Hanni Muukkonen <hanni.muukkonen@helsinki.fi>

University of Helsinki

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I have been taking part in the designing and researching of a web-based networked learning environment called the Future Learning Environment (FLE) http://mlab.uiah.fi/fle/

The FLE environment consists of several modules that are designed to facilitate collaborative knowledge building and collaborative design work through a constructive process. The modules are WebTop (virtual desktop in the web), Knowledge Building module, Jam Session module, People module, Library module and Administration module for tutors and system administrator (see for more details in the proceedings book a paper by Muukkonen et al. "Collaborative Technology for Facilitating Progressive Inquiry: Future Learning Environment Tools") 

The progressive inquiry model provides a common schema for collaboration of adult learners in the FLE environment. An inquiry process is started by creating rather extensive why and how questions, which the community is notable explain based on their prior knowledge. Gradually, these problems become more focused as the community begins to search for more information and starts to create new theories and ideas. The result of the collaboration needs to be defined in the beginning of the process, whether it will be an essay, a design, a prototype, a plan or a summary of the discussion. The evaluation, however, is intended to focus more on the inquiry process than the actual final products. 

In September we started with a history of philosophy course with 15 first year university students, where we have an opportunity to follow two tracks of teaching. One is a rather traditionally organized with seminar meetings, philosophy texts and essay-assignments. The other track is based on the same content and similarly structured seminar sessions. What constitutes the difference is that simultaneously with seminars, students are discussing the materials they are reading in the FLE-environment and they are developing their essay tasks also in the FLE. We have administered pretests on the argumentation skills for the students, not linked with the philosophy content but more general topics. We will administer a post test in addition to the essay task. 

We have the following research questions in mind about the effects of collaboration:

1) Are there observable differences in the argumentation skills students develop during the first semester of their studies in the traditional group versus the FLE-group (or KBE-group)? These skills are measured from their use of epistemic modalities, argumentation structures, and metacognitive evaluations, which we hypothesize will be reflecting the collaborative nature of FLE-group's discussions.

2) Are there observable differences in the content knowledge the students develop during the first semester of their studies in the traditional group versus the FLE-group? These aspects are evaluated by a content specialist based on the course materials and coherence of essay writing. 

What the courses and database materials I have been analyzing thus far have suggested, is that the KBEs allow students multiple perspectives into the topics they are researching and open their eyes to the subjectivity of knowledge and understanding in a way that can not easily be taught, but are highly regarded as academic literacy skills. Further, the students, who actively engage in knowledge building efforts, spontaneously develop self-evaluative practices like referring to their earlier views or misconceptions. 

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Hanni Muukkonen Applied Cognitive Science Research Group 

Department of Psychology 

PO Box 13 (Meritullinkatu 1 B) 00014 

University of Helsinki 

Finland

Tel. +358 9 191 23770

GSM +358 50 330 6236

Fax +358 9 191 23443

E-mail hanni.muukkonen@helsinki.fi