS A TEACHER? .............................................................. 49 DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING ........................................................................ 50 RECOMMENDATION AND ACTIVITIES TO PLAN YOUR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SCENARIO ..................... 51 A CHECKLIST FOR YOUR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SCENARIO ............................................................ 62 Page 4 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION PURPOSE OF THIS HANDBOOK If you are teacher working in higher education, teacher training, or professional networks and you want to prepare your students for the challenges of the knowledge society – then this handbook is for you. You already know just how important this preparation is, and you are certainly not alone this concern is shared across the globe. Here is what others have had to say on the matter. “Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially.”1 “[…] various changes in modern society form [are characterised by] 1) the rapid development of new technology which has formed and is all the time forming qualitatively new possibilities for distributed interaction and collaboration 2) the pressure to create– and learn deliberately to create – new knowledge and transform existing practices in various areas of life, and 3) the complexity of modern society which requires people to combine their expertise to solve emerging and often unforeseen complex problems.”2 “Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.”3 You might be working with digital native learners, who are used to receiving information quickly from multiple multimedia sources, who prefer learning that is relevant, instantly useful and fun. Even if your students are not digital natives, and were born before, say 1980, 1 2 3 George Siemens (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm accessed in October 2004 Sami Paavola, Ritva Engeström & Kai Hakkarainen. Trialogical Approach as a New Form of Mediation. In: Moen, A. Mørch, A.I., and Paavola, S., (Eds.). Collaborative Knowledge Creation: Practices, Tools, and Concepts http://www.knowledgepractices.info/wiki/index.php?title=Handbook_on_Trialogical_Learning Accessed in October 2010 Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1–2. www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf Accessed in October 2010 Page 5 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers they will be working in rather different, even unrelated fields of life-time as members of a society were learning and working are not any longer separated. Bearing this concern in mind, you might want to read this handbook, which suggests teaching practices that address the types of challenges faced by students today. You might want to read about how you can facilitate the creation of new knowledge that is collaboratively shared and developed further by your students in and beyond your classroom. The purpose of this handbook is to introduce innovative pedagogical principles and practices that can be used for advancing new knowledge in different contexts. The Trialogical Learning Approach has been developed within a project called KP-Lab; an acronym for Knowledge Practice Laboratory. During the project’s life cycle theories, tools, practical models, and research methods were developed to deliberately advance the ways in which knowledge is created and that help to transform knowledge practices in education and in the workplace. This iinitiative received funding from the European Union for 5 years starting in 2006. A large multinational team of experts in pedagogy, knowledge management and software development which included both researchers and technologists tested and applied trialogical learning in various settings including universities, workplaces and informal learning contexts in order to carry out research into new forms of collaboration and knowledge advancement. An important goal of this initiative was to provide models that can serve as useful tools for teachers/educators, empowering them as professionals in the development of learning environments. These models were intended to support the work of teachers and trainers when guiding their students in rich technological learning environments. This handbook is a concrete outcome of this long-term commitment. Another output is an online environment designed to suit collaborative knowledge advancement, called the “Knowledge Practice Environment (KPE)”. You will learn a more about KPE later on in this handbook. But before talking about tools, you will first read in Chapter 2 about some of the concepts and theories that underpin the Trialogical Learning Approach as well as some of the ideas that are central to an understanding of what constitutes trialogical learning.. This chapter includes a model of typical trialogical learning processes. At the end of this chapter, basic features of the approach are listed, so if you want to jump directly to the chapters dealing with tools or practical examples in educational contexts, we suggest you first read the final section in Chapter 2, Trialogical learning in a nutshell – so you have at least a basic grasp of what this approach entails. Chapter 3 provides an introduction to technological tools that support trialogical learning activities for three purposes: coordinating processes, managing social relations around shared objects, and elaborating on knowledge artefacts. Page 6 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Two cases studies in which trialogical learning is put into practice are described in chapter 4. In this chapter you can find out more about how teacher students in the Netherlands deepened their professional knowledge and how a multidisciplinary course in project management in Finland used trialogical learning to provide students with a learning experience that enabled them to acquire sophisticated knowledge creation and management skills. Chapter 5 has been tailored to meet your needs as a pedagogical practitioner. With practical recommendations, some activities to work on and a checklist, it will help you to design your own trialogical learning scenario for your learners. Let’s get started. Page 7 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 2 THINK TRIALOGICAL OR THE GENERIC PROCESS MODEL FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING HOW TRIALOGICAL LEARNING EVOLVED - BACKGROUND Before presenting some examples from different educational contexts that employ the Trialogical Learning Approach, this section will provide some background to the approach and will introduce some basic notions and concepts that will help you to better understand this innovative approach to enhancing knowledge creation and management in a learning context. If you are more interested in practical examples, then feel free to simply skip this chapter and move directly to chapter 3. Two existing approaches to learning are important for understanding the background to trialogical learning, these are Inquiry-based learning and project-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is learning that is organised around questions, finding explanations, theories, and scientific information in the cycle of deepening inquiry, discussion, and reflection. Page 8 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure a): 4 Inquiry-Based Learning (from Hakkarainen, 2004 ) Project-based learning (PBL) is learning that takes place when learners work on a complex real-world authentic question or problem and try to come up with answers and solutions in a collaborative process of investigation over an extended period of time. This kind of learning also requires inquiry but furthermore something new is created. One form of PBL is Designbased learning, where students learn about content while designing an object or prototype, and this form has the potential to dramatically increase student learning by incorporating design experiences into the study of science. Typical steps involve: describing the current situation, identifying needs, developing criteria, generating alternatives and making choices, creating a prototype and evaluating/reflecting on the results5. Students work co-operatively and actively on multidisciplinary tasks. Another concept that constitutes the foundation of the trialogical approach is the knowledge creation metaphor of learning. To understand this metaphor let’s first refer to two wellknown metaphors for learning against which is should be considered. First, the Knowledge acquisition metaphor which describes the effort of a single learner who individually internalizes a body of knowledge; this metaphor comes closest to the folk theory of mind. 4 5 Hakkarainen, K. (2003). Emergence of progressive inquiry culture in computer-supported collaborative learning. Learning Environments Research, 6(2), 199-220. Those steps are taken from a scheme by Mehalik, M. M., & Doppelt, Y., & Schunn, C. D. (2008). Middle-school science through design-based learning versus scripted inquiry: Better overall science concept learning and equity gap reduction. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(1), 71-85. pdf Page 9 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Box 1) Artefacts, what do you mean? These can be everything! Exactly right. Artefacts can be material like cups, tables, or conceptual like scientific theories. Particularly relevant artefacts for trialogical learning include: drafts and sketches project plans, mindmaps, notes, work processes, and working practices. By focussing explicitly on these artefacts, tacit knowledge from individuals is externalised and made available for an entire group. Encouraging groups of learners to produce artefacts collaboratively makes it easier for them to reach a common understanding of problems at hand. Secondly, a different concept of learning is described by the social participation metaphor, here learning is viewed as a process in which a group of people collaboratively appropriate a body of knowledge.6 Without the need to make a wide-reaching conceptual analysis of different models and terms used7, it is important to present the knowledge-creation metaphor which represents a new understanding which has evolved with the rapid changes and demands of today’s society as already discussed in the introduction. – This metaphor is made more tangible given the increased availability of technology which is designed to support human learning; technology that offers quick and easy access to up-to-date knowledge and provides tools for knowledge sharing and creation, which is not constrained by geographic proximity. One of the core ideas which is central to the trialogical approach is that commonly created artefacts (see Box 1) are at the center of activities. These artefacts are modified and commented on iteratively in trialogical learning. The trialogical learning approach suggests organizing work and learning around those artefacts. This idea of learning is considered to fit well with current ideas about workplace learning or organizational learning, networked learning or the learning that takes place in open source community (See figure below). 6 7 This distinction is introduced by Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13. Recommended further reading: Paavola, S., Lipponen, L., & Hakkarainen, K. (2004). Models of innovative learning communities and three metaphors for learning http://www.helsinki.fi/behav/valinnat/2006/valintakoekysymykset06/AikuiskasvatustiedeMO06_aineistoteksti.pdf Accessed in October 2010 Page 10 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure b): Three metaphors of learning “Speaking very generally, the acquisition Box 2) What are knowledge practices perspective, (represented in this diagram as (KPs)? the acquisition metaphor) focuses on KPs are the methods and procedures used knowledge and knowledge structures in in science and industry to answer questions learning and processes of learning within like: How does this work? How might a individuals’ minds. The participation process be improved? What do we need to perspective (represented in this diagram as learn to achieve such improvements? Such the participation metaphor) emphasizes the practices are not static, but keep changing meaning of social practices and activities as because scientists and innovators reflect on bases for learning. And the knowledge and modify them. creation perspective focuses on analyzing the processes whereby new knowledge and new mediating objects of activity are collaboratively created, whether in schools or at work.”8 An new understanding of learning as described above has its roots in research work related to Knowledge Building which is a rather new discipline as compared to pedagogy and instructional design, which examines the processes people use in creating ideas, and solving, in a sustained way, knowledge problems by modifying and commenting collaboratively upon each other’s’ ideas, often with the use of external means and support mechanisms. This field has largely emerged in business administration, library and information science and management studies. 8 S. Paavola, L. Lipponen, and K. Hakkarainen. Models of Innovative Knowledge Communities and Three Metaphors of Learning". Review of Educational Research, 74(4):557-576, 2004. Page 573 Page 11 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Within the field of knowledge management a number of practices have been developed that provid input to the Trialogical Learning Approach, e.g. setting up communities of practice, learning networks, sharing best practices and knowledge mapping9. These are all different ways to support knowledge creation processes in organisations that provide methods for making implicit knowledge explicit for the use of the whole organisation. Much of this discussion has emerged in the business world and is linked to experiences related to business management processes. In the Trialogical Learning Approach, researchers aim to further develop these collaborative knowledge creation processes. Furthermore, cultural historical activity theory, also called cultural historical psychology, also plays a role here. This is the theory that builds on the idea that human activities are mediated by artefacts and tools, used and modified by succeeding generations of human beings and grounded in practical, everyday activities. The Trialogical Learning Approach takes these ideas on the meaning of practical and tool mediated processes further in the context of learning practices particularly related to knowledge creation with the help of new digital technology. Ideas and concepts originating in the field of Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) also feed into the Trialogical Learning Approach as a way to understand collaborative learning and knowledge advancement in a technology-rich environment. A central idea of this field of research and practice is that the quality of learning is different when working in pairs or groups. The group activities require a higher degree of selfevaluation and meta-cognition and create a situation in which even the more knowledgeable group members benefit from working collaboratively. Technological tools are designed in order to scaffold learning and to support the articulation of thought by individual learners for the benefit of the entire group10. 9 10 An short overview on knowledge management practices is offered at: http://www.skyrme.com/resource/kmbasics.htm#Practices accessed in October 2010 Miyake, N., 2007, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, in R. Andrews & C. Haythornthwaite, "The Handbook of Elearning Research," London: Sage Publications. Page 12 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers TRIALOGICAL LEARNING PROCESSES – VISUALISED EXPLAINED Let us now turn to the Trialogical Learning itself. The term describes all those forms of learning where people are collaboratively developing and transforming concrete “objects” in a systematic fashion. The focus on shared objects is set to foster shared epistemic agency (see Box 3). There are a number of processes which typically occur during a trialogical learning. These processes are illustrated in the model below (Figure c). It is a generic model in the sense that it visualizes the core trialogical learning activities. The model does not imply that these occur in a strict and pre-defined order, the specific order in practice depends on the particular domain and educational setting where they are applied (see chapter 4). Box 3) AND The goal is more than individual learning. When researchers write a joint research article, they will not only go through different rounds of reviewing, they share and develop concepts – conceptual artefacts – and in doing so they do not only improve their individual understanding, but they work towards creating new shared knowledge for the whole group of writers. The goal is “shared epistemic agency”; i.e. each group member is responsible for building one’s own knowledge and the intellectual community at the same time by engaging in inquiry with the others. Page 13 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers F A E B D C Figure c): A generic model for the trailogical learning process As can be seen in the graphic, there are six concrete activities that occur in technology mediated processes which are all centred around working on shared objects. The activities are divided into two different groups (blue and green) to highlight two parallel but closely interlinked processes. They are separated to emphasise the role of both Box 4) Why a generic pedagogical sets of processes in trialogical knowledge model? creation activities: The term “pedagogical model” is often used in the context of e-learning. A a) One process (blue) of trialogical model serves as “an analytic lens to learning is the collaborative work for frame a research study or as a scaffold developing knowledge artefacts. for guiding educational innovation” as Learning trialogically means that the has been the case for the KP-Lab project. goal of the collaborative activity is Pedagogical models build on theories of “not [only] to learn something (i.e., learning or cognition and represent most to change, or simply add to their own often a more specific application to a mental states) but to solve problems, certain problem or situation then originate new thoughts, and advance theories do. They help to frame our communal knowledge. In other understanding of real-life teaching words, their goal is to create new practice Page 14 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers knowledge and add the value of conceptual artefacts.”11 The other parallel process (as shown above in green) is linked to the transformation of common processes and practices supporting this work b) Let us go through each one of the processes. A Explicating real purpose and need for creating new knowledge / for transforming practices A central starting point is that the learning community aims at producing knowledge artefacts and learn practices which have “real” use, that is, something which is not made just for the purpose of the specific learning context (like an exam or an essay to be checked by the teacher) but which can be reused later on. Connected to this element is the re-use of previously produced knowledge artefacts and practices (see process F) B Framing questions and epistemic challenges / common process organization This is a kind of a brainstorming phase for the overall knowledge creation challenge and for the ways of organizing the process. It often requires a variety of different activities and tools rather than more elaborate work with knowledge artefacts but should already produce some concrete outcomes with which the group can work (notes, sketches, idea lists, outlines etc). C Drafting and versioning knowledge artefacts and solutions / process plans and models Very early on participants are encouraged to start drafting concrete knowledge artefacts which are meant to be early versions of the final products. The core idea of trialogical learning is that these drafts are then concretely elaborated and versioned by participants throughout the process. Some of these knowledge artefacts are meant to function as a means for the final end products. Similarly, process plans (process models, task definitions, responsibilities, timetables, milestones, etc.) are drafted and elaborated by participants during the process for deliberate organization and monitoring of shared activities. 11 S. Paavola, L. Lipponen, and K. Hakkarainen. Models of Innovative Knowledge Communities and Three Metaphors of Learning". Review of Educational Research, 74(4):557-576, 2004. Page 561 Page 15 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers D Examining and reflecting on produced knowledge artefacts / enacted practices Both knowledge artefacts developed and enacted practices are constantly scrutinized and evaluated during the process in order to ensure the quality of the knowledge artefacts produced and practices enacted. The participants critically evaluating the overall status of the knowledge artefacts that have been produced and the activities and practices which have been conducted. Appropriate technology can provide support for this in the form of various views into the shared virtual working areas and analytic tools. There should also be room for presenting alternatives, questions, conceptualizations, visualizations, links, tags, etc. in relation to things which have already been developed. E Finalising and specifying produced knowledge artefacts / process models and practices Knowledge artefacts and practices are meant to be used later on (by others or by participants themselves later on). They must be finalized and explained for that purpose. F Reusing knowledge artefacts / practices This element has a double role in the model. On the one hand, in the starting phases of trialogical knowledge creation processes, existing knowledge artefacts and practices are utilized as building materials and models for new development. On the other hand, a central aim of trialogical learning is to produce reusable knowledge artefacts and practices, meaning that the participants’ knowledge creation and development work has a real meaning for other people in the future. Page 16 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers SO WHAT IS INNOVATIVE ABOUT TRIALOGICAL LEARNING? – During our introduction of trialogical learning and its scientific roots, we hope you have been able to spot several innovative aspects about this approach:
The extent to which it supports advanced knowledge creation processes which merge project realisation tasks with acquiring sophisticated knowledge creation skills, in other words, learners are supported in advancing their knowledge creation skills while realising practical real-life knowledge creation projects.
Its contribution towards overcoming polarities (dichotomies) that still exist in the background of many approaches to learning, for example, between individualistic learning vs. social approaches to learning, tacit knowledge vs. explicit knowledge, conceptual knowledge vs. practices by emphasising collaborative work for creating and developing artefacts and practices together.
The way in which it supports both idea-driven work with epistemic artefacts (in line with inquiry learning) and organised work for developing processes, communities and practices around these artefacts (in line with project-based learning).
The manner in which it provides the means to analyse what is happening in iterative, long-term collaborative work which includes jointly versioning, commenting and developing artefacts with knowledge artefacts.
This approach actively promotes the teaching of knowledge practices that are needed in modern knowledge work; e.g., working in teams, planning and developing products jointly for later use, reflecting and developing one’s ways of working.
The way in which it has facilitated the creation of a set of technologies which not only support mediation and reflection but also enable researchers to measure the impact of mediation and reflection on the knowledge creation process.
This approach focuses on changing practices which means that the artefacts that are produced and the practices that are modified are re-usable outside the narrow pedagogical confines of the research setting.
This approach has been piloted with KP-Lab technology in several higher education courses and contexts and been the subject of considerable research effort. This effort has led to the creation of a significant evidence-base related to innovative knowledge creation practices. Page 17 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN A NUTSHELL – 8 BASIC IDEAS This chapter presented the cornerstones of the Trialogical Learning Approach to you; it explained how to think trialogically in a general sense without making reference to examples in the classroom, or more generally, in the teaching and learning domain. Before moving on to chapter 3 and to describing some examples of its application in real-life, let us summarize the main ideas. Learning is trialogical if: it is learner-centred it involves a community of learners it is long-term work on open-ended “real-life" tasks it is centered around the creation of artefacts, which are changed and developed in an iterative process by the group members • the produced artefacts enhance the knowledge of the whole group • the outcomes of the activities are reusable • the process of collaborative knowledge-creation is made explicit in the group • it is supported by technology, which provides new means of working with externalised, concrete artefacts, which have different kinds of dynamics than dialogues. Box 5) • • • • Page 18 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 3 TOOLS FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING The Trialogical Approach emphasises a specific approach to learning which takes place when a group of individuals works together and collaboratively advances each group member’s knowledge through collaborative ways of creating and developing knowledge artefacts. In the previous chapter we argued that trialogical learning builds this recent idea about learning, which fits particularly well with technology-rich learning environments. Its novelty is to view the learning process from the knowledge creation perspective focusing on innovation and transformation of knowledge practices. A precondition for working trialogically is that every user can share his knowledge in a common space to develop collective knowledge by creating new means and new awareness, enriching both the group and the subjects. This process is possible with a specific set of tools to create, transform and elaborate knowledge and sharing ideas and individual means that foster collaborative work and high-level responsibility for the knowledge creation processes. The KP-Lab project developed technological tools to facilitate this kind of learning. This chapter aims to describe the main tool that supports you as teacher to advance individual as well as group knowledge: the Knowledge Practice Environment. The following sections are meant to be a straightforward guide to help you getting acquainted with tools that allow students to work collaboratively – although being in different place - and advance individual and group knowledge. THE KNOWLEDGE PRACTICES ENVIRONMENT (KPE) An efficient collaborative environment requires an integrated structure in which it is possible to provide certain functionalities to sustain a collaborative work with shared common objects12. It should not rely on fixed folder structures or hierarchical presentation of the content. Instead the KP-Lab project set out to develop an integrated offer, i.e. one platform to support collaborative knowledge creation, a modular, flexible, and extensible ICT system that supports pedagogical methods to foster knowledge creation in educational and workplace settings. KPE users are able to build collaboration environments by creating and configuring the means, as opposed to operating in predefined structures, of the common practice. The software is designed to mediate various aspects (epistemic, pragmatic, social, reflective) of collaborative work in an integrated way which can be called “multimediation”. KPE is structured to help a group of learners to 12 http://www.kp-lab.org/tools/knowledge-practices-environment, accessed in October 2010 Page 19 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers
Plan, organize and coordinate processes, i.e. support task allocation, creation of common appointments and events, to do lists
Manage social relations around shared objects, i.e. allowing for chats and comments specifically on documents, graphs, schemes developed by the group and to support the creation of a common vocabulary in the learning domain.
Create, transform and elaborate knowledge artefacts, i.e. building, elaborating and sharing knowledge artefacts and to achieve the collective goals. KPE is designed to provide specific affordances for joint development; concrete, epistemic objects as will as for planning, organizing and reflecting on relate tasks user networks (see Markkanen et al. 2008). The software can be adapted to various practices, and is suitable and useful in various domains of knowledge thus enabling end-user appropriation. It provides a shared knowledge space with versatile tools for developing and managing knowledge artefacts, organizing processes and people, and reflecting on practices from several perspectives. The virtual environment includes a set of integrated tools that: • working spaces with real-time and history-based awareness • wikis • comment and chat function • semantic tagging and search to working with the shared knowledge objects.13 Different “views” for different purposes The KPE Shared Space enables viewing the knowledge objects and their relations from different perspectives. There are four main views to support the first three dimensions of trialogical activities (see above), namely the content view, the tailored view, the process view and the community view. 13 M. Lakkala, S.Paavola, K. Kosonen, H. Muukkonen, M. Bauters & H. Markkanen “Main functionalities of the Knowledge Practices Environment (KPE) affording knowledge creation practices in education” In: Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Practices - CSCL2009 Community Events Proceedings. Page 20 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure d): Main tools and features of KPE Content, process, community and specialised view each come with various tools and functionalities to enable versatile and flexible creation, connection, organization and reflection of the material in Shared Space. These tools are highly integrated in these main views to enable object-bound development as well as flexible connection and organization of all information related to the knowledge objects, processes and people concerned. Let us now have a closer look at these different views. Page 21 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CREATING, TRANSFORMING AND ELABORATING KNOWLEDGE ARTEFACTS A central view in KPE for working on knowledge artefacts is the Content View. This view allows for creation and uploading of content items into a shared space, free visual arrangement and linking of content items and other objects, as well as filtering of items based on metadata and tags. Content View in KPE Learners can arrange their created artefacts in a mind map like fashion to demonstrate their relation towards each other. These artefacts can range from word and excel documents, pictures and wikis. The workspace view allows for easier reuse of these new knowledge artefacts due to the availability of information related to the evolution of creation process of objects which provides a base to the group of learners continue to work to increase this new knowledge, facilitating users’ work.14 The tools available in the content view are designed to increase the active role of all learners, which can lead to higher motivation and shared responsibility in an iterative process aimed at achieving common goals in an efficient collaborative way. The main tools available on KPE to creating, transforming and elaborating knowledge artefacts are: 14 http://www.knowledgpractices.info accessed in November 2010 Page 22 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Document management Document sharing allows you to upload your files or other media content in a common space where all the members can access, view or download the materials. The tool works like a common library in which it is possible to store, manage, found and exchange resources for the groups knowledge advancement. Document management is the key to offer a resource environment where all learners can upload drafts, pictures, links, media, maps and notes about tasks to make them accessible to all team members. Documents can be exported to Google Docs; the functionalities can be summarized as:
Export a document
Share a document with other Google accounts
Search a text in all the documents present on the Google Docs Wiki Wikis are web pages that allow anybody to edit, add, remove or change the content in a quick and easy way, with an interface similar to a word processing software. Wikis are a very efficient tool for collaboration based on the fundamental idea of sharing knowledge with each learner being able to contribute to the content creation and thus playing an active role. Moreover, they enable the exchange of ideas and they facilitate group interaction. Figure e): Wiki page inside KPE Wiki Page 23 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Wikis are an extremely flexible tool because they reside on the web; therefore they allow many people to work on the same document from different places at different times. Moreover, on the wiki pages it is possible to add links to other resources. In a wiki you and your learners can add or correct a content that already exists, but it is also possible to create new texts without changing the structure of the site. The KPE wiki has a page history function which allows learners to see the evolution of their work over time, making progress visible to all group members. Wiki document can be added as content item in the Content View which offers the possibility to access the same wiki document from Shared Spaces. It is possible to link to pages in other work spaces that you are member of.15 The basic functions related to a KPE wiki are:
Add, editing, deleting a wikipage
Commenting on wikipage
Attach a file and adding links Note Editor The Note Editor is an editor that enables writing and/or editing of a simple text object, referred to as a note object, without the need for an external application. The basic idea is that it would be used for easy idea construction and elaboration. The note editor is linked to the “note” object in that it is the manner by which a note's content can be edited/modified. The idea behind the note editor would be that it is not a replacement for applications such as MS Word, but rather a very simple editor that is tightly integrated into the already existing Shared Space tool. 15 http://2d.mobile.evtek.fi/help/index.php/KP-Environment_Wiki , accessed in October 2010 Page 24 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure f): Opening the Note Editor from within the Shared Space With Note Editor user can directly write their ideas and thoughts as content items in a shared space, without the labor of creating and uploading an external text file (Furnadziev, Tuchoumatchenko, Vasileva & Lakkala). All members of a space can open and edit the crated notes and view their previous versions. Furthermore, users can open manly notes simultaneously for comparison and integration, and link notes to other content items in the Content View. The implementation of Note Editor in KPE is a simple but powerful tool for collaborative knowledge creation.16 Sketch Pad17 Sketch Pad tools provides the functionality for drawing simple graphics (squares, circles, triangles, lines, arrows, free drawing; with colors and with simple editing commands) with texts added in between for sketching and white-boarding purposes. It is similar to the Noteeditor (and Vocabulary editor) visually. Functionalities have also similarities to the Noteeditor, so that these two are easy to be used side by side (with Note-editor the user can externalize ideas as text notes and with the Sketch pad with graphics). With this tool users can make simple sketches to support brainstorming and externalizing ideas with figures and short texts (while, for example, planning a structure for a text document, or planning upcoming tasks and work in a group). The tool does not contain too much functionality but only basic ones for making simple sketches, and moving and copying them in the whiteboard kind of an area. Simplicity means that editing is not as advanced as in more specific drawing tools but the power of this tool is in its easiness of use. Users can undo at least the last drawing/editing operation. Drawn images can be saved as content items into Shared Space (with metadata). Comment and Semantic Tagging The KPE system relies on the ontological representation of the shared space and its knowledge artefacts, as well as the users’ actions, which include commenting and tagging activities. Semantic tagging allows learners to describe items with non-hierarchical keyword or terms. Learners can create free text terms during the on-going phase of knowledge elicitation. The tagging lists can be personalized by users. Creating their own way of structuring the developed artefacts, they also make previous work related to some specific subject easier to find for other learners. 16 17 M. Lakkala, S.Paavola, K. Kosonen, H. Muukkonen, M. Bauters & H. Markkanen “Main functionalities of the Knowledge Practices Environment (KPE) affording knowledge creation practices in education”. In "Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Practices - CSCL2009 Community" , 2009, ISLS, pp. 297-306. ISBN 978-1-4092-8598-4 KP-Lab, deliverable D6.6 M33 specification of end-user applications – Drawing Tool (Sketch Pad), October 2008 Page 25 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure g): A list of tags from an existing structured vocabulary is presented to the user Figure h): An example of tags assigned to objects. Comments are a way of expressing opinions, posing questions, discussing different positions and viewpoints and even influencing the directions of a discourse. Comments are an important type of users-produced contents and represent the most informal and dynamic part of the discourse that users carry out on knowledge artefacts. Figure i): A slice of the KPE Comment : arrows with labels represent named relationships between objects while tiny notes with a circled number depicts the number of total comments attached to each knowledge artefact. 18 Figure j): Opening the comments generates the comment threads view where people can read, create a new thread or reply to existing comments18 Locoro, A. and Scapolla, A.M. and Grignani, D. (2009) Semantic Annotation and Tagging in the KP-LAB environment: mining the learning and knowledge dynamics. In: V International Conference on Multimdia and ICT in Education (mICTE2009), April 2009, Lisbon, Portugal.Semantic Annotation and Tagging in the KP-LAB environment: mining the learning and knowledge dynamics. Page 26 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Comments can by displayed in a collated fashion which will help as teacher you as you could receive a feedback of the ongoing activities as well as a feeling of the group progressions and dynamics. Visual Modelling (Language) Editor The Visual Modelling (Language) Editor is an extension to the basic functionalities offered by the KP-Environment and allows users to create, share, use, and update various kinds of diagrams that depict the relationship among concepts and ideas. The Visual Modelling (Language) Editor allows users to work collaboratively on visual models with explicitly defined semantics. Think of visual models as diagrams that symbolize the relationship among concepts and represent the structural pattern of knowledge. The relationship between the concepts in the map is described with links or key words to visualise the connection and denote the construction of the ideas. Figure k): Visual Model Example Creating concept supports learners to develop shared meanings of tasks, concepts, procedures, and strategies. Thus, collaborative concept maps allow to share individual skills and tasks with the group, contributing to common knowledge development 19. Producing such maps with a group of learners fosters discussion about the concepts and collaboratively elaborated reasoning, thus improves the processes of co-constructing meaning as well as supports critical thinking among learners. 19 Ahmad Khamesan & Nick Hammond "Synchronous collaborative concept mapping via ict: learning effectivness and personal and Interpersonal awareness " Concept Maps: Theory, Methodology, Technology, Proc. of the First Int. Conference on Concept Mapping A. J. Cañas, J. D. Novak, F. M. González, Eds., Pamplona, Spain 2004 Page 27 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers For each model the learners can choose from a set of predefined visual languages which provide them with various types of nodes and links that can be used in a model. Such nodes and links allow the learners distinguish, for example, between variables, resources, actions and goals relevant to a particular project. Learners can create their own visual modelling language based on specific domain-ontologies in a visual format. Making the semantics of visual models and conceptual maps transparent to the user provides a basic means for scaffolding collaborative modelling activities and allows for systematic comparison of both models as well as the language used. 20 Box 6) The best use of Concept Mapping Tools is when:
approaching complex real-life problems
Starting to work in a multidisciplinary team with team members having different ideas and concepts PLANNING, ORGANIZING AND COORDINATING PROCESSES In a collaborative knowledge building process organising and planning of group efforts play an important role. Every learner should be able to participate in this process, keeping in mind that roles can change from purely “executing” a given task or its coordination. The KPE allows for involving everyone during all parts of the knowledge building process, encouraging the participation of all the group and increasing responsibility, ownership and motivation. KPE’s process view enables learners to plan tasks and processes in a chronological manner as well as to monitor how the required tasks have been accomplished. Process View provides the user interface and a set of functions for describing and planning knowledge processes (in terms of tasks, their relationships, resources, and responsibilities). 21 20 21 http://www.knowledgpractices.info accessed in November 2010 M. Lakkala, S.Paavola, K. Kosonen, H. Muukkonen, M. Bauters & H. Markkanen “Main functionalities of the Knowledge Practices Environment (KPE) affording knowledge creation practices in education”. In "Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Practices - CSCL2009 Community" , 2009, ISLS, pp. 297-306. ISBN 978-1-4092-8598-4 Page 28 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Process View in KPE Other implemented tools shall also be described here; you might be acquainted with these from single non-integrated applications. ToDoTool ToDo lists are commonly used in business management, project management, software development, but also in self-management. The KPE ToDo tool allows learners to compose and share a list of tasks to be completed and by doing so collaboratively planning the steps toward completing a project or process. It supports planning and managing of individual users’ work. All work space members can add notes or change the common list in real-time. ToDo items on a list can be checked as “done”. Further functionalities are:
Add, edit or delete new ToDo item into the list
Adding or changing due date and descriptions of a ToDo item
Add related links to the items (e.g. Content Items)
Toggle the state of a ToDo item
Export the list to a Google calendar22 22 http://2d.mobile.evtek.fi/help/index.php/Google_Calendar_Tool accessed in October 2010 Page 29 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Box 5): The best use of ToDoList is when:
the purpose is shared and everybody has a specific task to combine in order to bring the work
there are many tasks to be shared and coordinated
work has deadlines Calendar The Calendar tool allow to share every event, appointment and note about the collaborative work and knowledge in a common space, thus creating processes like in a common agenda in which the group can view, add or change notes. It supports export of tasks and ToDos to a Google calendar. Box 6): The best use of Calendar is when:
tasks have deadlines
collaborative work sharing moments
the work involves more different people
you need to plan common activity involves Page 30 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Chat – One-to-one and context-bound Online Chat allows communicating in a synchronous way to other learners who are working in the KPE shared workspace at the same time. Chats have become one of the most popular tool for online socializing. It is an efficient tool to discuss and establish relationships among online users. The KPE software offers chats in its “traditional” sense. These One-to-One chats (Private Chat) can be initiated by creating a personal contact list of KP-Environment users and the chat history is visible for chat participants only. Figure l): Context based chat window Furthermore and most relevantly, there is another type of chat which was designed and integrated to enhance working on shared artefacts, e.g. a report or a graph. This Contextbound chat (Public Chat) is part of a shared space and stored as a content item in the Content View of a shared space. Learners can compare ideas, knowledge and opinions in real-time on the object at hand. The conversations can be accessed by all members of the shared space and the chat history is available for all users; they can read the history even if they did not participate in the conversation. Page 31 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Box 7) The best use of private chat is when:
you need to talk informally and in real-time
the issue is easy and fast to solve
messages are not long or complicate The best use of context-bound chat is when:
the conversation is about a specific artefact
the artefact will be changed/improved
all workspace users and involved gain Map-IT and Meeting Management Tool (M2T) Map-It was created to facilitate effective and efficient virtual and f2f discussions in any learning environment. The tool supports preparation, execution and analysis of meetings. It aids to organize, conduct and document meetings comprehensively and effectively manage the associated knowledge in a novel way. 23 It is noteworthy, that Map-It is designed to encourage learners to pay much of their attention to meeting. Synchronous and asynchronous interactions visualised through the collaborative elaboration of "discussion maps" that capture user interactions. Input to the discussion map is created in preparation and updated by all participants and fed with information generated automatically by the system. Map-It allows the use of meeting templates, sharing individual preparations, accessing artefacts from the workspace, planning and follow-up of actions, automatic generation of meeting minutes in various formats. It also provides analytical tools for exploring meeting practices and their integration in larger-scope activities, by connecting them to other KP-Lab concepts, visualisations and tools (e.g. KPE’s Content Views, ToDo, Agenda). Map-It enable the users to work it one of two modes: On-line collaborative mode in which each person creates and submits his/her own contribution to the discussion map as the conversation progresses; and note-taking mode where one of the participant is assigned the role of the "secretary", write and submit all participants’ contributions to the discussion map. Face-to-face and distant meetings or a mix of these are supported. The Map-It tool enhances the meeting experience by proposing innovative facilities for sustaining best practices. 23 http://www.kp-lab.org/tools/map-it accessed in October 2010 Page 32 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure m): Map-It visualised Page 33 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers MANAGING SOCIAL RELATIONS AROUND SHARED OBJECTS Social relations within a learning process are important because they enable to improve a social entity, responsibility and motivation that enhances learning and knowledge development.24 Unlike monological prospective, which provides an individual relationship between subject and knowledge artefact, the Trialogical approach needs a collaborative space from which users can share and exchange their opinions and their means, allowing a new authentic knowledge as a common result. For these reasons it is important that a Trialogical environment caters a set of tools that support communications and interactions about shared objects and foster a social scenario creating knowledge and relations. In KPE, social mediation is envisioned in functionalities that support users in maintaining their contacts and keeping up with changing information about other participants, as well as their relations to the share processes and content items. Community View in KPE The Community View provides support for sustained networking with colleagues, external stakeholders and other communities. It provides the user interface for building, managing and visualizing user communities (or groups) and social networks. In Community View all users of the space are displayed, it visualizes the social network structures of all learners involved. The user can define the information which is displayed in the social network: the relation to other users across activities (e.g. who commented the same items, participated in the same chat, etc.), relations through invited contacts and group interaction. 24 http://www.knowledgpractices.info accessed in November 2010 Page 34 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Community View also provides information on each learner. They can create and maintain their own profile information, and manage their personal contacts. Contact can contain other KPE users but also people outside KPE. The main functionalities available in KPE to manage social relation around shared objects are: Group management In KPE learners can form groups. Each users can be involved in more than one group and can be assigned different roles. The Community View allows managing, building and visualizing these. Each member is represented as a node in the Community View. The nodes are randomly organized in the space. The nodes include an image of the user, his/her name, email-address, a shout-box (personal message) and an indication of his/her status (e.g. colour of the node indicating whether s/he is online, etc.). Each user can edit this information in his/her profile. Figure n): Group created in KPE Forum Fora are asynchronous tools to discuss with the other users and exchange ideas or knowledge. KPE provides a forum in the shared space and allows discuss about a specific item or general topics. Learners can communicate, discuss, compare and share both personal experiences, ensuring the development of social relationships, and particular skills that are helpful to reach the common purpose. Page 35 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Figure o): Forum in KPE Interactions do not request a real-time presence of the actors, learners are able to read all the threads that have been already created and you can add posts freely. Page 36 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Group emailing Mailing Lists are a special use of email sent to a group of recipients. In this way it is possible to contact many people at the same time without wasting time and distribute information on an artefact to everyone . Box 8)
The best use of Mailing list is when: making announcements to a larger group of learners In KPE is possible to create mailing List in the Community View, making it easy to communicate to a group of learners (see above “Group management”) by simply clicking on a group node. The local mail client opens and all addresses of the groups’ members automatically appear. Page 37 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 4 TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN ACTION OR A PROCESS MODEL FOR TEACHERS This chapter is intended to give you a good idea of how trialogical learning can be applied in practice. Within the next pages 2 different pedagogical contexts will be described. However, in principle, trialogical learning can be applied in a variety of different contexts as outlined in the last part of this chapter. Two scenarios will be described. Firstly, the context will be described which will elaborate on the approach taken and the students who were involved. Secondly, we will present to you what the scenario demonstrates when applied in an educational setting.Thirdly, the specific learning objectives for the case are listed. After that, the activities undertaken by students and teachers will be explained and visualized which includes a short overview of the technological tools that were used. TRIALOGICAL EDUCATION25 LEARNING SCENARIO IN TEACHER Context Where was the scenario applied: This scenario was applied in STOAS University of Applied Sciences and Teacher Education in the Netherlands, which offers professional studies for pre-service teachers, who will work in professional secondary schools within the fields of agriculture, horticulture, food technology, animal breeding and keeping. In the programme pre-service teachers (students) are coached teachers during their work in professional situations Figure p): 25 Website of STOAS University of Applied Sciences and Teacher Education P. Sins, University Utrecht, The Netherlands ”Teachers transforming their coaching practices”. Available at: http://www.knowledgepractices.info/module-casestudies.html Page 38 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Who took part: 70 students (full-time and part-time) took part in this scenario over two semesters in three different courses. All students were also working in the classroom in teaching or teachingrelated positions or as interns in schools. Some had experience with collaborative assignments, which they had acquired during previous courses. Their attitudes’ towards collaborative activities were mixed. This scenario demonstrates
How students maintain close collaboration throughout the various stages of a design process (instead of applying a simple division of labour and simply putting together their individual productions at the end).
How students can be encouraged to continuously articulate their ideas and understanding of the knowledge and artefacts under scrutiny.
How students take-up and materialize continuously evolving ideas.
How students’ classroom work can be made more relevant to their current or future workplaces and colleagues. Learning Objective Overall goal of the course was to support self-reflection on students’ own practices, peerfeedback and the design of educational material for students’ own or external use. Work was defined in terms of open-ended tasks, in which knowledge and skills were mobilized, but also in which new knowledge and skills were to be created and applied to one of the following course topics (depending on the course students had registered for):
Designing and assessing evaluation instruments
Learning situations with learning and behavioural problems
Coaching and learning in intercultural contexts The objective was that learning should be relevant to students themselves but also have a strong connection to their workplaces. Page 39 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activities Much of the work took place in regular group meetings, but individual and collaborative work was done also between meetings supported by technology. First Phase – Getting started: Tool training Students explore the KPE tools hands-on training on the use of the tool Identifying overarching topics Each student brought forward some topics of interest, which were then clustered to overarching themes with the help of the teacher Group forming Students chose topics and groups of three to five students were formed. One teacher coach was assigned per team. How to approach the workplace This session prepared students to identify topics of within their professional domain End of September Lectures and workshops (for each of the three courses) Specific Teacher Interventions Beginning of September Collaborative Project Activities Page 40 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Here are some examples of the objects around which the different learner groups set out to work on: Analysis of assessment instruments for secondary professional education and guidelines for teachers to use these methods and instruments Guidelines for teachers to deal with pupils with learning and behavioural problems e.g., AD(H)D A website to help teachers to identify pupils with depression symptoms A manual for institutions offering internships for pupils with disabilities A website that could be used by teachers to recognise pupil’s depression, auto mutilation and suicidal tendencies Didactical material for `green` schools An activities blueprint for schools hosting disabled pupils A set of guidelines for agricultural schools to attract pupils with different cultural backgrounds Page 41 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers After the initial phase of getting familiar with the tools, deciding about topics and group formation, a second phase started: Collaborative Project Activities Specific Teacher Interventions January Lectures and workshops (for each of the three courses) Support with the Knowledge Practices Environment • Brainstorming on the theme under scrutiny to make the knowledge of each member explicit • General discussions about the progress of the project • Presentation of ideas which were then discussed, rejected or accepted and, if accepted, elaborated either individually or collectively by the group • Presentation of drafts to be discussed, provided with feedback and suggestions for revisions • Planning of future tasks and agreement on the division of labour • Discussing the progress with the teacher coach • Collaborative work on some of the products (less frequent) During the sessions individual and collaborative work was conducted in the Knowledge Practice Environment 10-14 face-to-face sessions during the run of the course (minimum 75 minutes project work) October Preliminary workplan With the help of a template offered by the teacher students discuss and agree on a preliminary work plan. Page 42 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Tools For their collaborative work, students used the “Knowledge Practice Environment” mainly for
Shared storage
Shared Workspace ◊ For collaborative creation and development (write, edit, revise) of the objects under development ◊ For collaborative editing (in wiki) and for commenting on each other’s work ◊ To visualize the process through linking those objects ◊ To chat on the developed work And external e-mail for further communication. Figure q): The shared workspace of students in the Knowlegde Practice Environment Page 43 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDENT CUSTOMER26 TEAM WORK AND A REAL Context Where did it take place? This scenario was implemented in the University of Helsinki and Aalto University, School of Economics in Finland. Who was involved? This scenario involved 30 fourth year students from several programmes including Educational Science, Economics, Information and Service Management, Cognitive Science and Psychology. All of them had signed-up for the optional course “Advanced Themes on Project Management”. This scenario demonstrates
How to create a networked course environment that allows students to organise their work in multidisciplinary teams
How to enhance communication and coordination between those teams with the help of a virtual environment
How to increase students reflection on the on-going activities
How to produce models and input for subsequent students of the same course Learning Objectives The objectives of this scenario were all linked to advanced skills and competences in project management. The scenario aimed specifically to
Effective coordination of joint work and time management in interdisciplinary teams
Resolve complex real-world problems
Enhance performance in customer-oriented projects 26 K. Kosonen, University of Helsinki, Finland “Multidisciplinary teams simulating professional settings” . Available at: http://www.knowledgepractices.info/module-casestudies.html Page 44 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activities The task for participating students was to set-up projects for the Finnish Tax Authority that would enhance tax-payers’ behaviour in responding to the requirements of the Tax Authority. The pedagogical scenario involved a mix of weekly face-to-face meetings between students and instructors that were organised during and after lectures. Asynchronous work was carried out by the students individually or in teams online. Defining Phase Course introduction The students were introduced to a) the roles of the different teams involved in the course b) the roles and responsibilities within student teams the c) character of the assignment and the customer and d) the basic phases of the working processes that were to be followed during the course Collaborative Project Activities Group Forming Students from 8 virtual teams with 3 to 5 individuals each 6 teams with own customer projects March Lectures on project management, organizational psychology and technology Specific Teacher Interventions Tool training Students explored the KPE tools, and received handson training on the use of the tool 2 coordination teams of more advanced students 1 research team to study and reflect on the groups’ working activities and experiences during the course Creating team flyers: character of the team and the students competencies Making working rules explicit: interactions, organisation and management of meetings Brainstorming about different themes that could be addressed Agreement with the customer by the coordination team as to which themes best met their current needs Selection of themes by the student teams Page 45 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Collaborative Project Activities Execution Phase Project Diaries and “Scrum Follow-ups” Team members were asked 3 questions regarding the tasks that had been done, the tasks that were to be done and the perceived obstacles. Each group’s project manager created a weekly diary based on that information. Month XXXX Peer reviews The coordination team arranged a peer review to study the preliminary reports. Month XXXX Report writing Students composed a report including project objectives, study scope, definitions, task list with responsibilities, an estimation of time required and a description of expected risks Support with the Knowledge Practices Environment Lectures on project management, organizational psychology and technology Planning Phase Project Plan Students created an adequate project plan for their work Specific Teacher Interventions Final Outcomes .. were delivered to the Tax Delivery Administration intended for re-use. Phase Page 46 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Tools At the beginning of the course, a presentation with introductory information was uploaded to the virtual shared working space by the teacher for students use. During the course, students deployed many features of the Knowledge Practice Environment:
They made notes, assigned and followed up with tasks with the help of ‘to do’ lists, they negotiated and reflected on activities that had been undertaken and in collaboration amongst team members.
They accessed and used a shared workspace by uploading content items and elaborating on them specifically for the report document and scrum-follow up, but also to draft ideas and upload other resources (e.g. papers, templates).
Students also chatted on the produced outcomes (object bound chatting). Additionally, they used external email and the IRQ-gallery chatting tool. Figure r): The main shared working space of the course Page 47 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers TRIALOGICAL LEARNING IN OTHER PEDAGOGICAL SETTING Now that you have seen two examples of the Trialogical Learning Approach as applied in practice, we hope that we have awakened your interest to explore further real-life cases. On the http://www.knowledgepractices.info/module-casestudies.html website you will be able to find exactly that, well presented cases of trialogical learning in action in various contexts. When viewed collectively, it becomes clear that trialogical learning is particularly well suited for contexts that involve collaborative knowledge creation and utilising knowledge artefacts such as the following:
Supporting globally distributed design work in company settings where project teams are working synchronously and asynchronously on the creation of common projects which are manifested in blueprints, plans, reports and other types of concrete output. Typically, this is the case for project teams where participants need to jointly represent, discuss, comment, revise and organise knowledge (ideas, solutions, suggestions, reports) in order to provide a solution to a problem or challenge they face.
Enhancing coaching skills amongst teacher trainers charged with supporting groups of trainee teachers in the creation and use of knowledge objects and instruments such as guidelines, best practice toolkits, resource banks, etc. The Trialogical Learning Approach facilitates the various steps required in such a context including the collaborative identification and investigation of the challenges that are faced; negotiation on possible solutions; modelling of solutions; operationalising or making concrete solutions; implementing instruments in practice; monitoring and determining the effect(s) of such instruments and reflection on the outputs.
Facilitating multidisciplinary project work as demonstrated by the second scenario above at Helsinki University and Aalto School of Economics. This approach is particularly suitable for third level students working on real-life customer oriented open-ended assignments in which they need to develop and enhance multidisciplinary, distributed project work practices. In this scenario, the Trialogical Learning approach facilitates students who wish to set up a context with complex problems; to take part in questioning and problematizing activities; to construct working hypotheses and solutions; to deepen their analysis; to create knowledge artefacts for subsequent use; to carry out critical user evaluation of artefacts and solutions and finally to reflect on the extent to which their knowledge practices have been transformed. Page 48 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers CHAPTER 5 DESIGN YOUR OWN TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SYSTEM After having understood the Trialogical Learning Approach, having learned about tools to support learning and explored two scenarios, now it is time for you to start to plan your own implementation of trialogical learning. This chapter is focussed on supporting you in designing your own trialogical learning within your professional context. As a consequence this chapter differs from the previous chapters due to its operational and practical nature. It will guide you through the process of planning also by providing a number of activities to aid your preparation. After completing those activities you should be in a suitable position to apply different key principles of the Trialogical Learning Approach and put the Trialogical Learning Approach with your students into practice. We hope you enjoy going through the process suggested in this chapter as well as the final results. BEFORE STARTING: WHAT IS YOUR ROLE AS A TEACHER? A central aim of present-day higher education is to promote learners’ various knowledge creation competences in diverse working and learning settings by means of pedagogical practices, rather than mastery of content in some subject domains. Pedagogical practices that are regarded to improve these competences include such features as student ownership and active involvement; collaboration between participants; activities of searching, sharing and elaborating knowledge; working with authentic, ill-defined problems; critical reflection on one’s own activity; and the teacher’s changed role from delivering knowledge to organizing, guiding and assessing students. To foster learners’ knowledge creation competences in diverse working and learning settings, successful teachers changed their role from delivering knowledge to organizing, guiding and assessing students27. Following the Trialogical Learning Approach you - as a teacher - try to capture and explicate learners’ tacit knowledge, manage and facilitate their knowledge creation processes and foster boundary crossing collaboration. You also want to make sure that their knowledge artefacts are created for re-use. 27 Ilomäki, L., Lakkala, M., & Paavola, S. (2006). Case studies of learning objects used in school settings. Learning, Media, and Technology, 31(3), 249-267. Kozma, R. B. (2003). Technology and classroom practices: An international study. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 36(1), 1–14. Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (2003). Knowledge building. In Encyclopedia of Education (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan Reference, 1370–1373. Page 49 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Those are challenging tasks, but this chapter presents principles and recommendations that will aid you to make this kind of learning possible. DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING The KP-Lab project developed six “general design principles for enhancing trialogical learning practices in educational settings through pedagogical arrangements and supporting technology”28. These principles mediate generalizations of research findings and unique examples that emerged in practice, and they are meant for informing your innovative educational practice. The principles are quite general and abstract characteristics of trialogical learning and related knowledge practices: Box 9) Design Principles DP1. Organize activities around shared objects DP2. Support integration of personal and collective agency and work (through developing shared objects) DP3. Emphasize development and creativity on shared objects through transformations and reflection DP4. Foster long-term processes of knowledge advancement with shared objects (artefacts and practices) DP5. Promote cross-fertilization of various knowledge practices and artefacts across communities and institutions DP6. Provide flexible tools for developing artefacts and practices The principles do not need to be followed strictly. There can be different focuses for trialogical learning in different settings. However, the first principle is the overarching principle central to the Trialogical Learning Approach, which relates to all the others. 28 Minna Lakkala, Liisa Ilomäki, Kari Kosonen, Sami Paavola & Hanni Muukkonen (2009). Exploring the Applicability of Trialogical Design Principles for Examining Knowledge Practices in Education. In: Moen, A. Mørch, A.I., and Paavola, S., (Eds.). Collaborative Knowledge Creation: Practices, Tools, and Concepts http://www.knowledgepractices.info/wiki/index.php?title=Handbook_on_Trialogical_Learning Accessed in October 2010 Page 50 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers RECOMMENDATION AND ACTIVITIES TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SCENARIO TO PLAN YOUR One of the main purposes of this handbook is to give you more specific guidelines on how to implement the new learning approach into your teaching practice. We will therefore turn to the generic model again, that was introduced in chapter 2. Following the phases of the model, we present different concrete recommendation based on the research on case studies that were conducted by the KP-Lab project. You should keep in mind some the following while you are progressing: 1) The activities have been chosen to support you in the process of designing your own trialogical learning system. Exemplars of choices and reflections. Try to perform all the activities, since they were chosen to build the basis for your scenario design and implementation. 2) There is no single approach or unique path to be followed. We have structured the chapter on the basis of the 6 design principles (see below) and the generic process model as introduced in chapter 2. The model does not determine a sequential series of steps, but for your planning we consider it helpful to work through different phases. However, you might decide to follow a different sequence in designing your system or after completing an activity you might decide to go back and change what you have previously prepared. 3) This chapter builds on the contents of previous chapters. Please take time to go back to these chapters to refresh your understanding of core concepts and ideas where necessary. Page 51 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers A Explicating real purpose and need for creating new knowledge / for transforming practices Start out your scenario with a broad theme as for example the topic of the course. You should not decide on concrete products of the course activity. Instead stimulate your learners to think themselves of products that encompass the theme-related knowledge. Take the background of students into account and let them find out what is relevant to them and their (future or current) professional context. Relate the brainstorming to the workplace of learners, the place of an internship or training or a real-life customer. Let your learners brainstorm and create an open atmosphere for creative ideas. In order to support students in that starting phase, you can show samples of objects from previous courses. Your role in this process is to cluster ideas of learners and allow for discussing each cluster in more detail. You can start to set-up groups around those clusters according to the interest of the learners. These should ideally consist of 3 to 4 members as with more than this the collaboration can become rather loose and not very effective. Activity 1 How are you going to relate learners’ activities to a “real” purpose? Page 52 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activity 2 Please outline the major work phases that you will communicate to learners. Note that you do not need to plan in five phases. 1 2 3 4 5 Page 53 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Here is an example of the phases for the scenario described in chapter 4. 1 KPE tool training Students get acquainted with specific KPE functionalities 2 Defining phase Organising teams, Creation of a coordinating team Team flyer specifying the character of the team and the competences of its members Agree on a list of explicit rules for describing the way the team will work 3 Planning phase Each team creates a suitable project plan 4 Executing phase Get the project work done Follow-up and control progress, weekly manager’s diary, conduct “scrum follow up 5 Delivery phase Delivery and final presentation of the group reports Page 54 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers B Framing questions and epistemic challenges / common process organization This step is intended to challenge traditional thinking patterns. What knowledge and object should be created collaboratively? Keep in mind that you want students to take agency about their learning process! For this stage it is important, that learners feel responsible for what they know and what they don’t know, or in other words, they understand that individual and group knowledge arises from choices they take themselves. Avoid a prescribed and fixed scheme of activities for groups work at the beginning; instead the teams can be scaffolded by different assignments or by outlining the phases of the group work. Make the tacit knowledge of your learners explicit by asking questions: What are the different aspects of the dilemma/real-life problem? What factors are influencing it? How can it be addressed in the form of solutions? Feel free to foster confusion by asking unexpected questions. This way you will stimulate students to discuss different possibilities with one another. Let students search for opposites, for opponents of the particular idea or use of a work method that allows them space to consider other perspectives. Use practices like discussions, debating contests, forum discussions, or even invite experts who have contrary opinions to those prevailing. Questions such as: What would happen if this was not true? In which situations does this not apply? Pose questions that make students imagine and explore possibilities in their widest context: Imagine your school (workplace) has room for your plan, what would you do? Imagine you wake up and the problem/constraint does not exist anymore, what would you do? Imagine if you would make a movie about ideal situations, a soap, a thriller or a comedy? These activities should already produce some concrete outcomes with which the group can work later on: e.g. notes, sketches, idea lists, outlines etc. You can make students work with mind maps to enable them seeing the big picture and guarantee communication on their initial understanding of the real-life problem they decided to work on. Especially in multidisciplinary teams, your learners won't share a common language. To foster a common understanding, let them work on simple model making explicit the most important concepts and tasks. Try to raise students’ awareness of participation and contribution to collaboration itself. Consider a short discussion to find out about their culture of collaboration, because learners are not always eager to collaborate. Some might well think that working alone is faster and easier. Be explicit about the number and duration meetings, you can meet once a week for example. Page 55 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activity 3 How will support members of the group/s to use and develop previous knowledge? Which resources/materials could learners share with the whole group, thus building on previous knowledge? Activity 4 How will you support students to elaborate a common language, a common understanding of the real-life problem at hand? Activity 5 Plan which activities will be conducted during Face-to-face meetings, which will be carried out at the distance, which activities will be conducted at the level of a plenary as opposed to an individual group levels. On a separate sheet you should prepare a draft schedule of the meetings (frequency, duration, etc.). Page 56 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers C Drafting and versioning knowledge artefacts and solutions / process plans and models It is a complex process to let students elaborate and materialise ideas into objects, thus it requires your support. Promote early drafting, joint versioning and targeted commenting of knowledge objects. In this phase learners should draft and elaborate process plans (process models, task definitions, responsibilities, timetables, milestones, etc.). These should raise awareness of the complexity of collaboration around shared knowledge objects as well as the complexity of the knowledge object itself. You can ask team members to create team flyers specifying the character of the team and the competencies of its members. Or let students formulate explicit rules to describe the way the team will work. Your challenge as a teacher is it to keep track of the distribution of roles and various members’ contributions and to encourage teams to divide responsibility more equally when needed. Try to keep students from focusing too much on the end product. Students are often being overly product-oriented and focus far too heavily on the end product in their knowledge creation activities rather than the process itself. You can encourage students to create and share prototypes and by doing so maintaining close collaboration during the whole learning process. Let teams agree on quality criteria for the shared knowledge object(s) they are going to develop. Discuss the needs of possible end-users of the group work outcomes. Do not forget that you want to foster contributions of all group members. There are a number of problems that might arise: First, immediate group discussions following on simulations will influence perceptions of the preceding activity and thereby hinder creation of personal analyses by each individual. Second, the team might not be able utilize its potential capacity of learning from each of its members. Some students may be quiet while others dominate and not get the chance to speak their voice. Third, there could be uncritical agreement among team members. Members may not be aware of other members’ views. To prevent those problems first let students work on a task individually for each iteration and only later encourage to share, discuss and negotiate these collaboratively. One important note for the creation of process plans: Traditionally, the distinction made between the role of learner and teacher is closely connected to profession, education and stage of career. In trialogical learning the idea is to break up such traditional ties, and to regard these roles as occasional to the particular activity, people possibly playing dynamically with the roles even within the same activity. Roles can be assigned and reassigned from subactivity to subactivity, and one Actor may play different roles at the same time in concurrent activities, e.g. observer, supervisor or chair. 29 Page 57 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activity 6 What kind of outcomes do you expect students to produce at this stage of the process? Activity 7 How will you follow-up with the work of the different groups? Page 58 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers D Examining and reflecting on produced knowledge artefacts / enacted practices To create a successful trialogical learning experience, it is important to let students reflect on the activities that they have undertaken. You need to encourage students to continuously articulate their ideas and understanding of the knowledge and artifacts at stake for example with a scrum-follow up. Ensure to receive the feedback and progress update of the teams, let them be explicit about yet unresolved questions and link information resources. Let learners regularly summarise their intellectual achievements. For a real trialogical approach you need to analyse and score learners’ performance continuously. Your role here is also to highlight the essentials for further work of learners. Remind the teams to examine the effectiveness of implementing the interventions based on collaboratively agreed upon criteria and standards. Encourage learners also to let go of produced artifacts, if they do not fulfil previously agreed criteria. Keep in mind that knowledge creation and development always take time. Activity 8 What methods will you use to encourage students to constantly reflect on a. group work results? b. And their practices? Page 59 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers E Finalising and specifying produced knowledge artefacts / process practices models and Make sure that the final outcomes are easy to reuse. They should meet the criteria and standards and possible checked with external experts. F Reusing knowledge artefacts / practices The participants’ knowledge creation and development work needs to have a real meaning for other people in the future. All these activities can and should be supported by suitable technology. After the above activities you are now in a good position to select the technological tools which will allow you to implement your scenario. The way tools allow members of the groups to create, retrieve, manipulate, organise, visualize, update, modify knowledge artifacts and the knowledge development processes/links/relations /views/flows which take place during trialogical learning are central to the approach. Therefore you should plan the tool selection very carefully. If you decide to use the KPE it is important to take the time and effort into account that is required for users to get used to the environment. Keep in mind how much effort it had cost to start working with a word processing tool for the first time. Learners need to have time and prepared examples to be at ease with the KPE. Have a training session at the beginning, some materials and tutorials can be found at www.knowledgepractices.org. It is best to provide some pre-structure content for the common workspace. You could also make the workspace of a previous learner group accessible or create an example with material that your learners are familiar with. However, the use of technological tools should be flexible. Communication amongst group members can take place via normal and familiar means like email or other tools also following the preference of the learners. For your tasks during the implementation of the activity it is important to see a sort of log, i.e. you need to be able to access information on: who produced different elements; when where these created? It is important to use tools that preserve the outcomes and the development of the knowledge-production. The KPE is a good tool to analyse and score performance continuously. Page 60 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers Activity 9 What technological tools will be used to enable learners to a. plan, organise and coordinate processes? b. manage communication around the shared objects under development? c. create, share and further elaborate these objects? Page 61 of 62 Trialogical Learning - A handbook for Teachers A CHECKLIST FOR YOUR TRIALOGICAL LEARNING SCENARIO After these recommendations you can use checklists to determine how much your scenario is set up to be a real implementation of the Trialogical Learning Approach into your educational setting. The checklist is also intended to summarise some of the previous planning in the column on methods/activities. Design Principle Integrated? Please check. What methods/activities will to use? Organize activities around shared objects Support integration of personal and collective agency and work (through developing shared objects) Emphasize development and creativity on shared objects through transformations and reflection Foster long-term processes of knowledge advancement with shared objects (artefacts and practices) Promote cross-fertilization of various knowledge practices and artefacts across communities and institutions Provide flexible tools for developing artefacts and practices Page 62 of 62