ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

A web site system for instructors to manage collaborative learning
Chen-Chung Liu, Gwo-Dong Chen, Kuo-Liang Ou, Baw-Jhiune Liu, Chih-Kai Chang
Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering
National Central University, Taiwan
{christia, chen, klou, bjliu, kant_c}@db.csie.ncu.edu.tw
Abstract: As the World Wide Web (the Web) become popular, increasing number of
distance learning systems are built on the Web. Yet, Instructors must onerously write
complex programs to manage students’ learning behavior in a web based collaborative
learning system. In addition, the instructor should prevent a learner from reading prohibited
material, e.g. reading other groups’ work result before deadline. Therefore, this investigation
devises a web site system that allows instructors to regulate desired collaborative learning
models. According to the regulated learning model, an instructor support system is also
devised to automatically monitor the learning activities, control the learning actions, and
generate notification information to guide learners to learn concepts in an intended
collaborative manner. Consequently, an instructor can easily and quickly construct a web
based collaborative learning system that supports a desired collaborative learning model.
Introduction
Collaborative learning style (Monaghan and Clement 1995) is widely used in conventional
classrooms. The learning style is also applied to promote the learning effect on the Web. Especially, a student
in a distance learning system can not talk and learn with other students face to face. The students may feel
lonely and abandon the courses without peers encouragement and pressure. In the collaborative learning style,
learners are divided into groups and interact with each other to achieve common learning goals. Many formats
of group interaction such as group project and discussion are used to promote the interdependency(Thousand
et al. 1994) among a learning group. Okamoto(Okamoto 1994) emphasized that the interaction among group
members such as discussion and collaboration promotes learners’ understanding and confirmation. Besides,
owing to achieving a common goal of the team, members of a group are more willing to help each other and to
response question of other members quickly. However, to allow students for learning concepts in a desired
collaborative manner, the instructors must made great efforts to manage student’s learning behavior in a
learning environment.
Our laboratory is cooperating with National Open University (NOU) and Institute for Information
Industry (III) to offer web-based courses. In general, a web-based course in NOU and III has a primary
instructor to set and monitor the learning goals. At the same time, three assistant instructors have to regulate
collaborative learning models and develop a web-based collaborative learning system (CLS) to allow students
for learning concept in a desired collaborative manner. Different assistant instructors usually adapt different
collaborative learning models, e.g. group projects, group discussions, group debates and quizzes, etc. In the
running of these courses, students suggest to offer a private discussion for their group. Students also do not
want their individual learning information such as the instructor’s commend or homework to be read by
others. In addition, the instructors found that it is necessary to assign each student a role and to define
responsibility and capability of a role. Thus, the groups are easier to learn collaboratively according to their
role and responsibilities. At the same time, instructors are easier to guide and monitor the groups. To satisfy
these requirements, an instructor must write many programs onerously to manage different collaborative
learning activities. Therefore, instructors need facilities to manage students’ learning behavior in a web-based
CLS.
Current web servers unfortunately do not support directly required facilities for constructing a CLS.
According to the existing collaborative learning models, e.g. Team game tournament (TGT), and Jigsaw
(Slavin 1994, Stallings and Stipek 1986, Stallings and Stipek 1986), and our experiences (Chang and Chen