In his Ted Talk on “Reimagining Learning,” Richard Culatta (2013) identifies three major issues with education today: students are treated identically when they all have individual needs, students are taught on a set schedule instead of moving on when they are ready, and students are given feedback too late to be useful. Culatta (2013) mentions that personalized learning is the key to solving these issues since it can be used to give immediate feedback, change the pace of learning to fit students’ needs, gives students choice on how to learn, allows them to be creators, etc.
One big idea that stems from Culatta’s (2013) ideas involves Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS). Care, Scoular, and Griffin (2016) in the article “Assessment of Collaborative Problem Education Environments” define CPS “as a combination of critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and collaboration” (pg. 250). This has connections to social constructivism since “learners participate in a community of learners and construct meaning from the discourse practices in that community” (O’Donnell, 2012, p. 63).
In Care et. al’s (2016) article, a framework was given for how to set up a CPS task in the classroom and how it could be used to assess an individual’s CPS skills of Participation (commitment to the task), Perspective Taking (understanding others’ point-of-view), and Social Regulation (use of strategy to solve conflicts and evaluate self/peer strengths/weaknesses) (pgs. 252-253). An example CPS activity from the article involved two students collaborating by chatting online to solve a problem. The goal was to fill a container with 4 Liters of oil. However, both students had different tools (one had a 3L cup and an oil machine, while the other had a 5L cup and a bucket), but could only see the resources on their own screen. Together, the students chatted online, figured out their available resources, and were able to work out a solution (Care et. al., 2016, pgs. 257-259). The teacher was able to evaluate each individual’s CPS skills by examining the chat log.
What online tool is the best to use for CPS? Cho and Lim (2017) authors of “Effectiveness of Collaborative Learning with 3D Virtual Worlds” would argue that Virtual Worlds (VWs) have many benefits. In this research study, the authors “investigated the effectiveness of collaborative problem solving and collaborative observation using virtual worlds” in three secondary geography classes (Cho & Lim 2017, p. 203). In this quasi-experiment, the students learned about topical maps and contours in three different ways. The Teacher Directed (TD) group learned directly from the teacher in a lecture format. In the Collaborative Observation (CO) group, the teacher controlled an avatar in a VW (while the students observed) and the students worked together to solve problems. The Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) group involved the students the students having full access to the VW and worked together to solve problems (Cho & Lim, 2017, p. 205).
The results of the research showed “that CPS and CO are more effective in facilitating and maintaining intrinsic motivation than TD” because they both “provided students with autonomy to collaboratively explore problems in authentic contexts” (Cho & Lim, 2017, p. 207). However, “CO was more effective in application of geographical knowledge” than TD and CPS because students in the CPS group might have been “distracted from learning tasks because of novel objects and other avatars in the VW, and extraneous cognitive load might be substantially increased” (Cho & Lim, 2017, p. 207). In other words, too much choice in the Open-VW caused students to get distracted from the teacher’s main academic objectives.
Both of these articles connect to ideas in Culatta’s (2013) Ted Talk. Through CPS, students create their own personalized learning experiences; they use their own prior knowledge and the knowledge of their group mates to solve a challenge together. The students work at their own pace and are given immediate feedback (in the form of trial-and-error experiments). This technique has many possible integrations into Maker Education as well.
Using programs like Scratch or Deck.Toys in a Maker lesson offer the joys of a Virtual World without the distractions of an open VR game. In this Deck.Toys example, students would work in teams of two, with each team member selecting a different path on the screen. At certain points in the activity, the students would need to collaborate with each other in order to move past the challenges. A similar function could occur in Scratch or even Breakout games. I am curious what other technologies can be used to create CPS experiences in the classroom!
References
Care, E., Scoular, C., & Griffin, P. (2016). Assessment of collaborative problem solving in education environments. Applied Measurement in Education, 29(4), 250-264. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/docview/1871574893?accountid=12598
Cho, Y. H., & Lim, K. Y. (2017). Effectiveness of collaborative learning with 3D virtual worlds. British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(1), 202-211. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/docview/1895981288?accountid=12598
Culatta, R. (2013). Reimagining learning [Video]. Retrieved from https://ed.ted.com/on/5TOxVl1F
O’Donnell, A. (2012). Constructivism. In APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol. 1. Theories, Constructs, and Critical Issues. K. R. Harris, S. Graham, and T. Urdan (Editors-in-Chief). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. DOI: 10.1037/13273-003.
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