Abstracts - Earli

Roles as structuring tool in online discussion groups: Studying students’ role performance and theimpact on knowledge constructionBram De Wever, Gent University, BelgiumTammy Schellens, Gent University, BelgiumHilde Van Keer, Gent University, BelgiumMartin Valcke, Gent University, BelgiumThis contribution connects the results of three successive studies on the introduction of roles as ascripting tool in order to structure asynchronous discussion groups. The studies fit in with thesearch for instructional approaches stimulating social knowledge construction in e-discussions.More specifically, this contribution fits in with the abovementioned scripted roles perspective. Theintroduction of five roles was examined: starter, summariser, moderator, theoretician, and sourcesearcher. The studies were conducted in a naturalistic higher education setting with freshmenenrolled in the course Instructional Sciences. Asynchronous discussion groups of ten students wereorganised to foster students’ processing of the learning content. Four successive authentic tasks ofthree weeks each were presented and roles were assigned to students in order to promoteknowledge construction through social negotiation. This contribution focuses first on exploringwhether students enacted the roles they were assigned. Subsequently, the impact of assigning roleson knowledge construction is studied. In order to determine the level of knowledge construction,content analysis based on the interaction analysis model of Gunawardena, Lowe, and Anderson(1997) was performed. Taking into account the hierarchical nesting of students in discussiongroups and the successive nature of the themes, repeated-measures multilevel modelling wasapplied. Concerning role assignment, the results confirm that all students enact the assigned roles.Moreover, although source searchers, theoreticians, summarisers, and students without roles in therole condition focused to a lesser extent on some activities related to other roles, students generallydid not neglect other activities. Concerning the impact of roles, this contribution shows a positiveeffect on students’ social knowledge construction, especially when roles are used as a structuringtool at the beginning. This implies that the moment of introduction is important: roles should beintroduced at the start of the discussions and can be faded out towards the end.Boundaries and roles: Social location and bridging work in the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) onlinecommunityJohann Sarmiento, Drexel University, USAWesley Shumar, Drexel University, USAAs research in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) expands its understanding ofdiverse types of joint learning activities and the participation frameworks they enact, newperspectives on how social reality is constructed become necessary for analysis and designpurposes. Our research concentrates on the temporal development of online learning groups intoteams and communities and the interactional emergence of positioning or situated roles —dynamicorientations toward participation in small-group interaction. We investigate the ways that smallvirtual teams engaged in sustained work over time cross over the boundaries of time, episodes,collectivities, and perspectives to constitute and advance learning and knowledge-building as acontinuous activity. We refer to this interactional activity as "bridging" work. While engaged inbridging work, team members position themselves, their co-participants and other collectivitiesdynamically in ways that suggest the need to consider the "situatedness" aspect of the concept ofrole in CSCL research. Bridging activity, and the positioning work it entails, contributes to theconstruction and maintenance of a joint problem space over time, to manage ongoing participation,and to the constitution of the temporal imagination of the collectivities involved.– 617 –