Critical Thinker: Supporting Collaborative Argumentation with Structure and Awareness
Journal
Proceedings - IEEE 17th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2017
ISBN
9781538638705
Date Issued
2017-08-03
Author(s)
Abstract
Collaborative learning technology has been widely applied in various disciplines in support of dialectical discourse and argumentation. Technologies not only allow multiple users to concurrently analyze and edit documents in the same virtual space but also present richer cues for collaboration awareness. However, researchers still know very little about how the synching mechanisms work together to support small group collaborative argument creation. This study investigates the experiences of 14 dyads that worked together in Critical Thinker, a web application that enables learners to collaborate on an argumentative task with a juxtaposed argumentation structure and multiple synchronous collaboration affordances. Our qualitative data showed that the learners are able to leverage different synching mechanisms in a complementary manner and appropriate the dialectic structure for collaborative argumentation.
Subjects
Computer supported collaborative learning | critical thinking | synchrnous collaborative argumentation
Type
conference paper