RICERCA ITALIANA     

Psychological, pedagogical, and sociological models for learning and assessment in virtual communities of practices

Università degli Studi di Padova

Abstract

Our research aims to investigate, from a psychological, pedagogical and social perspective, virtual communities of practice consisting of university students, teachers, education and health workers. It also aims to develop educational models exploiting and enhancing the functionality of wide area networks and of immersive virtual environments.
Knowledge-building communities (KCBs), as put forward by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia, and communities of practice, as outlined and studied by Jean Leave and Etienne Wenger, constitute our main reference models.
We will study cognitive processes (comprehension, conceptual change, and problem-solving), metacognitive processes and processes of social interaction (support, tutoring, monitoring, mutual peer assessment), which are activated during dialogic practices in virtual, on-line, blended, immersive, and mobile interactional environments.
Another focus of interest will be social interactions developed on-line, which generate "digital identities" and "competence identities", or professional, personal, and community profiles, both pre- and in-service; in addition, we will study the ergonomic and communicative characteristics of tools for the use of immersive and virtual technologies.
On the basis of the results thus obtained, we will build automatic or autopoietic systems meant to:
- automatically adapt the environment to the user's needs, or
- allow the user to shape the environment >>>

Principal Investigator

Bianca Maria VARISCO Università degli Studi di PADOVA

Research Objectives

In the current educational systems, both within and outside university institutions, two main constrasting learning models are implemented (De Kock, Sleegers and Voeten, 2004; Cacciamani e Giannandrea, 2004; Varisco 2000). These can be defined as those based on the "transmission of knowledge" and those based on the "construction of knowledge".
The former type of models draw on the mind as a container metaphor, according to which the mind is filled with knowledge transferred there by the teacher, thus through an other-managed process of transmission. These models, while convenient in terms of organization and management, do not seem to be able to develep actual competence, and may thus end up producing, instead, "inert" knowledge, hardly employable in real contexts.
The latter type of models, which are based on a type of collaborative learning internal to a "community of practice", are more promising with regard to the above-mentioned issues; however, it is difficult for them to gain a wider scope in the field of education precisely due to organizational-managerial reasons (spatio-temporal constraints, high number of trainees, lack of flexibility in traditional educational infrastructures, etc).
The introduction of on-line collaborative environments in education appears to offer, in this respect, an interesting opportunity for a wider diffusion and application of such models.
The general goal of our research project is indeed to fine-tune efficient >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

A considerable amount of research has been carried out, especially internationally on communities of practice (Lave, Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, Snyder, 2002) and knowledge-building communities. (Bereiter, 2002; Scardamalia, 2003; Cacciamani, Giannandrea, 2004).
According to Bereiter (2002), all knowledge is potentially improvable, and a moral conviction that one should keep trying to improve it through "progressive discourse". When Bereiter talks about the centrality of discourse he are claiming more than that, however. He is saying that knowledge advancement and progress in knowledge-building discourse bare not two thins that mirror one another but are one and the same thing. Bereiter talks about "knowledge-building communities" (KBC) and he distinguishes them from other kids of discourse communities because the discourse of KBC is "progressive discourse", knowledge-building discourse that builds and improves knowledge, trough community's practice. Knowledge improvement is a social enterprise. Knowledge building is a proper activity for educational institution at all levels.
According to Lave and Wenger, a community of practice is to be regarded as a "group of people who share a strong interest in something that they engage in, and who interact to learn together how to better practise it". A community of practice, whose identity is defined by the very domain of interest of its members, provides the members, who decide to take part in it of >>>