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Knowledge Cartography pp 1–23Cite as

Empirical Studies of the Value of Conceptually Explicit Notations in Collaborative Learning

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Part of the book series: Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing ((AI&KP))

Abstract

“Knowledge Cartography” is concerned with a diversity of notations that all make certain conceptual structures explicit, but may differ from each other and from conceptually implicit notations in what they make salient. This chapter reports on a series of studies that investigated the idea that these differences or representational biases might lead to differences in processes of collaborative inquiry. The studies span face-to-face, synchronous online and asynchronous online media in both classroom and laboratory settings. An understanding of the observed effects can help both designers and practitioners think more deeply about the pedagogical implications of their representational tools and how these tools are embedded in a learning situation; i.e., how to convert representational biases to representational guidance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Personal communication, Alan Lesgold.

  2. 2.

    Version 4 of Belvedere is available at http://belvedere.sourceforge.net/. It supports multiple views on an evidence model, but does not support networked collaboration or include the prototype coach found in version 2. Version 2 is available from the author, but is based on 1990’s technology.

  3. 3.

    Supporting materials, including science challenge problems and assessment rubrics, are archived at http://lilt.ics.hawaii.edu/belvedere/index.html.

  4. 4.

    Deictic referencing, or deixis, is a reference to an entity in the extra-linguistic context. Deixis can be accomplished verbally with indexical terms such as “this,” “it,” and/or with gestures such as pointing or computer-aided highlighting.

  5. 5.

    The phenomenon discussed here may be independent of what is represented. Other researchers have observed an initial resistance to formalization, even in representations that are intended to map discussion or argumentation rather than evidence. See for example Shipman & McCall (1994).

  6. 6.

    Archived at http://lilt.ics.hawaii.edu/lilt/papers/2006/Suthers-et-al-CE-2006/.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grants #9873516 (Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence) and #0093505 (CAREER), and was conducted in collaboration with numerous individuals acknowledged in the author’s cited publications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA

    Daniel D. Suthers

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  1. Daniel D. Suthers
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Correspondence to Daniel D. Suthers .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Alexandra Okada BSc, MA, PhD  & Simon Buckingham Shum BSc, MSc, PhD  & 

  2. The Centre for Science Education, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    Tony Sherborne BSc, MA, PhD

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Suthers, D.D. (2008). Empirical Studies of the Value of Conceptually Explicit Notations in Collaborative Learning. In: Okada, A., Shum, S.B., Sherborne, T. (eds) Knowledge Cartography. Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-149-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-149-7_1

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