Special Issue: Using Technology in Social Studies

Journal of the Research Center for Educational Technology (RCET) Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2013

www.rcetj.org

ISSN 1948-075X

Volume 9, Number 1 Spring 2013

Edited by:

Alicia Crowe, Ph.D. Kent State University

Guest Editor

Candice McDonald, M.A. Kent State University

Editor

Special Issue: Using Technology in Social Studies

http://www.rcetj.org/


Guest Editor Alicia Crowe, Ph.D.

Kent State University

Editor Candice McDonald, M.A.

Kent State University

Reviewers

Bryan Ashkettle, Solon High School Elizabeth W. Brooks, Kent State University Jeffery Drake, Kent State University Todd S. Hawley, Kent State University

Andrew L. Hostetler, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University Andrew R. Pifel, Kent State University Evan Mooney, Kent State University Michael Levicky, Kent State University

Published by RCET (http://www.rcet.org), The Journal for the Research Center for Educational

Technology provides a multimedia forum for the advancement of scholarly work on the effects of

technology on teaching and learning. It is distributed free of charge over the World Wide Web under the

Creative Commons License (Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States) to

promote dialogue, research, and grounded practice.

http://www.rcet.org/



Introduction to the Issue 1

Candice McDonald

Developing Civic Agency in an International Videoconference: 2

Reflecting on Audience and Public Voice in Participatory Media

J. Spencer Clark and James Scott Brown

“Wouldn't you like to talk it over before having your people die?" 24

Engaging Middle School Students in Interschool Online Synchronous Discussions Joe O’Brien, Tom Barker, and Tina Ellsworth

The Lincoln Telegrams Project: A Design-Based Research Approach to 49

Simplifying Digital History

Philip E. Molebash, John K. Lee, and Adam Friedman

Shifting Neo-Narratives: Online Participatory Media & Historical Narrative 74

Whitney Gordon Blankenship and Cinthia S. Salinas

Using Podcasts to Express Counter-Narratives in Elementary Social Studies 94

Melissa Walker Beeson

The Pad-agogy of Historical Thinking: Using Digital Tablets in a Social Studies 112

Teaching Methods Course

Grant R. Miller and Serina Cinnamon

Cross-culture and Technology Integration: Examining the Impact of a 131

TPACK-focused Collaborative Project on Pre-service Teachers and

Teacher Education Faculty

Janie Daniel Hubbard and Geoff Price



From “Community Helpers” to “Community Service”: Using a WebQuest 156

with Second Graders

Mary Beth Henning

Planning with Technology in Mind: Preparing Pre-Service Social Studies 174

Teachers to Integrate Technology in the Classroom

Kristen Shand, Patrick Guggino, and Victoria Costa

Social Networking and the Social Studies for Citizenship Education 192

Brad M. Maguth and Jason R. Harshman

RCETJ 9 (1), 24 – 48


“Wouldn't you like to talk it over before having your people die?"

Engaging Middle School Students in Interschool Online Synchronous Discussions

Joe O’Brien, Tom Barker, and Tina Ellsworth

University of Kansas

25


Abstract

While peer-to-peer online synchronous discussions offer students a means to engage those from

other schools in discussions about matters of public importance, existing research offers middle

school teachers limited insight into how best to conduct such discussions. This study examined

the peer-to-peer interaction of three classes of students from three separate schools as they

participated in a series of sequenced online synchronous discussions about why nations go to war.

The results of the study suggest ways to strengthen the instructional support system provided

during such discussions so as to foster better interschool and peer-to-peer participation and

higher-level posts by students.

Keywords: online synchronous discussion; peer-to-peer discussion; public policy issues

26


Introduction

Synchronous online forums support “real-time, many-to-many textual interactions” and “‘same-

time, any place’ collaboration,” which allows students to interact with peers from other schools

in a dialogue on important topics (Shi, et al., 2008, p. 6). Most research has addressed

asynchronous online discussion (Shi, et al., 2008), offering little insight into synchronous

discussions (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2010) and the behavioral patterns that might exist in them

(Hou & Wu, 2011). Also, secondary students “are offered few opportunities to actively

participate and engage in dialogic classroom activities,” making it difficult to assess

characteristics of the interactions between students in an online synchronous discussion

(Asterhan & Eisenmann, 2011, p. 2169). Given this and the importance of cultivating students’

ability to engage in discussions of and make decisions about public policy issues (Evans & Saxe,

1996; Ochoa-Becker, 2007; and, National Council for the Social Studies, 2008), we worked with

three teachers (Brian, Kori, and Nick) and researched middle school students’ engagement in a

series of sequenced, online synchronous discussions about a critical policy issue: What justifies

going to war?

Theoretical Framework

Online Synchronous Discussions

Web 2.0 innovations “encourage interconnections among learners” (Greenhow, Robelia, &

Hughes, 2009, p. 249), leading An, Kim, & Kim (2008) to conclude: “there seems to be a

consensus that online instruction needs to move away from teacher-centered models toward more

learner-centered ones in which student collaboration is encouraged” (p. 66). Peer-to-peer (p2p)

online synchronous discussions (OSDs) are an example of such learner-centered use. OSDs

possess the “important traits of immediacy, fast planning, problem-solving, scheduling, and

decision-making” (Shi, et al., 2008, p. 6), since they provide “real time interaction” that leads to

“a sense of social presence and a heightened sense of involvement in the ongoing communication

events through quick feed-back on ideas, support consensus and decision making” (Wu, 2005, p.

304). OSDs offer several advantages over face-to-face (f2f) discussions in that users are more

likely: 1) to state personal positions (Amichai-Hamburger & Ben-Artzi, 2000; Amichai-

Hamburger, Wainapel & Fox, 2002; Suler, 2004); 2) to participate since they can post comments

simultaneously (Hampel, 2006); 3) to debate multiple perspectives and to share simultaneously

without the conversation moving on (Wu, 2003); and, 4) to make thoughtful comments (Jonassen

& Kwon, 2001; Kim, et al., 2007). Research also indicates that OSDs encourage a “deeper

reflection of issues” due to the “community-nurturing” that takes place within them (Wu, 2005, p.

304). However, it is difficult to get students from several schools online simultaneously and to

supervise large-scale discussions (Branon & Essex, 2001). Since the “sound, tone, and tempo of

a speech and the non-verbal expression of a face-to-face conversation is often lost” in a

synchronous discussion, “such an environment requires conscious effort and skilled coordination

and collaboration…[and] online moderation” (Shi, et al., 2008, p. 6) in the form of strong

instructional support.

27


Teacher Support in Online Discussions

Teachers can provide students with four types of support: 1) pedagogical support – “all attempts

to reach a particular learning objective”; 2) social support – “make students comfortable and

promote inclusion”; 3) managerial support – “maintain a sense of structure”; and 4) technical

support –“assistance to students in using” the online site (Lund, 2004, p. 168). Pedagogically,

teachers can facilitate online discussions by: posing questions about the topic (Masters &

Oberprieler, 2004); maintaining students’ focus (Beaudin, 1999); and, providing explicit

directions and expectations while preparing students for online collaboration (Asterhan &

Schwarz, 2007; Howe, 2009). Fauske & Wade (2003-2004) and Mazzolini & Maddison (2003)

though learned that students did not want the teacher involved in the online discussion, viewing

his/her involvement as assessment, which raises questions about student interaction in an OSD

where there is limited teacher moderation.

There is “little research done that directly addresses student or peer facilitation compared to

instructor facilitation” (Hew & Cheung, 2008, p. 1113). However, research indicates that

students who lack prompts “to think about new material in such a way that they transform new

material” (Chen & Bradshaw, 2007, p. 362) mostly state their opinion (Cheung & Hew, 2005),

post low-level statements (Lim, So & Tan, 2010), and simply answer their peers’ questions

(Cheung & Hew, 2006). If the research is ambivalent about the value of teachers’ direct

pedagogical role during p2p online discussions, yet clear that students will not necessarily

engage in rich discussions without support (Webb, 2009), then the challenge is providing such

support outside the OSD. One way is to provide students with problems designed to engage them

in productive discussion(s) (Asterhan & Schwarz, 2009; Brown & Palincsar, 1989), which can

lead students to construct “meaning grounded in their own experience rather than simply

absorbing and reproducing knowledge transmitted from subject-matter fields” (Newmann, Marks,

& Gamoran, 1996, p. 281).

Authentic Problem-Solving about Public Issues in an Online Discussion

The “training ground for civic competence lies in the process of engaging our student-citizens in

the understanding of issues that confront them, their society and the planet” (Ochoa-Becker,

2007, p. 15). To that end, we engaged students in “disciplined inquiry,” characterized by “prior

knowledge base,” “in-depth understanding,” and “elaborated communication” (Newmann, et al.,

1996, p. 283), about an ill-defined problem that had “vague and less defined goals and…no right

or wrong concepts, rules, and principles for arriving at the solution” (Chen and Bradshaw, 2007,

p. 361). By so doing in an online and f2f setting we encouraged students to discuss multiple

perspectives and solutions to the problem (National Council for the Social Studies, 2008). We

provided students instructional support, such as prompts when thinking about new information

and direct and appropriate instruction on how to work in f2f and online discussion groups. Since

a lack of a “knowledge integration” (Chen and Bradshaw, 2007, p. 368) might result in a

discussion that is vague, oversimplified, and superficial, the f2f students were prompted to

“demonstrate an elaborated account that is clear, coherent, and provides richness and in detail,

qualifications, and argumentation” and “to elicit student interpretation of and generalization from

different sources of information they had considered” (Newmann, et al., 1996, pp. 289, 290). We

offered students multiple means to express their thinking (Newmann, et al.,1996), one of which

28


was an online invitation-only site (justwar.ning.com) that was characterized by “norms of

collaboration, trust, and high expectations for intellectual accomplishment” (Newmann, et al.,

1996, p. 286). Based on Lund’s (2004) work, we designed and field-tested a system to

instructionally support students’ online discussions about what justifies war. The site’s home

page is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Just War Ning Home Page

Validating the Instructional Support System

During the 2010-11 academic year, we piloted a series of sequenced OSDs and related f2f

activities and materials with approximately two hundred and fifty middle school students from

three schools. The purpose of the OSDs was for students to: exchange ideas; interact with those

from other schools; and learn other perspectives on the situation about what justifies war. In the

pilot study, we addressed managerial and technical support concerns (Lund, 2004), such as

synchronizing approximately 20-minute discussions across school schedules in two time zones

(O’Brien, et al., 2012), and learned the implications of Asterhan & Schwarz’s (2010) distinctions

between synchronous and asynchronous discussions, such as with synchronous discussions “the

time frame is significantly shorter, discussants are concurrently receiving and sending multiple

messages at a high pace, individual contributions are usually shorter, the dynamics of

communication are more similar to F2F formats, [and] the communication is usually not

threaded by default” (p. 264). During discussions, students engaged in deliberation where the

goals were to “reach a decision about what a ‘we’ should do to achieve an end” and to “improve

discussants’ powers of understanding” (Parker & Hess, 2001, p. 281). Students engaged in the

deliberation averaged about 175-225 posts per OSD or seven to ten posts per minute.

Additionally, students received a reading that provided “alternatives to a public problem” and

were tasked with “planning for right action…weighting alternative courses of action and

deciding on…them” (Parker & Hess, pp. 281 & 282). Having worked out managerial and

technical issues and piloted a means of pedagogical support during 2010-2011, we were

http://www.justwar.ning.com/

29


interested in how well students used the OSDs to explain their thinking, to pose questions and

reply to students from other schools, and to thoughtfully disagree with each other. Our pilot

study led to these research questions and the instructional support system that follows.

Research Questions

1. What characterized the online synchronous discussions as a whole and how did these

characteristics change over the year?

2. What characterized discussion threads within the online synchronous discussions and how did

they change over the year?

3. What characterized high-level participants and how they interacted during the online

synchronous discussions?

Instructional Support System

Based on the pilot study results, we revised the OSDs and f2f activities and materials and then

implemented them during the 2011-12 academic year. We provided instructional support in three

ways (refer to Figure 2). First, during the year students engaged in three stages as they sought to

answer the question of what might justify a nation going to war, with each stage containing

online and f2f components. The first or formative stage familiarized students with why nations

might go to war and required students to generate a list of reasons in their f2f classroom. They

posted and discussed the list in an OSD and then debriefed the discussion and the resulting list in

their f2f classrooms the next day. In the second stage, students applied their list to six different

hypothetical situations grounded in U.S. history and their district curriculum. Each situation was

presented in an ahistorical setting to avoid students seeking to identify with the U.S. and/or to

bias their thinking in case they might realize the historical outcome of the situation. During the

f2f debriefing of each OSD about a hypothetical situation, also known as an application

discussion (AD), each teacher situated what students discussed online in the appropriate

historical context. In the third or summative stage, students synthesized their thinking by

revisiting and “finalizing” their initial list in f2f and online discussions and applied it to the crisis

in Syria in a role play of the United Nations Security Council. Students participated in nine

OSDs from October to May.

Stage I: Stage Setting & Formative Thinking

1. Provide context for discussion and background knowledge about war. (Large face-to-

face [f2f] class instruction & discussion)

2. Create working list of reasons for what justifies war both f2f and online. (Small f2f

group work, large f2f class discussion & online discussion)

3. Debrief online discussion and creation of working list of reasons why nations should

go to war. (Large f2f class discussion & online postings)

30


Stage II: Application of List to Historically Grounded Hypothetical Situations

1. Undeclared War with France. (Application Discussion 1 – AD1)

2. Native Americans & the U.S. – in same class period students during first part of OSD

they discussed situation from Native American viewpoint and discussed from U.S.

viewpoint during second part. (Application Discussion 2 – AD2a & AD2b)

3. War of 1812 – in same class period students during first part of OSD discussed

situation from British viewpoint and discussed from U.S. viewpoint during second

part. (Application Discussion 3 – AD3a & AD3b)

4. Civil War – if different groups agreed to form a nation, when, if at all, are they

permitted to break the agreement? What if those that want to leave engage in a

practice that a lot of people think is morally wrong? (Application Discussion 4 - AD4)

5. Spanish-American War. (Application Discussion 5 – AD5)

6. World War I – what if the world’s strongest nations joined forces against each other

to fight a war? Should you join one side or the other or should you remain neutral?

(Application Discussion 6 – AD 6)

Stage III: Synthesis & Culminating Activity

1. Pulling the students’ thinking together (Synthesis Discussion - SD)

2. International conference to present students’ thinking to “outside” audience (United

Nations Security Council Discussion - UND)

Figure 2: Stages of Instructional Support

Second, each OSD was preceded and followed by f2f activities. A week prior to the OSD

teachers received the hypothetical situation, which was uploaded to the Just War Ning website as

an audio and text file. In the f2f class, each teacher explained the situation and led a large class

discussion, followed by small group discussions where students applied the list of reasons of

why nations go to war to the situation. Each group identified the reason(s) it thought applied to

the situation and an explanation why it chose each reason, which served as the initial posts to the

OSD the next day. After this initial post, individual students made posts to the Just War Ning in a

threaded discussion. A threaded discussion was chosen since the format “includes topics and

subtopics that allow the systematic organization of the discussion by the learners themselves as

the discussion progresses [providing] the learners and teacher with a number of threads or side

conversations in which to participate…[and to] respond to comments at any time” (Levine, 2007,

p. 7). Typically, the OSD lasted for 35-40 minutes, during which time all three classes were

online together for ten-twenty minutes. Each OSD occurred on a Friday. Over the weekend the

students’ postings were summarized and then presented to the students in the form of a memo to

start Monday’s f2f debriefing by comparing what they thought to what actually occurred.

31


Third, given the importance of teaching for discussion, the teachers: prepared their students in

how to participate in an OSD; gave them guidelines on how to interact with others online; and,

informed their students what would happen if they failed to follow the guidelines. If a student

was disrespectful while online, for example, s/he was removed from the site. Since the schools

were located in very different areas, students also learned about their peers in the other schools.

We used the following methods to answer the research questions that emerged from validating

the instructional support system.

Methods

Participants

Three of the adult participants were classroom teachers and three were researchers. We are

reporting on the data from three classes of students that participated in the online synchronous

discussions during 2011-2012. The students were fairly evenly divided among three schools: a

largely homogenous group of 7th

graders in a state history course in a small Midwestern

suburban district; a largely homogenous group of 8th

graders in a U.S. history course in a

Midwestern district in a small town; and, a diverse group of 8th

graders in a U.S. history course

in a large Eastern urban district. Prior to the first OSD, students created a user profile on the Just

War Ning, became familiar with how to navigate the site, and received information about the

students in the other schools, a discussion rubric with clear expectations on how to interact

online with them, and background information on the topic, thus addressing Lund’s (2004) four

types of support.

Data Collection

Prior to each OSD, we provided f2f groups of students in their respective schools with a

hypothetical situation. Groups of f2f students prepared responses to the situation and uploaded

the group work as an initial post to Just War Ning. During the OSD students posted individual

replies, resulting in an online transcript. We made notes after each discussion and sought teacher

feedback about their f2f students online and offline behavior.

Data Analysis

We analyzed over 1,000 student posts from three application discussions, as well as the synthesis

discussions (AD1, AD4, AD5 and UND – refer to Table 1) to make inferences about the OSDs

and students’ participation on three levels.

First, we focused on the OSDs’ logistics, such as at what times schools logged on, which student

posted at what time, and whether that student made an initial post or a first, second or later reply.

Frequency counts were made of total number of posts and posts per student, as well as the

amount of time each school spent online in asynchronous and synchronous discussions. Two of

32


us independently recorded the logistical information, collaboratively reviewed our results, and

corrected any discrepancies. We used the data to identify more sustained discussion threads,

which were instances where multiple students posted replies to each other off an initial post.

Discussion threads represented an exchange of ideas and questions about the situation rather than

a series of discrete, relatively unconnected posts.

Second, we analyzed students’ posts within the discussion threads. Since we approached our

work from a social constructivist perspective and were interested in how students sought to

derive meaning about what justifies war from their discussions with peers (Wertsch, 1991;

Bakhtin, 1981), we chose Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson’s (1997) interaction analysis model

to analyze the type of posts students made within discussion threads, such as whether a student

posed a question about a peer’s post or explained a point of disagreement. The three of us

responsible for analyzing the threads first applied the model to one thread and compared results.

Two of us then independently coded students’ posts and compared our findings, reaching

agreement on about 90% of the coded posts. After the third person reviewed the remaining

student posts, we came to agreement on them.

Finally, after analyzing all the posts, two of us independently identified high-level discussants,

agreed on five discussants, and crafted a description of each.

Results

Logistical Description of the Online Synchronous Discussions (OSDs)

In seeking to answer the first research question, we first analyzed how the online discussions

logistically unfolded during the year, addressing managerial and technical support (Lund, 2004).

We reviewed the data from three applications discussions, AD1 that occurred in October, AD4 in

January, and AD5 in February, focusing on the amount of (synchronized) time online, the

number of student posts, and the amount of sustained student interaction as presented in Table 1.

We also considered what changes took place between AD1 and ADs 4 and 5.1

Synchronizing the Discussions

During AD1, two schools engaged in a synchronous discussion for 19 minutes, while students in

the third school made all their posts prior to the other two coming online. Almost 50 minutes

elapsed between the first and last post of AD1. While roughly the same amount of time elapsed

between the first and last post in AD4 and AD5, on average students from two schools were

engaged synchronously for 20 minutes and from all three schools for 13 minutes, suggesting the

students became more adept at going online and the teachers at synchronizing class schedules.

1 AD2 and AD3 were not included in analysis since as noted in Figure 1 students engaged in two separate OSD. They discussed

the same event from the perspective of two nations or groups of people. For example, during AD 3 they considered a situation, which they later learned was the War of 1812, from the vantage point of England and the U.S.

33


Table I: Logistic Breakdown of OSD AD1, AD4, AD5 and UND

AD 1 AD 4 AD 5 UN Disc

Total # Posts 232/0(adult) 284/3 (adult) 241/1 (adult) 341/47 (adult)

Ave. # Posts

Per Student

3.8 4.3 3.55 6.3

Total #

Student

Participants

61 66 68 54

Time from 1st

to last post

48min

(no one 9

min)

40 min 49 min 63 min

One school

asynchronousl

y logged on in

minutes

AMS=0

BMS=9

CMS=11

AMS=0

BMS=0

CMS=10

AMS=132

BMS=0

CMS=0

AMS=25

BMS=0

CMS=2

Two schools’

synch time in

minutes

AMS/BMS=1

9

AMS/CMS

=0

BMS/CMS

=0

AMS/BMS=27

AMS/CMS=15

BMS/CMS=17

AMS/BMS=2

2

AMS/CMS=1

1

BMS/CMS=2

5

AMS/BMS=27

AMS/CMS=24

BMS/CMS=33

Three schools’

synch time

0min 15min 11min 24min

Student Posts

As noted in Table 1, an average of 65 students participated in each of the three ADs with each

student averaging three to four posts per discussion. Collectively, students made an average of

250 posts per discussion. Researchers reviewed student posts from AD1 for patterns of

interaction between students from different schools and found that students were as likely to

interact with students from another school as with those from their own. For example, two initial

posts by students each drew seven replies, with all three schools represented. This pattern though

was not present upon a review of AD4. While students from all three schools replied to an initial

post of a student from one school, the remainder of the posts seemed more like a series of

intraschool than interschool discussions. No student from one of the three schools ever replied to

an extended series of posts that was initiated by a student from one of the other two schools.

Upon reexamining the data from AD1, we wondered if how students interacted was influenced

by the Ning’s architecture and by how one school asynchronously made all their posts before the

other two schools came online. The Just War Ning chronologically orders the students’ posts. As

students from the other two schools came online, they encountered the first school’s posts. This

led several students from each of the two schools to read and reply to the posts of those from the

2 While an initial post seemingly was made ten minutes earlier, researchers discounted it. There was no record of the post on the

student’s home page.

34


first school. Many of these posts would not even qualify as part of an asynchronous interschool

discussion since students from the first school never revisited this discussion. This led us to

examine the students’ posts in light of what might qualify as sustained interaction.

Sustained Student Interaction

Given the above, we drew a distinction between a thread and a discussion thread. A thread

consisted of an initial post and several replies where students made discrete, often declarative,

statements with little to no interaction with other students. As illustrated in Figure 2, a discussion

thread, while also starting with an initial post, contained these characteristics: three replies out

from initial post; posted replies from two or more schools; at least three students making posts; at

least one student makes a first and second post; and at least one higher-level post. In essence, a

discussion thread was a p2p exchange of ideas, not simply peers posting comments. The number

of discussion threads doubled from AD1 to AD4/AD5. While the increase possibly is due to the

greater amount of synchronized time for the second and third application discussions, students

also made a larger percentage of their posts in the discussion threads relative to the overall

discussion.

Figure 2: Excerpt from a Discussion Thread

35


Since the UND was intended as a form of application discussion, the researchers examined these

posts, recognizing though how the UND was distinct from the other discussions. First, a couple

of weeks prior to the UND, each f2f class of students revisited and revised the list of reasons

why nations go to war. They then engaged in an OSD where they discussed their revised list and

were told that during the final OSD they were going to have to apply that list to the current

situation occurring in Syria as if they were interacting with members of the UN Security Council.

Second, three adults, representing China, Russia, and the UK, participated during the UND,

providing a different audience for the students. Third, the “disciplined inquiry” into a “real-life

problem” (Newmann, et al., 1996) was more apparent than in the prior discussions. Any of these

factors and/or the longer amount of time for the discussion as a whole might explain the increase

in the number of discussion threads, the higher average number of student posts, and the higher

percentage of posts devoted to threads. Still, the results suggested that students were becoming

more proficient at p2p engagement during an OSD, particularly in discussion threads, which

caused us to more closely analyze representative discussion threads and to seek patterns of

student interaction.

Analysis of Discussion Threads

In answering the second research question, we used Gunawardena, et al.’s (1997) interaction

analysis model to determine: how students interacted with each other online; what was the

overall nature of their posts; and how their postings changed during the four OSDs. The model,

which was designed to examine the social construction of knowledge in an online setting, has

five phases. We only used Phases I and II, which are described in Figure 3, since our initial

analysis revealed that the students’ posts dealt mostly with the sharing of statements of opinion

(Phase I) and further exploration of their thoughts by disagreeing with or advancing a statement

(Phase II).

Phase I – Sharing/Comparing Information

A. A Statement of Observation or Opinion

B. A Statement of Agreement from One of More Participants

C. Corroborating Examples Provided by One or more Participants

D. Asking and Answering Questions to Clarify Details of Statements

E. Definitions, Description, or Identification of a Problem

Phase II – The Discovery and Exploration of Dissonance or Inconsistency Among Ideas,

Concepts of Statements

A. Identifying and stating areas of disagreement

B. Asking and Answering Questions to Clarify the source and extent of

Disagreement

C. Restating the Participant’s Position, and Possibly Advancing Arguments of

Considerations in its Support

Figure 3: Interaction Analysis Model: Phase I and Phase II

(Adapted from Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson, 1997, p. 14.)

36


Not surprisingly, as noted in Table 2 the large majority of posts fell within Phase I. Typically a

discussion thread began with one or two Phase I A or E posts, while posts that followed largely

expressed views of agreement (Phase I B) or expressed a general opinion relating to the previous

post (Phase I A), often in the form of agreement. An example of this sequence is from AD4

where a student makes a statement “they should just go to war,” followed by a post “I agree.

They need to fight for their country.” Here the first post makes a statement of opinion (Phase I

A), while the second post only agrees without further adding to the argument (Phase I B). The

more time that had elapsed during an OSD, the more likely a discussion thread would have fewer

posts and relatively more posts at Phase I A or I B. Perhaps the most extreme example was in

AD4 where after an initial post there were eight 1st replies (six intra and two interschool) that fell

into Phase I A or B. About 50% of all student posts in all discussion threads were categorized as

either Phase I A or B.

Table 2: Data about Discussion Threads

# Disc

Threads (DT)

3 7 6 11

Total # of

lines in DT

63 135

134 w/o

teacher

138

137 w/o

teacher

258

219 w/o adults

# Participants.

in Discussion

Threads

36

(students)

0 teachers

52 (total part)

51 students

1 teacher

50 (total part)

49 students

1 teacher

55 (total part)

51 students

4 adults

Ave. #

Student Posts

Discussion

Threads

1.75 per

student

2.7 per student 2.8 per

student

4.3 per student

% Stu Posts in

Discussion

Threads v

OSD

29% 47% 57% 64%

There were notable instances where students moved further into Phase I, such as by asking a

question(s) about a previous post that would spawn a series of Phase I D posts in the form of

questions and answers. This sort of exchange typified AD4 where there were a total of three

discussion threads that had at least three continuous responses at the Phase I D level. However,

because of schools going offline at various times, many of the questions posed by students were

not answered, demonstrating a problem of going from a synchronous to asynchronous discussion,

particularly at the end of the allotted time for each school. Occasionally, a student identified a

problem, representative of a Phase I E post, but not necessarily addressed how to deal with it.

Despite the predominance of Phase I posts, there was an increase in the number of Phase II posts

in later OSDs. In AD4, the number of Phase II A (6.4%), B (1.1%) and C (.8%) post represented

a small portion of the discussion thread posts, while in the UND they increased to: Phase II A

(14.5%); B (4.8%); and C (10.8%). A student who disagreed with a fellow student’s rationale for

going to war made this Phase II post: “if we don't go to war then we wont lose any of our people,

37


what I’m really trying to say from my perspective is that our people our important if we lose

them then we lose people to get more political power from smaller nations.” The student is not

just disagreeing with the previous post, but also providing a reason for doing so. As students

participated in AD5 and the UND it was not uncommon to see students who typically posted

Phase I A and/or B posts to start adding to the conversation by challenging points of a prior reply

or presenting an argument, moving their posts into the realm of Phase II.

The increased amount of time spent in synchronous discussion might help explain the increase in

Phase II posts. During the UND all three schools were synchronously online for 24 minutes, as

opposed to 8 minutes during AD5. When students from all schools were synchronously engaged,

they were better able to move beyond simple, early Phase I statements into a deeper discussion

where they began to test their arguments. While prior research indicates that students felt more

willing to share their personal opinions in online discussions, as opposed to f2f discussions

(Amichai-Hamburger & Ben-Artzi, 2000; Amichai-Hamburger, Wainapel & Fox, 2002; Suler,

2004), during AD5 and UND there were just as many intraschool as interschool Phase II posts.

While students were more likely to make higher-level posts in a discussion thread than not, what

we still need to explore is what constitutes a critical mass of posts in a discussion thread,

particularly how many is too many. While left with this question about discussion threads, our

analysis did lead us to recognize a couple of patterns among certain students.

High-Frequency Posters and High-Contributing Discussants

In analyzing the data to determine what characterized high-level users in response to the third

research question, two types of students emerged. First, there were high-frequency posters. These

students made more posts than the average, were more likely to post across threads than within

them, and usually made lower-level posts. Second, there were high-contributing discussants.

These students made more than the average number of posts, were more likely to post within

threads, made higher-level Phase I or Phase II posts, and exhibited some trait, such as posing

thoughtful questions, that could further a discussion. While high-frequency posters are self-

explanatory, high-contributing discussants are more complex. Five high-contributing discussants

are described below.

1. Jando: "we can fight but after years what if another president decides he wants to be king?

are we going to just keep fighting and fighting?"

Jando typified the high-contributing discussant. He averaged five posts per OSD, occasionally

interacted with those from other schools, seldom used “I agree/disagree” type statements, and

was as likely to post in a discussion thread as not. During AD1, he made two of his four “I agree”

statements. Even then, he presented them as a point-counterpoint statement, such as: "i agree on

your idea but on the other hand how are we going to get all of our traded items." In AD5, he

made a post that elicited fourteen replies: “well my group has chosen to have peace…because if

we fight a war then your power as president will be decreased because not everyone will like you

for trying to be a war hawk.” During the thirty-one minutes he was online for the UND, he made

eleven posts. He made a reply to two posts each by the Russian and UK delegates. He posted a

reply to another student seven times and each of these posts received a reply. The conciseness,

38


number, and thoughtfulness of his posts demonstrated the potential for interaction during an

OSD.

2. Audi: “Ok that makes no sense why would you get involved in THEIR business when it is not

OURS? Like seriously!!! Come on now.... That causes more people dying and ya [know] that

makes NOOOO sense.....”

Audi demonstrated a blend of personally unique, potentially engaging and thoughtful posts, and

routinely interacted with peers from all three schools. During AD1, five of her eight posts either

were a direct reply to a student from another school or were part of a discussion thread that

included students from at least one other school. Early on she made more explanatory type “I

agree” posts such as: “I agree. I think there should be no more fighting, and more capturing of

ships as well.” She also strove to personalize her posts: “if we just stay out of it we would NOT

have a big war and people arguing all the time!!!!!!!!!!!” Her posts typically elicited at least one

reply. She was adept at making substantive posts, no longer than three lines: “I Strongly disagree

with #1 because you shouldn't have to try something new because what if your'e ‘plan’ doesn't

work then you all like die. I do agree with #2 because your'e president is tryng to make a

difference in the world....” Finally, during UND she routinely engaged the adults. When the

Chinese delegate offered several options for dealing with the Syrian crisis, she posted: “Well we

could try those options but people are dying, and it needs to stop!!!” She was a member of a f2f

group called the Baconaters. In an initial post her group indicated it would fight to preserve

peace so as to make sure they got bacon. In trying to challenge this statement, the Russian

delegate asked: “You suggest that fighting for peace ensures sustained amounts of bacon. How?”

Audi replied: Because if we have no peace the pigs could run away and we would have no pigs

therefore....no peace no bacon:) Dubious, but creative, reasoning.

3. Krystin: “I think that the most important would be to get the Jaguar people to trust the Knight.

Let them trust you and then when they do attack BULLDOG as a combined army. You are a lot

more likly to win that way. Do it and do it fast is a way to do it but you also want to play it safe.”

At first blush, Krystin seemed to routinely engage her peers in a dialogue as represented by: “John.

That was a good point…”; “Sam I agree your statement but…”’ “I agree with you Jared but you

have to tell them…”; and, “I disagree with you James. You have it right in some places but….”

Deeper consideration of those she interacted with revealed that while she averaged almost five

posts for the first three OSDs, she never directly interacted with a student from another school and

only was part of two threads with students from a second school. She first directly responded to a

student from another school during the UND. She typically had a well-conceived, fairly consistent

position on how to respond to the threat of war as represented by this AD1 post: “if you stop

letting their ships into Jayhawk harbor they could get mad and declare war on Jayhawk. We

would also not be able to get the materials we need to survive. It would just be easier to declare

war on them and attack them before they can attack us.” She articulated a similar position in

AD5: “I totally agree with you Nadia. If we get the Jaguar people to trust us then not only would

we be able to get your bases on the little islands. You would also be able to attack BULLDOG

with their forces combined with our forces and win!!!!!!!” Interestingly, unlike what the research

suggests (Amichai-Hamburger & Ben-Artzi, 2000; Amichai-Hamburger, Wainapel & Fox, 2002;

Suler, 2004), Krystin seemingly did not feel comfortable engaging with her online peers from the

39


other schools. You can envision her physically looking across the room at John or Sam as she

replied to their posts.

4. Joshua: “Fighting to preserve peace is an oxymoron in my opinion. Fighting can only lead to

increased citizen and military casualties. I do not belive our military should get involved at this

point.”

Prior to the UND Joshua posted succinct, thoughtful comments and, on occasion, a relatively

substantial post. Examples included: “Banning trade with Mustang would hurt the economy and

might make them mad” (AD1); “If you take away their freedom they might want to break away

from you” (AD4); and, “I doubt that Jaguar would be strong enough, or willing, to help you in a

war with BULLDOG” (AD5). He averaged more than 5 posts per OSD, often interacted with

peers from other schools, and rarely used “agree” in his posts. During AD5, for example, all

eight of his posts were a direct reply to a student from another school. He rarely personalized his

posts, only mentioning another student’s name two times. His UND posts possibly most

accurately reflected his ability. One of his first posts was a synthesis of the options considered by

his f2f group: “I feel that the UN can handle controlling the ceasefire without American military

support. However, if the fighting should be prolonged, I feel we should do something. Whether it

be sending military troops, signing an embargo, or banning the importation of firearms to Syria

and it's people.” In one of his next posts he placed the Syrian conflict in a larger U.S. context: “I

think that there is enough violence in Syria as it is. The U.S. getting involved would only extend

the war and cause more casualties. Sending American soldiers into the line of fire right as they

are returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be a mistake. We do not need to

sacrifice American lives when it's not needed in the first place.” In direct response to a post by

the Chinese delegate:

“Chinese Delagate,

Thank you for the compliment. As for inforcing the embargo, the U.S. should

monitor the flow of firemarms into Syria. Even though it is it's own soverign

nation, I feel that it still needs the guidance (but not intervention) of the U.S. and

U.N.”

We are left with the question of whether the presence of an adult audience during the UND

influenced the quality of Joshua’s posts.

5. Sammy: "But if your wall is made of diamond they can't break”

Sammy represents a cautionary tale. During the fall OSDs, he demonstrated a mix of thoughtful

posts, "I don't think it's fair to attack people just because you fell they are going to attack you.

What if they are not going to attack?” and humorous posts, "Is your dad Justin Bieber?” He

separately displayed both types in three discussion threads during AD4. A group’s initial post

recommended that the president “build a strong army and navy,” to which a student posted “I

agree, lots of big guns. :)” After making a post about using “small guns,” Sammy sought to

continue the off-track discussion by asking: “what if you can’t get a lot of guns?” As a student

tried to refocus the discussion thread by posting they could get guards, Sammy asked: “what if

you can’t get guards either?” Another peer recommended building an air force and Sammy

40


posted: “What if you can’t get the air force?” He made similar comments in a second thread. In

reply to a series of posts about using walls for defensive purposes, he suggested building a

diamond wall and then made a couple of posts about it. Yet almost at the same time, he made

two posts in a third thread, one of which was a provocative statement that led to seven responses

from students from all three schools. In twenty-three minutes he made thirteen posts, personally

hijacked a discussion thread, aided in hijacking a second one, and helped further and deepen a

third one.

Discussion

Prior to addressing the insights we gained into how to improve the instructional support system,

it is critical to recall that we used the OSDs as a way for students to learn other perspectives and

solutions on the problem (NCSS, 2008), not to resolve their thinking about it.

Importance of Sequenced, Sustained Use of OSDs within an Instructional Support System

The increase in the quantity of students’ participation has led us to realize the importance of

using OSDs in a sustained, sequenced manner that is integrated with f2f learning within the

context of an instructional support system. Between the first and last online discussions, students

increased their total number of posts by 50%, and the number of discussion threads nearly

quadrupled. We learned how our continued experience with conducting the ODSs better enabled

us to anticipate and address Lund’s (2004) managerial issues (Teles, et al., 2001). As we became

more familiar with each other’s schedules and the students gained experience accessing the site,

for example, we increased the amount of time students spent online in a synchronous discussion,

which might help to partially explain the increase in student participation.

Less certain is the relation between the time spent in synchronous discussion and how students

interacted online. There was a lot of interschool interaction during AD1, but as explained earlier,

this possibly was due to how students from one school made all their posts before students from

the other two schools came online. Another possible explanation is that the Ning site organizes

the posts chronologically after each initial post, which means the longest discussion threads

occur after the first couple of initial posts. In AD4 students from the third school went online 12

minutes after students from the other two schools were online. Given our experience with AD1,

prior to analyzing the patterns of interaction we assumed that these students would have made a

lot of interschool posts. Surprisingly, while all three schools were synchronously online for 15

minutes, students from the third school only made about 10% of their posts in reply to students

from the other two schools during their first ten minutes online. Students from the third school

made their initial group posts and tended to respond to each other’s group posts before making

replies to the posts from the other schools. Within their first five minutes online, students from

the third school made over 30 posts to each other. This led us to wonder whether what was

pedagogically expected of students, i.e. making the group posts before replying to other students,

along with the chronological ordering of the posts, affected how they interacted. While this

pattern began to emerge during the next application discussion, students from the third school

ultimately interacted more with those from other schools, possibly because they were

synchronously engaged with at least one school for eight minutes longer than in the prior

application discussion. What we need to research further is whether when students from one

41


school come online in relation to those in the other two schools is a factor in how they interact

with each other. We have designed the instructional support system on the assumption there is no

difference.

Finally, we not only were interested in an increased number of posts in general and in interschool

posts in particular, but also in the number of discussion threads and of the posts made within

them. We sought to promote discussion threads by using f2f class time to provide students with

background knowledge (Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1996, p. 283) and to develop their

thinking in f2f groups before going online to discuss the problem. As a result, over the course of

the OSDs, as students learned more about the problem, they had more to discuss, which might

help explain the increased number of discussion threads. Another possible explanation is that

since simultaneously posting comments results in greater participation (Hampel, 2006), the

increased number of discussion threads suggests that students became more versatile at moving

within and across discussion threads. While we were aware the latter was occurring, the

architecture of the Ning site makes it difficult to track multiple discussion threads during real

time. Up to this point, we had thought of online discussions in a sequenced, linear manner. We

now realize we need to research the implications of students simultaneously participating in two

or more discussion threads so as to learn how to adapt our instructional support system. We

recognized not only that students needed practice, but they also needed more instructional

support with engaging peers online, which we discuss in the next two parts.

Scaffold and Model What is Expected to Purposefully Address Quality of Student Posts

We purposefully prepared the students to participate in a p2p OSD in several ways. Before the

first online discussion, we advised students to make their position known early in a post, such as

in the form sentence starters like “I agree/disagree” (Cho & Jonassen, 2002; Jeong & Joung,

2007). In early discussions, students often prefaced posts with I agree/disagree, followed by a

supporting declarative statement. While such posts were easy to make and initially helped

facilitate the students’ participation, they also required little thought and resulted in a surface-

level discussion. Once students fell into a pattern of such posts, during their f2f preparation for

AD5 we encouraged them make fuller posts. In the f2f preparation for AD5 we encouraged them

to make fuller posts. During this discussion, they began to explain in a little more detail why they

agreed or disagreed, such as: “I agree with you, but if you don't go to war they will continue

hurting the smaller, less powerful countries. Protecting these countries could get you a potential

ally and business partner.” While expressing agreement, the student also provided a succinct

counterpoint to her position, as well as a second point that no other student had yet advanced in

that discussion thread, increasing the likelihood of a reply. Seeking to further improve the quality

of their posts, an adjustment was made for the UND. Given the importance of learning to make

decisions about public policy matters (Evans & Saxe, 1996; Ochoa-Becker, 2007) and to

encourage students to participate in a more productive discussion about the problem (Asterhan &

Schwarz, 2009; Brown & Palincsar, 1989), we told the students prior to the UND that in their

final post they needed to state and justify one way to respond to the Syrian crisis. Rather than

hope students made a decision about the Syrian crisis and became more skilled at higher-level

posts, we taught and modeled how to make more thoughtful, engaging posts. We did this though

through f2f activities since the research suggested that students do not want the teacher directly

involved in p2p online discussions (Fauske & Wade, 2003-2004; and, Mazzolini & Maddison,

42


2003). Now that we have identified positive qualities of high contributing discussants and

discussion threads, we can isolate examples of each and use them as models for students during

future f2f activities and research the results of doing so.

Purposefully Foster Interschool Posting

Managed spontaneity seems like an oxymoron, yet given a student like Krystin and what we

discussed earlier, this best describes what needs to occur with p2p OSDs. After realizing what

little interaction Krystin had with students from the two other schools, we scanned the online

transcripts and confirmed her behavior was relatively unique. We also noted a pattern relative to

the initial posting of each f2f group’s work from the day before the OSD. The group posts from

the last school that logged onto the site occurred when the other two schools already were

synchronously online for at least ten minutes. Students from these two schools typically were in

the midst of one or more discussion threads. As a result, the group posts from the third school

failed to provoke much thinking as evident by the relative lack of replies to them from the other

two schools. Also, group representatives from the first two schools did not always promptly post

their group’s work, which made it difficult for such posts to serve as a spur to interschool

discussion. Due to the managerial and technical support issues associated with OSDs, 15-20

minutes was the optimal amount of time we were able to synch the three schools. Since

synchronized discussion time is so precious, we need to more purposefully foster interschool

posting. Ironically, the failed attempt to synchronize all three schools during AD1 suggests a way

to do so. During AD1, students in the third school never were synchronously engaged with

students in the other two schools. In reviewing the online transcripts, we noted how students

from the third school asynchronously replied to posts made by students from the other two

schools, in large part because they read these posts as soon as they logged onto the site, yet were

not synchronously engaged as with the one school in AD4. In the future, rather than having a

representative from each group post the group’s work at the beginning of the OSD, we will post

the group work the day before the OSD so as to more purposefully design the task to enhance the

likelihood of a more productive discussion (Andriessen and Schwarz, 2009). As students log on

for the OSD, they will have to review and reply to the posts from other schools before replying

to groups from their own school. Since by AD 4 and AD5, students simultaneously were

participating in two or more discussion threads, we think this requirement might enable students

to participate in at least two such interschool discussion threads earlier in the school year.

Students will be involved in a discussion thread related to their reply to a group post from

another school and a second thread related to their group’s post. During 2012-2013, we will

study the impact of this change on interschool posting and on posting across discussion threads.

Create Pre-Populated Discussion Threads with Peer Facilitators – A Possible Future Direction

There are two reasons why we want to further research both what characterizes discussion

threads and how to foster them, as well as high-contributing online discussants. First, we want to

avoid the Goldilocks effect of discussion threads that either are too long and thus lose focus,

since students attend to more recent than older posts (Hew, 2003), or are too short and go

nowhere. Second, we want to determine how to use high-contributing discussants to facilitate

p2p online discussions. In looking beyond 2012-2013, we are considering ways to facilitate a

p2p OSD with little direct teacher pedagogical involvement. We present our thinking here as a

43


way to return us to the importance of considering the use of OSD within context of the

instructional support system. For example, we are discussing whether to create interschool

discussion groups where one handful of students from each school is assigned to the same online

discussion group, a second handful from each school to a second online group and so on. Over

time the smaller number of students in the online groups might become more familiar with each

other and therefore become more likely to engage in more frequent and richer posts with each

other. We also are discussing how to make greater use of the site’s social features as another

means to foster the interaction. While seemingly a common sense way to organize an online

discussion, such an approach raises a host of managerial and technical issues. Do such online

discussion groups of about 15 students each become subgroups within the larger OSD of 60

students or does each interschool online discussion group have its own group “home page” on

the Ning site? If the former, how would students within a group keep track of each other within

the larger OSD? If the latter, what are management and technical issues that could result from

quadrupling the number of Ning home pages? For example, would each teacher monitor not only

some of her or his students during the OSD, but also the students of the other two teachers? If

students are uncomfortable with direct teacher intervention in a p2p discussion (Fauske & Wade,

2003-2004; and Mazzolini & Maddison, 2003), how would they react to someone other than

their f2f teacher chastising them for inappropriate online behavior? The question we confront is

how to modify the pedagogical parts of the instructional support system without becoming

overwhelmed by the managerial and technical parts. As indicated by the description of high-level

discussants, some students were quite adept at making thoughtful posts, supporting their peers,

and encouraging richer participation, which makes us wonder whether use of such students as

discussion facilitators either in the online discussion groups or the larger OSD might serve us

well. The teachers intend to identify a facilitative role for such students and integrate that role

into p2p OSDs. After the first couple of OSDs, the teachers plan to review the online transcript,

identify high-contributing discussants and assign such students to online discussion groups.

Doing so will better enable us to determine how to create and conduct effective p2p conducted

and facilitated discussion threads.

Concluding Thought

After logging off from the UND, one student commented to her teacher: “We done good, didn’t

we?” Given how both the quantity and quality of the student posts increased over time and the

number of interschool posting increased, as well as how the teachers improved in managing

synchronous times among two and three schools, researchers agree with this student. By

integrating p2p OSDs within the curriculum, and posing questions, similar to that like what

justifies war, a discussion that has no clear answer, students can learn to exchange ideas, explore

different perspectives, and develop discussion skills with peers that they are unlikely ever to

meet. Such discussions are critical for students in learning how as citizens to engage other

members of the public in online discussions about important policy issues.

44


References

Amichai-Hamburger, Y., & Ben-Artzi, E. (2000). The relationship between extraversion and

neuroticism and the different uses of the internet. Computers in Human Behavior, 16, 441–

449.

Amichai-Hamburger, Y., Wainapel, G., & Fox, S. (2002). “On the internet no one knows. I’m an

introvert”: Extroversion, neuroticism, and internet interaction. CyberPsychology &

Behavior, 5, 125–128.

An, H., Kim, S., & Kim, B. (2008). Teacher perspectives on online collaborative learning:

Factors perceived as facilitating and impeding successful online group work.

Retrieved on June 28, 2012 from

http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss4/general/article1.cfm.

Andriessen, J. E. B., & Schwarz, B. B. (2009). Argumentative design. In A.-N. Perret-Clermont

& N. Muller-Mirza (Eds.) 145– 176). Dordrecht: Springer Verlag.

Asterhan, C.S.C. & Eisenmann, T. (2011). Introducing synchronous e-discussion tools in co-

located classrooms: A study on the experiences of ‘active’ and ‘silent’ secondary school

students Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2169–2177.

Asterhan, C. S. C. & Schwarz, B. B. (2010). Online moderation of synchronous e-argumentation,

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 5(3), 259–282.

Asterhan, C. S. C., & Schwarz, B. B. (2009). The role of argumentation and explanation in

conceptual change: Indications from protocol analyses of peer- to-peer dialogue. Cognitive

Science, 33(3), 373–399.

Asterhan, C. S. C., & Schwarz, B. B. (2007). The effects of monological and dialogical

argumentation on concept learning in evolutionary theory. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 99(3), 626–639.

Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin. (C. Emerson &

M. Holquist, Trans.) Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Beaudin, B.P. (1999) Keeping online asynchronous discussions on topic. Journal of

Asynchronous Learning Networks 3(2), 41–53.

Branon, R.F. & Essex, C. (2001). Synchronous and asynchronous communication tools in

distance education: A survey of instructors. Tech Trends, 45(1), 35.

Brown, A. L., & Palincsar, A. S. (1989). Guided, cooperative learning, and individual knowledge

acquisition. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of

Robert Glaser. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss1/general/article1.cfm

45


Chan, J.C.C, Hew, K.F., & Cheung, W.S. (2009). Asynchronous online discussion thread

development: examining growth patterns and peer-facilitation techniques. Journal of

Computer Assisted Learning, 25(5), 438–452.52

Chen, C-H. & Bradshaw, A.C. (2007). The Effect of web-based question prompts on scaffolding

knowledge integration and ill-structured problem solving. Journal of Research on

Technology in Education, 35(4), 359-375.

Cheung, W. S., & Hew, K. F. (2006). Examining students’ creative and critical thinking and

student to student interactions in an asynchronous online discussion environment: A

Singapore case study. Asia-Pacific Cybereducation Journal, 2(2).

Cheung, W. S., & Hew, K. F. (2005). How can we facilitate students’ in-depth thinking and

interaction in an asynchronous online discussion environment? a case study. In

Proceedings of the association for educational communications and technology, USA (Vol.

28, pp. 114–121).

Choi, I., Land, S.M. & Turgeon, A.J. (2005). Scaffolding peer-questioning strategies to facilitate

metacognition during online small group discussion Instructional Science, 33(5-6): 483–

511.

Cho, K. L., & Jonassen, D. H. (2002). The effects of argumentation scaffolds on argumentation

and problem solving. Educational Technology: Research & Development, 50, 5–22.

Dennen, V. P. (2005). From message posting to learning dialogues: Factors affecting learner

participation in asynchronous discussion. Distance Education, 26(1),127–148.

Evans, R., & Saxe, D. (Eds.). (1996). Handbook on teaching social issues. Washington, D.C.:

National Council for the Social Studies.

Fauske, J., & Wade, S. E. (2003–2004). Research to practice online: Conditions that foster

democracy, community, and critical thinking in computer-mediated discussions. Journal of

Research on Technology in Education, 36(2), 137–153.

Greenhow, C., Robelia, B., & Hughes, J.E. (2009). Learning, teaching, and scholarship in a

digital age: Web 2.0 and classroom research – what path should we take now?

Educational Researcher, 38(4), 246-258.

Gunawardena, C.N., Lowe, C.A. & Anderson, T. (1997). Analysis of global online debate and

the development of interaction analysis model for examining social construction of

knowledge in computer conferencing. Journal of Educational Computing Research,

17(4), 397-431.

Hampel, R. (2006). Rethinking task design for the digital age: A framework for language

teaching and learning in a synchronous online environment. ReCALL, 18(1), 105–121.

46


Hew K.F. & Cheung W.S. (2008). Attracting student participation in asynchronous online

discussions: a case study of peer facilitation. Computers and Education, 51(3),1111–1124.

Hewitt J. (2003). How habitual online practices affect the development of asynchronous

discussion threads. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 28, 31–45.

Hou, Huei-Tse & Wu, Sheng-Yi, (2011). Analyzing the social knowledge construction

behavioral patterns of an online synchronous collaborative discussion instructional

activity using an instant messaging tool: A case study, Computers & Education,

57(2),1459–1468.

Howe, C. (2009). Collaborative group work in middle childhood: Joint construction, unresolved

contradiction and the growth of knowledge. Human Development, 52(4), 215-239.

Jeong, A., & Joung, S. (2007). Scaffolding collaborative argumentation in asynchronous

discussions with message constraints and message labels. Computers & Education, 48,

427–445.

Jonassen, D., & Kwon, H. (2001). Communication patterns in computer-mediated versus face-to-

face group problem-solving. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(1),

35-51.

Kanuka, H., Rourke, L., & Laflamme, E. (2007). The influence of instructional methods on the

quality of online discussion. British Journal of Educational Technology, 38(2), 260-271.

Kim, J., Shaw, E., Chern, G. & Herbert, R. (2007) Novel tools for assessing student discussions:

Modeling threads and participant roles using speech act and course topic analysis,

Proceedings of the AI in Education Conference.

Levine, J. (2007). The Online discussion board. New Direction for Adult and Continuing

Education, 2007(113), 64-71.

Lim, W-Y., So, H-J., & Tan, S-C. (2010). eLearning 2.0 and the new literacies: Are social

practices lagging behind? Interactive Learning Environments, 18(3), 203-218.

Lund, K. (2004). Human support in CSCL: What, for whom and by whom? In J.W. Strijbos, P.

A. Kirshner, R. L. Martens, & P. Dillenbourg (Eds.), What we know about CSCL and

implementing it in higher education, CSCL (Vol. 3, pp. 167–198). Norwell: Kluwer

Academic Publishers.

Masters, K. & Oberprieler, G. (2004). Encouraging equitable online participation through

curriculum articulation. Computers and Education, 42(4), 319–332.

Mazzolini, M., & Maddison, S. (2003). Sage, guide or ghost? The effect of instructor

intervention on student participation in online discussion forums. Computers & Education,

47


40, 237–253. doi:10.1016/S0360-1315(02)00129-X.

National Council for the Social Studies. (2008). A Vision of Powerful Teaching and Learning in

the Social Studies: Building Social Understanding and Civic Efficacy.

http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/powerful.

Newmann, F. M., Marks, H.M. & Gamoran, A. (1996). Authentic pedagogy and student

performance American Journal of Education, 104(4), 280-312.

O’Brien, J., Lawrence, N., & Green, K., Bechard, B., & Fulbright, T. (2012). Online interstate

student diplomats discuss what justifies war: “We don’t want people to die, but

we don’t want to lose our oil,” Journal of Education & Learning, 1(1), 99-108.

Ochoa-Becker, A. S. (2007). Democratic Education for Social Studies: An Issues-Centered

Decision Making Curriculum, 2nd

Ed. Greenwich, CN: Information Age Publishing.

Palinscar, A. S. (1986). The role of dialogue in providing scaffolded instruction. Educational

Psychologist, 21(1&2), 73-98.

Parker, W. C. (1996). Curriculum for democracy. In R. Soder (Ed.), Democracy, education, and

the schools (pp. 182-210). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Parker, W. C. & Hess, D. (2001). Teaching with and for discussion. Teaching and Teacher

Education, 17(3), 273-289.

Shi, S., Bonk, C., Tan, S., & Mishra, P. (2008). Getting in sync with synchronous: The dynamics

of synchronous facilitation in online discussions. International Journal of Instructional

Technology and Distance Learning, 5(5), 3-28.

Suler, J. (2004). The psychology of cyberspace. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 7, 321-326.

Teles, L., Ashton, S., Roberts, T. & Tzoneva, I. (2001). The role of the instructor in e-learning

collaborative environments. TechKnowLogia (3) 3. 46-50.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wang, C.H. (2005). Questioning skills facilitate online synchronous discussions, Journal of

Computer-Assisted Learning, 21(4), 303-313.

Webb, N. (2009). The teacher’s role in promoting collaborative dialogue in the classroom.

British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(1), 1-28.

Wertsch, J. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/powerful

48


Wu, A. (2003). Supporting electronic discourse: Principles of design from a social constructivist

perspective. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(2). 167-184.

Special Issue: Using Technology in Social Studies

Documents

Transcript of Special Issue: Using Technology in Social Studies