Studies of the development of mental rotation have yielded conflicting results, apparently because different mental rotation tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Children may compare two stimuli at different orientations without mental rotation if the stimuli contain orientation-free features. Two groups of children (78 6-year-olds and 92 8-year-olds) participated in an experiment investigating development of the ability to mentally rotate and the ability to recognize and use orientation-free features. Children compared two stimuli, one upright and one rotated, and responded as quickly as possible indicating whether the stimuli were the same or different. The stimuli were either two panda bears or two ice-cream cones with three scoops of ice-cream of different colors. The panda bears were either identical or mirror images. The cones were either identical, mirror images, or non-mirror images. Response times increased linearly as a function of the angle of orientation when stimuli were the same and when the stimuli were mirror images. But response times were much less dependent on angle of orientation for non-mirror image stimuli. Children as young as 6 years recognized orientation-free stimulus features and responded without mentally rotating when the task permitted this strategy.
Recently, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning researchers have become interested in the notion of scripting and assigning roles to students enrolled in online courses, in order to increase their engagement in collaborative activities. This study aimed to investigate whether assigning a role called social tutor to a student enrolled in an online university course can promote 1) peers’ participation in online discussions, 2) the development of a Sense of Community (SC), consisting of three factors: membership, fulfilment of needs and goal achievement and mutual influence of the individual/group, and 3) effective learning. The participants were 53 undergraduate students who enrolled in an online course, and were divided into two groups: 1) a group of 29 students with a social tutor and 2) a group of 24 students with no social tutor. The results indicate that students’ participation as well as the membership factor of SC improved only in the group that the social tutor was present. In contrast, the scores on the other two SC factors improved regardless of the presence of a social tutor. Moreover, the results show no difference between these two groups in terms of students’ grades in the final examination. The importance of a social tutor in the design of effective online university courses is discussed.
This study investigates different instructional designs to promote students’ collective cognitive responsibility for Knowledge Building in blended university courses. Using an iterative, design-based research methodology with reference to the conjecture mapping technique, the blended learning design of an undergraduate educational psychology course was refined over three years in three design iterations. The iterations differed substantially in the embodiment of the Concurrent Embedded and Transformative Assessment Knowledge Building principle that engaged students in knowledge assessments and strategy assessments of their community’s work. The design of the knowledge assessment involved face-to-face small group and whole class discussions in all three iterations. In the first and second iterations, students also worked online by writing individual reflections and contributing to a community portfolio. The design of the strategy assessment changed in each iteration. In the first iteration, the students’ strategy assessment took place in face-to-face discussions; in the second iteration, students contributed to an online community portfolio; and in the third iteration, the strategy assessment took place in an online community portfolio and face-to-face discussions before beginning the course and in the online community portfolio in the middle of the course. Collective cognitive responsibility was analyzed in terms of productive and informative participation, interdependence between participants, self-regulation skills. The results show that the second iteration’s design was most effective for fostering the students' collective cognitive responsibility, showing an increase in productive participation and self-regulation skills in the first part of the course and also an increase in the interdependence of participants during the course. Some implications concerning the relationship between the implementation of the CETA principle and Knowledge Building are identified for future directions of inquiry and for blended learning environments design.
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