Towards productive multivocality in the analysis of collaborative learning.

Abstract

Research in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is diverse and multi-vocal, in that multiple theoretical and methodological traditions speak to questions concerning how learning takes place in social settings. Whether this multivocality leads to balkanization or is a source of strength may require deliberate efforts at identifying strategies and finding boundary objects for productive discourse across this diversity. This paper and associated symposium reports on the results of such an effort—a four-year series of five workshops exploring the basis for productive dialogue between multiple analytic traditions in CSCL. After a brief introduction to our objectives and the series of workshops, we illustrate lessons learned with three examples in which a group of analysts deliberately chosen for their diversity analyzed three small corpora with respect to identifying “pivotal moments” in collaborative learning and compared their results. The project also illustrates more generally the potential value of collaborative learning among researchers.