Scripting Collaborative Learning Processes: A Cognitive Perspective

Abstract

Scripting collaborative learning is an effective approach to promoting learning in both face-to-face and on-line computer learning contexts. Although the term script originated in cognitive psychology, it is used in educational contexts to describe ways of structuring interaction and scaffolding collaborative learning through the use of roles, activities, and sequencing of activities. There are several specific types of learning activities that numerous lines of research have shown enhance learning during interaction, however, these activities rarely occur spontaneously during naturally-occurring group collaboration. Also, it is not always clear what individuals learn during collaboration, how they learn it, and the underlying cognitive mechanisms that account for learning collaboratively. Four illustrative approaches to scripting face-to-face collaboration are presented. Each approach is examined to reveal how roles, activities, and sequence of activities, are used to structure collaborative learning and what particular cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-cognitive processes their scripts are intended to induce in learners. The expectation for some scripts is that over time learners will internalize the roles, activities, and sequence; and, once learners can play all of the roles of a script on their own, they will self-regulate their learning without the aid of an external script. However, the wide range of differences in both the complexity and goals of scripts affects their potential for internalization, and some external scripts are not intended to be discontinued even if roles are internalized.