Associate Professor, Ph.D., Jeppe Bundsgaard, School of EducationUniversity of Aarhus
[email protected] ∙ www.jeppe.bundsgaard.net
PracSIPPractice Scaffolding Interactive platform
PracSIP
• A ground-breaking concept of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
• A Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform
What is the problem of traditional education?
• I don’t want to! • Motivation
• What’s the use?• Meaningfulness
• How shall I use it?• Transfer
• I forgot what I learned yesterday!• Retention
Solution: Community of practice?
o Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
o A group of individuals participating in communal activity, continuously
o creating their shared identity through o engaging in and contributing to the practices
of their communities and thereby o developing a shared repertoireo Experts guide novices who are legitimate
peripheral participants
Why? Epistemic Frames!
o Communities of practice develop epistemic frames (Shaffer 2006):• Different ways of knowing, of deciding what is worth
knowing, and of adding to the collective body of knowledge and understanding of community
o Epistemic frames are competences in practice• Eases transfer & retention• Meaningfulness is inherent in practice
o To learn to think like professionals of many kinds promotes pluralism
Challenges of Communities of practice in school
o There are no experts to guide the noviceso The practice might be to difficulto The repertoire of the practice isn’t always
at hando The goals of the community of practice
are not necessarily compliant with the educational goals
Further Challenges: Lesson learned from Project Based Learning
• ChaosThe teacher spends to much time organizing
• StructureStudents has a hard time knowing what to do next
• Inclusion or exclusion?Students who don’t know how to perform project
based learning, are easily lost
• Educational goalsOften end up subsumed the product goals
Proposed solution
o PracSIP:o Practiceo Scaffoldingo Interactive platform
What a PracSIP does
oScaffold practice by• Organizing the collaboration• Structuring the processes• Putting relevant tools of the shared
repertoire at the participants disposal.
• Reduce complexity of the practice
• Focusing on the aspects of the community of practice which actualizes learning-appropriate goals
• Supporting knowledge and skills from the curriculum
Making it relevant for school
A PracSIP Ekstra Bladet: The Editorial Officeo Support a journalistic community of practice from decision
of the newspaper profile to the deadlineo Newspaper production online o Product printed in 1000 copies in colors on real newsprint
Glimpses from practice
Structuring students’ workPhases:profileplanning researchphoto focuswritingLayoutDeadline
Organizing collaborationo Organizes the
process from start to finish
• Students create articles,
• divide tasks among them … and
• set deadlines … o The students know
what to doo The teacher has an
overview and can take action when and where it is needed
Supporting development of skills and knowledge: Interactive assistants
o An interactive assistant
o Has a specific task as it's starting point
o Leads the student through the task
o The computer structures – the student thinkso The computer doesn’t have all the answers –
no ”multiple choice”
Interactive assistants II
o The computer asks carefully thought out questions, and the student carry on the thinking on this basis
o Integrates the student’s response in the next question
o Presents subject related concepts and methods integrated in the work with the task
Other tools from the journalistic shared repertoire
PracSIP
o Scaffolds the practice by:• Organizing collaboration• Structuring students’ working process• Putting tools from the repertoire of the
community of practice at the disposal of the students
o Integrates educational content
o Tear down school walls:Authentic communication situations
Does it work?
Ethnographical study• Ethnographical study of four classes working with
The Editorial Office. • Conclusion: When working with The Editorial Office
teachers and students acquire access to a journalist practice, and both students and teachers can function as mediators and bring, re-negotiate and integrate authentic border objects from this practice to their own [classroom] practice. This makes possible peripheral and stand in experiences of what it will say to participate in a journalist practice, and it creates the opportunity for new experiences of what it means to participate in a journalist practice, and understanding of what is valued competencies.
(Henderson 2008, p.95, my translation)
Study of Interactive assistants
• Qualitative study: Interactive assistants scaffold (in some cases) an IDRE (Initiation, Discussion (cf. Wegerif 2004), Response, Evaluation) structure of students interaction
• Quantitative study: Students perform above average (3 teachers assess students work), students regards Interactive assistants as a help (44.1% yes, 36.5% yes and no, 19.4% no, n=299).
Fougt 2009
Ongoing work: Framework for Evaluation of Design for learning
• Potential learning potential– Which competences (or skills and knowledge) can
ideally be developed working with a giving platform (design for learning)?
• Actual learning potential– How is the platform used, how does it participate
in the classroom context?
• Actual learning– What is the learning outcome
(Bundsgaard & Hansen, work in progress)
Next PracSIP project
o Future Cityo Students acting as city planners to solve
the problems of Slam City (and of the climate change)
o Organization of collaboration and structuring of the processes
o Students play Sim City to get inspired and to simulate the complexity of city planning
Investigating problems and learning science with interactive assistants
Producing a presentation of Future City to be presented in the showroom
City Slam
• Cup tournament where the participating classes compete one on one with two other classes acting as judges (online).
• 6-8 classes participate in the final competition to be Future City of the year.
Future City
• Scaffolding simulated authentic activities
• Socially motivating
• Knowledge and skills from the science curriculum developed in context
– That is, Future City is
• a Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform
Referenceso Bundsgaard, J. (2009): Practice Scaffolding Interactive Platform. In:
Proceedings from CSCL 2009.o Bundsgaard, J. (2005): Bidrag til danskfagets it-didaktik [Contributions
to the Educational Theory and Practice of IT in the Danish Subject]. PhD dissertation. Odense: Forlaget Ark. www.did2.bundsgaard.net
o Fougt, S. (2009). Didaktisk design af Interaktive assistenter. Master Thesis. Copenhagen: DPU.
o Henderson, L. (2008). Praksisfællesskaber i undervisningen. Master Thesis. Copenhagen: DPU.
o Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
o Schnack, Karsten (2000): Faglighed, undervisning og almen dannelse, in: Hans Jørgen Kristensen og Karsten Schnack (eds.): Faglighed og undervisning. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
o Shaffer, D. W. (2006). Epistemic frames for epistemic games. Computers & Education 46(3), 223 - 234.
o Wegerif, R. (2004). The role of educational software as a support for teaching and learning conversations. In: Computers and Education 43, p. 179-191.
www.ekstrabladet.dk/skole ∙ www.futurecity.dk [email protected] ∙ www.jeppe.bundsgaard.net