Promoting metacognitive skills through peer scaffolding in a CSCL environment

Abstract

This paper aims to better understand the development of students' metacognitive learning processes when participating actively in a CSCL system called KnowCat. To this end, a longitudinal case study was designed, in which 18 university students took part in a 12-month (two semesters) learning project. The students followed an instructional process, using specific features of the KnowCat design to support and improve their interaction processes, especially peer-learning processes. Our research involved both supervising the students' collaborative learning processes throughout the learning project and focusing our analysis on the qualitative evolution of their interaction processes and of their metacognitive learning processes. The results of the current research suggest that the pedagogical use of the KnowCat system may favour and improve the development of the students' metacognitive learning processes. In addition, the implications of the design of CSCL networks and related pedagogical issues are discussed.

Knowledge Crystallisation Supported by the KnowCat System

“…KnowCat has been tested for twelve years in several research studies with student communities at several universities. These research studies have corroborated the KnowCat design hypotheses and the details of these studies and their results are a great contribution of this research work (Alamán & Cobos, 1999;Cobos & Alamán, 2002;Cobos, 2003;Cobos & Pifarré, 2008;Diez & Cobos, 2007;Gómez, Gutiérrez, Cobos & Alaman, 2001;Pifarré & Cobos, 2010). The system was extended with: i) awareness services, which provide users useful information about how they are interacting with the system and supports users to be aware of their collaborative interactions with the system (Cobos, Claros & Moreno-Llorena, 2009) and ii) a motivation booster service, which provide users feedback information about its work progress in KnowCat and supports to maintain user motivation to interact with the system (Echeverria & Cobos, 2010).…”

“…These analyses were useful in order to corroborate both the common mentioned system design hypotheses as specific ones formulated in the context of each specific research study (see some examples below). Some specific research studies carried out with communities at UdL have contributed the following corroborated hypotheses Pifarré & Cobos, 2010):  The pedagogical application of the KnowCat system may favour and improve the development of the students' metacognitive learning processes. The content analysis of the students' interviews revealed the existence of metacognitive knowledge regarding the learning processes that students develop while interacting with KnowCat knowledge elements.…”

Epilogue for the IJSME Special Issue: Metacognition for Science and Mathematics Learning in Technology-Infused Learning Environments

“…Metacognitive scaffolding often aims to remediate learners' awareness and selfmanagement of their learning, while cognitive scaffolding aims to facilitate learning and address learning barriers (Pifarré & Cobos, 2010;White & Frederiksen, 1998Zimmerman, 2002). The metacognitive scaffolding functions as a guide that reminds learners to reflect on their goals and to find available resources and methods to solve problems (Hannafin, Land & Oliver, 1999).…”

Introduction

“…1.1). Scaffolding can be provided by teachers, peers, or computer tools (Belland, 2014;Pifarre & Cobos, 2010;van de Pol et al, 2010), but implementing problem-centered instruction in K-12 settings requires the use of computer-based scaffolding due to the high student-to-teacher ratios in most K-12 schools (Crippen & Archambault, 2012;Saye & Brush, 2002).…”