Facilitating Social and Collaborative Learning

The appeal of collaborative learning is intuitive, as humans are indisputably social by nature. Moreover, evidence indicates that well-designed, collaborative learning environments increase both student learning and motivation. Business trends suggest that the workplace of the future will be increasingly interdisciplinary and collaborative as well.

Numerous questions in this area remain open. Should we emphasize “knowledge sharing,” where group members develop similar competencies; or design for “knowledge interdependence,” where knowledge is distributed among group members? The goal of this work is to investigate the effectiveness and applicability of collaborative learning methods through extensive analyses of process data (self-explanations, chats, and log files), and to develop actionable guidelines for successful collaboration and collaborative learning.