Article Summary Of:

Stahl, G. (2005). Group Cognition in Computer-Assisted Collaborative Learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Vol. 21, pp. 79-90.  Available:  (insert URL here)

 

Primary Topic(s) Addressed:  Group Cognition

Secondary Topic(s) Addressed:  CSCL; common ground; group meaning; distributed cognition

 

How this might be used on my dissertation:

Excellent quotes for defining key topics like group cognition, common ground, CSCL, and some psychology references (Vygotsky)

Questions Raised (potential topic for me):

see Author's hypotheses at end of paper

Question:  Educational games (w/ group activities) -> positive outcome on learning (because of author's hypothesis- that group activity can be designed where group knowledge / learning is significantly higher than individual learning)

This question also assumes some internalization phase at the end- that the group knowledge gets turned into individual knowledge.  How 'true' is this?

 

Summary of Paper:

The author outlined supporting research for group cognition.  Some of the authors / topics leading up to it are:

shared knowledge is:  produced; negotiated; distributed; internalized

hardest part of shared knowledge / group cognition:  by habit, we always associate learning on the individual level first (private property, done in isolation)

shared knowledge, for our purposes, needs to be defined as something "interactively achieved in discourse and may not be attributable as originating from any particular individual." (p.81)

Terms / Definitions defined:

  1. group cognition:  meaning is constructed in group collaboration, which is then subject to individual interpretation
  2. shared knowledge:  something "interactively achieved in discourse and may not be attributable as originating from any particular individual." (p.81)

Good Quotes:

see paper (circled)

p. 81- discussing 3 types of shared knowledge- see quote above for the 3rd one (what we take / use)