We report on a multi-method study that seeks to explore if, how and why secondary teachers use Facebook (FB) to interact with their students. Issues of privacy, authority, and even abuse have fueled socio-political debates on the desirability of teacher-student FB contact, leading some authorities to curtail or even prohibit such contact. Proponents of harnessing Web 2.0 and Social media technology for learning purposes, on the other hand, have emphasized the many potential advantages for formal and informal learning. However, there is little empirical research on the scope, the nature and the purposes for secondary school teacher-student contact through social network sites. The present study makes a first step in this direction, by triangulating teacher survey data (N = 187) with in-depth teacher interviews (N = 11). Findings from both data sets show that teacher-student FB contact comes in different forms and serves a range of purposes, which fall into three main categories: Academic-instructional, psycho-pedagogical and social-relational. Advantages, dilemmas and limitations of FB contact with secondary school students are identified.

In spite of its potential for learning, and in particular knowledge revision, productive argumentation on science concepts is neither easily elicited, nor sustained. Students may feel uneasy critiquing and being critiqued, especially on complex science topics. We report on a controlled study that tested the role of two potential factors that may either relieve or aggravate some of these concerns: the partner’s argumentive discourse style (disputative or deliberative) and belief in interaction with a human or a computer agent. Learners interacted in scripted, computer-mediated interactions with a confederate on their understanding of a scientific concept they had just studied (i.e., diffusion). They were led to believe they were either interacting with a human peer or with a conversational peer agent. The peer confederate’s verbal behavior was scripted to evoke argumentative discourse, while controlling for exposure to conceptual content and the type of dialogue moves, but differing in argumentive discourse style (disputative or deliberative). Results show that conceptual understanding of participants in the deliberative discourse style condition was higher than that in the disputative condition. Furthermore, even though previous studies have reported that the belief in human interaction benefits learning in consensual interactions, the opposite was found to be true in a setting of disagreement and critique: Higher conceptual learning gains were found for belief in interaction with a computer agent, compared to with a human peer. Implications for theory as well as instructional design are discussed.

From the back cover: Socializing Intelligence Through Academic Talk and Dialogue focuses on a fast-growing topic in education research. Over the course of 34 chapters, the contributors discuss theories and case studies that shed light on the effects of dialogic participation in and outside the classroom. This rich, transdisciplinary endeavor will appeal to scholars and researchers in education and many related disciplines, including learning and cognitive sciences, educational psychology, instructional science, and linguistics, as well as to teachers, curriculum designers, and educational policy makers. Table of contents:  http://www.aera.net/Portals/38/docs/Publications/Books/Resnick_vii-ix.pdf 

The role of outcome feedback in collaborative learning settings has received little empirical attention. We examined whether outcome feedback improves learning gains in singleton and dyadic learning conditions, while specifying different dyadic pairing options. In a randomized experiment, 496 ninth-graders solved challenging tasks that required fully developed proportional reasoning to be solved correctly. Based on individual pretest performance, each student was assigned to one of three levels of proportional reasoning competence (Wrong1, Wrong2 and Right) and randomly assigned to either work alone or with a (Wrong1, Wrong2 and Right) peer. Half of the dyads and singletons were given the opportunity to empirically test their solutions and received outcome feedback from an objective testing device. The results indicated that when collaboration is considered as a general condition, learners in dyads and singletons profited equally from outcome feedback. When different dyadic compositions are specified, however, the combination of collaborating with a ”Right” partner and receiving outcome feedback proved to be particularly powerful. Outcome feedback did not improve learning in any of the other conditions. Furthermore, and contrary to the “two-wrongs-make-a-right-effect”, interaction between two different “Wrong” students did not yield larger gains than other pairing options. The outcomes are discussed in light of existing theories and research.

The role of the human instructor in online learning has received increasingly more attention in the elearning literature. In the present paper we focus on the particular case of human moderation of peerto- peer debates in educational settings. A multi-dimensional methodology is proposed to identify and characterize different moderation styles in such settings. The method triangulates superficial and qualitative features of both moderation actions as well as the discussion as a whole. The application of this methodology to a sample of synchronous group discussions moderated by assigned peer moderators yielded five distinctively different moderation styles: A scaffolding, an orchestrating, an authoritative, an observing and a participative style. Implications and limitations of the coding methodology are discussed, as well as future directions for research and methodology development.

E-moderation has been a common practice in a-synchronous discussions of post-secondary courses. We consider here e-moderation of synchronous discussions in the school context. We adopt a design research approach to elaborate an environment, the Argunaut system that fits the reality of classrooms in which moderation of several small group synchronous discussions in parallel is desirable. We describe the Argunaut system, and then describe an experiment in which a moderator could elaborate several strategies in two synchronous discussions (one with two groups in parallel, and one with four groups in parallel). Through the technique of cued retrospective reporting, we could identify those strategies and could show how technology and moderation are interwoven. We then assessed whether the actions of the moderator had some positive impact on the flow of the discussions. The positive findings that emerge from this study indicate that teachers can enact this novel practice in classrooms, enabling by such proper guidance for productive engagement in synchronous discussions of many students in the same class.

Even though the advantages of online discussions over face-to-face discussion formats have been extensively discussed and investigated, the blending of synchronous online discussion tools in co-located classroom settings has been considered with far less intensity. In this paper, we report on secondary school students’ experiences and preferences concerning two different discussion formats for critical debate in co-located classroom settings: face-to-face and synchronous, computer-mediated communication (CMC). Data was collected with the help of self-report questionnaires (N = 70) and structured interviews (N = 4). A differentiation was made between students that define themselves as active participants in face-to-face classroom discussions and those who usually remain silent in these settings. The findings highlight several potential advantages of the computer-mediated discussion format, especially in terms of the social-interactive and managerial aspects of classroom discussions. Comparisons between the two groups show that ‘silent’ students welcome the introduction of CMC with enthusiasm, whereas ‘active’ students do not show a clear preference. Practical implications as well as new directions for further research are discussed.

Background. Research has shown the importance of careful teacher support during collaborative group work to promote productive discourse between students (Webb, 2009). However, this research has traditionally focused on face-to-face communication. The role of online teacher guidance of small-group computer-mediated discussions has received little attention, especially in secondary school classroom settings. Researchers of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), on the other hand, have traditionally focused on software-embedded features, such as scripts, to support a-synchronous peer dialogue, and less so on human guidance of synchronous group discussions. Aims. The main aim of the present in vivo, experimental study is to examine whether online teacher guidance can improve the quality of small-group synchronous discussions, and whether different types of guidance (epistemic or interaction guidance) affect these discussions differently, when compared to an unguided condition. The second goal of this study is to explore potential differences between all-female and all-male discussion groups. Sample. Eighty-two 9th graders (three classrooms) and six teachers from a rural high school in Israel. Results. Whereas epistemic guidance only improved aspects of the argumentative quality of the discussion, interaction guidance only improved aspects of collaboration. Discussions of all-girls groups scored higher on aspects of collaboration and argumentative quality, compared to all-boys groups. Conclusions. The findings show that teacher guidance of synchronous, online discussions in classrooms is realizable and reasonably reaches its intended goals. Training should be focused on acquiring various guidance strategies to augment their beneficial effects. Furthermore, future research should pay more attention to potential gender differences in peer-to-peer argumentation.

In this paper, we present findings on moderation of synchronous, small-group argumentation in blended, co-located learning environments. Drawing on findings from the literature on human facilitation of dialogue in face-to-face settings, we first elaborate on the potential promise of this new practice. However, little is known about what constitutes effective human facilitation in synchronous e-discussions. A multi-method exploratory approach was then adopted to provide first insights into some of the difficulties and characteristics of moderation in these settings. To this end, we focused on (1) students’ perspectives on what constitutes effective e-moderation of synchronous peer argumentation in classrooms and (2) the relations between characteristics of actual and perceived moderation effectiveness. The analyses presented in this paper reveal that the role of the e-moderator in synchronous peer discussions is a complex one and that expectations from e-moderators seem at times even contradictory. Also, comparisons with findings on moderation in other communication formats (e.g., asynchronous, face-to-face) show that insights on effective instructional practices in these formats cannot be simply transferred to synchronous communication formats. We close this paper by briefly describing a tool that provides real-time support for e-moderators of synchronous group discussions, and whose development had been sparked by these findings in a further cycle of our design research program. Several questions and hypotheses are articulated to be investigated in future research, both with these new tools and in general.