Analyzing collaborative interactions: divergence, shared understanding and construction of knowledge

One of the most important facets of collaborative learning is the interaction between individual and collaborative learning activities – between divergent perspectives and shared knowledge building. Individuals bring divergent ideas into a collaborative environment. While individuals bring their own unique knowledge and perspectives, the second important aspect of collaborative learning is how they move from seemingly divergent perspectives to collaborative knowledge building. This is clearly a social process among group members who could adopt various strategies for resolving differences including asserting dominance, acquiescing, or some form of reciprocal sense making. An important aspect of collaborative learning is the move from assimilation to construction, i.e., creating new understandings based on the discussions that they have had. Documenting this change from divergence to collaborative knowledge building to possible construction is therefore important in understanding the nature the collaborative interactions. In this paper we discuss our analysis of the process of collaborative interactions based on three dimensions – divergence of ideas, collaborative knowledge building and construction. Our aim was to document as well as to understand how collaborative interactions develop over time: whether students raise new issues (ideas) more frequently as they become more familiar with the discussion and discussants, and whether shared knowledge building becomes richer over time, and subsequent evidence that students were able to construct their own understanding based on their interactions with others. Our analyses were conducted in the context of an online graduate course conducted using the learning environment that we designed, CoDE, (Constructivist, Distributed learning Environment). In this paper, we will first describe the design of CoDE. We will then describe a study in which CoDE was used to offer an online graduate course in learning theories. We then discuss our analyses of both individual and collaborative learning as it progressed through the duration of the course.