Discussion Questions
High-level co-regulation in collaborative learning: How does it emerge and how is it sustained? By Simone Volet, Mark Summers, Joanne Thurman
Page 140 discusses one of the factors that affect long high-level coregulated knowledge construction.
“Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, and Perry (2002) note that positive emotions can have a reinforcing effect on learning behaviours which they accompany. Pekrun, et al. (2002) found associations between positive emotions and study interest, effort, elaboration, and on-task
cognitions.” (p.140)
Discussion Question 1: What can you say about the influence of emotions on students’ performance both individual and in-group? Can you give your examples of positive and negative influence of emotions on learning process? Do you agree with research findings that positive emotions can sustain a long and productive high-level coregulated discussion? Why or why not?
Page 141 discusses the causes of different results among groups.
“However, the reason for the great divergence in groups’ interactional patterns by the second meeting is more difficult to ascertain.” (p.141)
“A relationship between high-level coregulation and academic performance may also have been at play.” (p.141)
“Another possibility could be that groups differed in the extent to which their members held constructivist conceptions of learning (Vermunt & Vermetten, 2004). It may be that students with a constructivist view of learning see the value of learning together, rather than just working together to accomplish a task, and for that reason engage in more high-level co-regulation in group work situations.” (p.141)
Discussion Question 2: What is your explanation of different results among groups? What do you think about the authors’ explanation? What, in your opinion, can prevent performing successfully in the group? Can you give an example of it of your own or other person’s example?
A Comparison of the Collaborative Scientific Argumentation Practices of Two High and Two Low Performing Groups By Victor Sampson & Douglas B. Clark
higher and two lower performing groups. In the lower performing groups the materials were
only used to generate their argument whereas the higher performing groups used the
supplied data throughout the process. This difference seemed to influence the ultimate
quality of the groups’ final written argument.88
Why it is important to use material throughout the discussion? Why does it affect the result of discussion?
“The higher performing groups seemed to treat ideas as objects of cognition (Kuhn 1993; Mason 2001) that needed to be questioned, evaluated or revised more often that the individuals in the lower performing groups. Ideas in the lower performing groups, on the other hand, were accepted or rejected outright more often than they were in the higher performing groups.” (p.78)
Discussion Question 4: What faults did the low performing groups have in the process of exchanging ideas? Why did their performance differ so greatly from that of the high performing groups? Could they perform better in other circumstances or/and tasks? If yes, in what?
Beyond the Individual-Social Antinomy in Discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky by Michael Cole and James V. Wertsch
Page 4 discusses mind’s boundaries.
“Forth, and especially germane to the present collection of papers, is the implication that mind is no longer to be located entirely inside the head.” (p.4)
“Rather, it must be seen as distributed in the artifacts that are woven together and that weave together individual human actions in concert with and as a part of the permeable, changing events of life.” (p.4)
Discussion Question 5: Where is mind located in your opinion? What are its boundaries? What do you think on interpretation of mind that is presented by Vygotsky and his followers? Do you agree with their findings? Why or why not?
Page 6 discusses Vygotsky and Piaget’s contribution to science.
“However, we believe that discussions of these two figures’ accounts of mind and its boundaries are not well served by overly rehearsed debated concerning the primacy of the individual or the social. Instead, the more interesting contrast between them concerns the role of cultural artifacts in constituting the two poles of the individual social antinomy.” (p.6)
Discussion Question 6: What similarities and differences of accounts of mind Vygotsky and Piaget presented? Whose opinion do you support? Why?
