Design guidelines to foster cooperation in digital environments

Abstract

A number of researchers argue that cooperative learning can promote greater productivity and more caring, supportive and committed relationships between students, active learning, critical thinking, the achievement of long-term learning objectives, conceptual understanding, long-term retention of information and high levels of student satisfaction. However, to obtain these potential advantages something more than forming and assigning them a common goal is needed: cooperation has to occur. This paper presents guidelines for designing group activities to foster cooperation by focusing on three elements of cooperative learning: (1) positive interdependence, (2) equal participation and (3) individual accountability in both individual and group learning scenarios. The authors also describe a software tool designed according to the model proposed in which some design guidelines have been implemented in order to support cooperative learning activities and allow the cooperative process to be monitored. The preliminary results show that the participants who have interacted with this software tool have obtained good cooperation scores and cooperative abilities have been fostered: participation, engagement and communication during learning activities.

Keywords:

• cooperative learning processes
• CL
• monitoring
• cooperation
• evaluation

Acknowledgements

This study has been partially financed by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain, as part of the VIDECO project [grant number TIN2011-26928], the Andalusian research programme [grant number P11-TIC-7486] and the Iberoamerican Network (U-CSCL) [grant number CYTED, 513RT0481].