An evaluation of scaffolding for virtual interactive tutorials

1. An evaluation of scaffolding for virtual interactive tutorials 指導教授: 陳 明 溥 研 究 生: 許 良 村 Pahl, C.(2002).An evaluation of scaffolding for virtual interactive tutorials . In G. Richards (Ed.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2002 (pp. 740-746). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

2. Scaffolding • Internet technologies reduced direct contact between the instructor and the learner requires additional support • Scaffolding as an approach to support learners in their learning effort has been suggested - the idea can be traced back to (Vygotsky 1978) . • Scaffolding refers to a temporary support framework that is used in the construction of buildings. • Scaffolding is needed in the construction process, but will be removed once the building process is advanced and the building supports itself. • Scaffolding is in particular suitable to support active learning approaches.

3. Scaffolding • Scaffolding refers to the support learners get from interaction with experts, teachers, and peers • Scaffolding enable the learner to accomplish a task in a self-reliant way • Scaffolding characteristics : -modelling: providing an adequate learning structure -support: learning material, feedback, assessment, demonstration -fading: support provision , support usage • Scaffolding is often considered as a part of the cognitive apprenticeship theory

4. Scaffolding • Cognitive apprenticeship theory : - coaching a student to perform a specific task - a student learns through active participation in a task in an authentic setting in a close collaboration with a master - the master provides the scaffolding - increasing control and ownership by the learner - phase of learning coaching→ reflection →free and self-reliant learning • In CSTL, the instructor's role in providing the scaffolding support can be taken over by an intelligent software agent.

5. Experiment Design • Objective : evaluate the impact of scaffolding on student learning in a virtual interactive tutorial environment that supports the autonomous learner • Independent variable • scaffolding • Dependent variables • Acceptance or opinion • student learning behavior • student performance • Course : undergraduate Database course

6. A Virtual Tutorial • guided tour approach • a simple example and substantial scaffolding • increases the complexity of the problem • reduces the scaffolding features • four scaffolds types • learning material • feedback • assessment • demonstration

7. A Virtual Tutorial • four scaffolds types as essential in Web environments : 1. aguided learning process allows the learner to progress in a structured fashion based on an expert model towards self-reliance. 2. assessment and correction features provide necessary feedback and criticism. 3. context pointers to background resources contextualize the active elements. 4.comments

8. A Virtual Tutorial • learning process Firstly, a structured approach - students follows the guided tour and work on exercises Secondly, an unstructured approach - students revise for their exams, re-address aspects that remained unclear before, etc.

9. Evaluation Results • Learning behaviour analysis [ExecQuery|Scaffold] - based on automatically generated Web server statistics. - about 2/3 semester for the interactive tutorial - about 1/3 semester for the final exam preparation - 77% of all tutorial sessions students have also used online course notes at the same time - 84% of all sessions actually follow this pattern of mixing interactive and scaffolding material

10. Evaluation Results - the absolute numbers of scaffold requests have been reduced to around 35% in the later units compared to the first four units. • Student opinion analysis - based on student questionnaires that survey the student perception. - students have pointed out that guidance and in particular the feedback features are central ,i.e. scaffolding is necessary. • Student performance analysis - based on exam, project and continuous assessment results.

11. Discussion and Conclusions • The tutorial not only knowledge retention is the objective, but also the transferof knowledge and skills to new application areas. • Guidance of the learning process is the key ssue ,ontextualised assistance of the learner is necessary to accomplish independence and self-reliance • Major functions of a teacher or coach have to be replaced by virtual system functions if direct contact is not possible , scaffolding can provide the learner with the necessary support • In a Web environment scaffolding features need to replace the instructor • Scaffolding refers to a temporary support framework used during construction.

12. Discussion and Conclusions • Adaptive personalized scaffolding must consider - needs of individual students - behavior of individual students - student tracking - student learning performance - peer-communication and collaboration - a user model needs to be built