Abstract
In order to collaborate effectively in group discourse on a topic like mathematical patterns, group participants must organize their activities in ways that share the significance of their utterances, inscriptions, and behaviors. Here, we report the results of an ethnomethodological case study of collaborative math problem-solving activities mediated by a synchronous multimodal online environment. We investigate the moment-by-moment details of the interaction practices through which participants organize their chat utterances and whiteboard actions as a coherent whole. This approach to analysis foregrounds the sequentiality of action and the implicit referencing of meaning making—fundamental features of interaction. In particular, we observe that the sequential construction of shared drawings and the deictic references that link chat messages to features of those drawings and to prior chat content are instrumental in the achievement of intersubjectivity among group members’ understandings. We characterize this precondition of collaboration as the co-construction of an indexical field that functions as a common ground for group cognition. Our analysis reveals methods by which the group co-constructs meaningful inscriptions in the dual-interaction spaces of its CSCL environment. The integration of graphical, narrative, and symbolic semiotic modalities in this manner also facilitates joint problem-solving. It allows group members to invoke and operate with multiple realizations of their mathematical artifacts, a characteristic of deep learning of mathematics.
Çakir, M. P., Zemel, A., & Stahl, G. (2009). The joint organization of interaction within a multimodal CSCL medium. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(2), 115–149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9061-0.
Received: 14 June 2008/Accepted: 19 February 2009 /Published online: 26 March 2009.
© International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.; Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009.
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Notes
- 1.
For instance, after Qwertyuiop declares the completion of the grid in line 11, 137 anchors Qwertyuiop’s drawing to the background at 7:15:47 (see Log 12.3</InternalRef>). Because such a move preserves the positions of the selected objects and the objects affected by the move include only the lines recently added by Qwertyuiop, 137’s anchoring move seems to give a particular significance to Qwertyuiop’s recent drawing. Hence, 137’s anchoring move can be treated as an (implicit) endorsement of Qwertyuiop’s drawing effort in response to his previous request.
- 2.
2While a participant is ty**, a social awareness message appears under the chat entry box on everyone else’s screen stating that the person “is ty**” (see Fig. 12.5). When the typist posts the message, the entire Message appears suddenly as an atomic action in everyone’s chat window.
- 3.
In the meantime, Qwertyuiop also performs a few drawing actions near the shared drawing, but his actions do not introduce anything noticeably different because he quickly erases what he draws each time.
- 4.
137 makes use of Gauss’s method for summing this kind of series, adding the first and last term and multiplying by half of the number of terms: (1 + n + n – 1)*n/2 = n.2. This method was used by the group and shared in previous sessions involving the stair pattern that is still visible in the whiteboard.
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Acknowledgments
The reviews coordinated by Dan Suthers helped us to structure this paper more clearly. Some of the larger methodological, technological, and pedagogical issues the reviewers raised are addressed in Stahl (2009b), which lists the VMT research team members. This paper is a result of the team’s group cognition. Access to the complete data using the VMT Replayer is available by emailing the authors.
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Çakir, M.P., Zemel, A., Stahl, G. (2021). Investigation 12. The Joint Organization of Interaction Within a Multimodal CSCL Medium. In: Stahl, G. (eds) Theoretical Investigations. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Series, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49157-4_12
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