January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

Collaboration Styles and Programming Processes
Case 1: Father + Son (Peter)
Whenever a new task was assigned, Peter’s father always helped Peter to analyze the figure to be drawn. When Peter
found the task easy enough, his father allowed him to write the program by himself. Sometimes Peter’s father would
offer suggestions, which were mostly ignored by Peter because he liked to try out his own ideas.
Peter was able to solve simple problems correctly and quickly most of the time. When errors occurred in a program,
Peter’s father could not offer much help because of unfamiliarity with Logo commands. Therefore, Peter had to
depend on himself for debugging, which he did not encounter much difficulty. However, when Peter failed to solve a
problem after several unsuccessful attempts, his father would intervene and help him out. Only then did active
interactions occur between father and son. An example of their typical interactions is shown below:
(Peter’s father draws a figure on a piece of paper to help Peter to figure out the correct angle
measure.)
Father: How much should the Turtle turn to make the figure look good? How about making it 30
here? Would 45 be too big? Now you will need to subtract something from 180 to get a
number measure here. How much should it be?
(Peter decided to try 160 degrees.)
Father: Are you sure you want to turn 160 degrees?
(Peter did not reply and did not make any changes. He went ahead to move the Turtle 200 steps
forward.)
Father: 200 steps look okay. Now, how much should the Turtle turn here?
(Peter stared at the screen.)
Father: (Pointing at the first angle) Tell me the measure of this angle. How much should it be?
Peter: 140.
(Peter turned the Turtle 140 degrees to the left. The Turtle’s direction did not look right, so he turned
the Turtle 20 degrees to the right and moved it 200 steps forward.)
Father: I think you should turn it a little bit more to the right.
(Peter did as his father suggested.)
Father: (Pointing at the screen) So, what’s the measure of this angle finally?
Peter: …
Case 2: Mother + Son (Sean)
Sean’s mother adopted an authoritative parenting style. Whenever a task was assigned, Sean’s mother would
examine the figure carefully, thought up a solution and wrote the program herself, and then she would read the Logo
commands line by line for Sean to enter from the keyboard. She was always in charge, busy telling and showing
Sean what to do. The following excerpt shows a typical conversation between Sean and his mother.
Mother: Draw the square first.
Sean: I want to draw the triangle first.
Mother: No, you don’t. Draw the square first.
Sean: How far should I move the Turtle?
Mother: 100.
Mother: Now turn 90 degrees to the right. Don’t forget to leave a space between RT and 90. Now
FD 100 again, then … …
(Sean typed the commands as instructed by his mother.)
Sean: Now what?
Mother: Type REPEAT. R-E-P-E-A-T.
Sean: … …
Sean was not allowed by his mother to try anything other than what the instructor asked for, as manifested in the
following scenario. Once during class Sean’s mother spent a few minutes talking on the phone outside the computer
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