Investigation 1. Advancing a CSCL Vision

Abstract

The field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)—as a unity of educational practice and academic research—is characterized in this investigation by a specific vision of learning, illustrated by a prototypical research effort. A number of recent publications are reviewed to extend the scope of CSCL in response to contemporary theory and current social issues. This leads to advancing theoretical concepts and frameworks for conceptualizing CSCL research and practice, which contrast with traditional educational approaches. Although these ideas were originally proposed in disparate contexts, they provide the conceptual skeleton of a unified theory for CSCL, which would be distinguished from popular theories of individual learning and would integrate technological support with collaborative cognition. These insights concerning theory have methodological implications for analyzing CSCL interventions in terms of group knowledge-building practices mediated by interactionally appropriated artifacts. Revised forms of analysis can help innovators evaluate CSCL trials during iterations of design-based research, leading to revisions of the collaborative-learning theory and research methods. Bridging from academic research to educational practice, two examples of efforts to bring the CSCL vision to scale within national school systems are then reviewed. Finally, a global collaboration among CSCL researchers is recommended for effective implementation of the CSCL vision in education worldwide, based on the presented conceptualizations of a unified theory of collaborative learning and their implications for evaluation of CSCL technical and pedagogical designs. This could advance the field of CSCL in its theory and practice, toward its underlying vision of cognition at the group level.