Since the 1970s, computer support for learning has been a hot topic. .... The Forum Project (Isaacs, 1994) from Sun Microsystems allows broadcasts of remote.
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
Bridging the Gap: Incorporating Work and Learning Using Cooperative Learning Environments Jennifer Beck-Wilson, Hans-Rüdiger Pfister, Christian Schuckmann & Martin Wessner Integrated Publications and Information Systems Institute (IPSI) GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology Dolivostr. 15, D-64293 Darmstadt {wilson, pfister, schucki, wessner}@darmstadt.gmd.de
Summary Although lifelong learning is a well accepted concept, it is still not a prominent part of everyday business. A common problem is the lack of knowledge transfer from learning to work. Learning and working are falsely considered as separate activities within different contexts. In addition, while most work in today’s dynamic business world is done by teams, learning often focuses, in theory as well as in practise, on the individual learner, thus neither exploiting the potential benefit of cooperation nor helping learners to acquire the necessary cooperation skills. In the CLear (Cooperative Learning) project at GMD-IPSI, cooperative environments are developed which support such learning processes in the form of a seamless transition between work and learning. Our interdisciplinary approach focuses on task-oriented learning of small teams of adult learners and takes into consideration different learning dimensions such as synchronous and asynchronous learning, distributed and co-located learning, and individual and group learning This paper addresses bridging the current gap between working and learning based upon the CLear project. The potential inadequacies of traditional learning techniques in meeting the demands of today’s learning needs are examined. In addition, we explain in more detail the cooperative learning prototype developed for the CLear project in terms of its technical aspects and innovativeness. Introduction and Problem Scope For the past several decades we have observed an explosion in the amount of knowledge in the world coupled with an accelerated progression of technological development. The work process reflects this evolution with the invention of new tools and methods which result, for example, in shorter product development cycles as well as shorter product life cycles. Moreover, the very way of working is changing with special emphasis today upon flexibility, decentralisation, collaboration and team work. These changes in work methods have influenced learning as well: for economical, technological and social reasons an increased demand for training has arisen in order to master these changes (Pressey 1926, Skinner 1954, Hawkridge et al. 1990). Several approaches have been undertaken: learning machines, teaching books following the principles of programmed instruction, and other media-based approaches like TV-based training or multimedia , i.e., the combination of teachers and textbooks with audio and video resources. Since the 1970s, computer support for learning has been a hot topic. Computerbased training of various kinds (ranging from simple drill & practise tools to intelligent
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
tutoring systems) was expected to provide interactivity, individualisation and feedback to the learner. These methods have not succeeded on a large scale. While very enthusiastically promoted, these approaches failed for many reasons, some of which are listed below: 1. Though intended to be interactive, individualised and capable of providing helpful feedback to the learner, no approach totally succeeded in meeting these expectations. It became evident that the interactivity is limited to the software’s ability to react to the learner’s actions. Furthermore, the individualisation is mainly limited to the navigation paths provided by the authors, and the learner feedback is limited to simple task types (e.g., multiple choice questions), weak structured content areas or relatively simple pattern matching approaches (e.g., does the answer include the keywords as stored in the system?). 2. The decomposition of learning content into small knowledge units (and the splitting of learning into small learning steps) over-simplifies reality. It becomes difficult to transfer such de-contextualized knowledge to the tasks at hand (‘inert knowledge’). Hypertext and hypermedia can be seen as a possible solution to some of the above problems by increasing learner control and providing multiple structured information. The breakdown of complex issues into a set of hypertext/hypermedia nodes overtaxes learners with the additional cognitive effort of integrating the various information elements (‘cognitive overload’, ‘lost-in-hyperspace’). 3. Nearly all approaches aim at supporting individual learners. Therefore, the possible benefits from communication and cooperation in a team are not realised (see section below on traditional learning techniques). For a flexible organisation (as most organisations are), self-controlled learning processes are of utmost importance. Modern working practices demand that workers constantly update their knowledge. Likewise, in order to thrive, it is essential for a company to expand its knowledge base as a whole, thereby encouraging workers to work together, seeking knowledge from each other and sharing their expertise. Cooperation among individuals and teams is essential but proves challenging when, as is so often the case, these individuals and teams are geographically dispersed. Alternatively, issues of training on demand often arise in this ever changing environment, which in turn provide challenges for those working in distributed organizations. In our point of view these shortcomings of traditional approaches can be treated by enhancing the human factor in the system: combining computer support with telecommunication and telecooperation, providing the potential for interactivity, individualisation, feedback, and helping to master the complexity of reality. What is needed in the long term is a centralised, constantly accessible tool which meets the collaboration and training needs of distributed organizations, thus combining working with learning. In the next section an analysis of the shortcomings of traditional learning strategies which concentrate on individual learning is provided. The section after that describes some cooperative learning approaches which other groups have taken. Next we describe our approach and how it meets the requirements stated above followed by a discussion of some specific features of our current prototype system. Finally, we conclude indicating, our next steps and plans for future extensions. Traditional Learning Techniques Traditionally, learning theory has been concerned with individual learning, i.e., the modification of behavior of a single person or the acquisition of knowledge within a
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
solipsistic mind. This view applies to classical and operant conditioning theories, to Piaget´s theory (Piaget, 1950) as well as to modern cognitive approaches such as ACT* (Anderson, 1983) or SOAR (Newell, 1990). Behaviorist theories, e.g., do not differentiate between social and non-social stimuli; reinforcement mechanisms are considered to be general enough to neglect these distinctions. The same applies to the proceduralisation of declaritive knowledge, which is the central learning mechanism in ACT*. Building new productions in procedural memory is only controlled by internal factors, such as frequency and primacy of use, but not by the type of social interaction involved. Related to this is another shortcoming: traditional learning theories are usually content-independent, i.e., learning is conceptualized as governed by general laws (e.g., laws of reinforcement, or laws of cognitive organisation). However, especially with respect to learning-on-the-job, content-specific aspects have to be taken into account. This basic paradigm, that learning takes place independently in each individual and is governed by general laws of the mind, is also reflected by instructional methods ranging from traditional lecture style learning to elaborated intelligent tutorial systems, which rely on building models of individual learners only. Even Bandura´s social learning theory (Bandura, 1986) does not deal with cooperation proper, though the specifics of a social environment are taken into account. However, cooperative learning shows some characteristics which go beyond explanations of individual learning. Generally, there is a high degree of interdependence among learners, i.e., what one person learns depends on what and how another person learns. Given a highly homogeneous group, the result of the learning process is not only incorporated in isolated minds, but reflects the performance of the group as a whole. What the group has learned can be more and different than what each individual has learned. This effect has long been known by social psychologists studying group performance in problem solving. Under some conditions, the group out-performs even the best individual member (Forsyth, 1990). The learning organism is not the individual, but the group as a whole (and, eventually, the learning organisation). The fact that learning effectiveness is enhanced by appropriate communication among individuals is emphasized in situatedlearning approaches (Suchman, 1987). Since meaning is largely socially constructed, learning of meaningful representations can only be achieved by cooperative activities based on a common learning goal. In addition, cooperative learning not only refers to a specific content, but also implies learning to cooperate. Learning strategies that are effective in cooperative settings are partly different from strategies for individual learning. Cooperative learning improves social skills generally as well as skills associated with specific contents (Hooper, 1992). Additionally, metacognitive skills such as learning how others learn and learning to rely on others as sources of knowledge are involved in cooperative learning. These aspects of interdependence and meta-learning are rarely addressed in traditional learning theories, but are increasingly salient features of work processes in modern organisations. Following the decline of Taylorism, team work has emerged as a primary factor of productivity in many firms. The team as a holistic organism needs to continually adapt to new information and new technologies. Additionally, team membership is also often changing, which requires new members to quickly update their knowledge. Since dynamic work processes do not permit quitting work for an extended period of learning, this updating takes place as an integrated part of work. In sum, we propose that team work and integrated cooperative learning within teams will soon become the major paradigm for learning and instruction technologies, overcoming the traditional individual-centered approach. As a consequence, the CLear system is not tailored to specific learning methods and does not implement one specific established learning theory, but is a general environment that enables learners to adapt it to their needs within the context of a group learning process.
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
Cooperative Learning Systems There is a growing interest in both the fields of computer supported cooperative work and computer supported cooperative learning, resulting in the production of several cooperative learning and/or working systems somewhat similar to CLear. For example, Lotus Institute’s LearningSpace (http://www.lotus.com) focuses upon learning team-centered education which is delivered by a content expert to a distributed audience anywhere at anytime. LearningSpace makes use of LotusNotes and the World Wide Web to support primarily asynchronous collaboration and interaction. Likewise, the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Virtual Classroom (Hiltz, 1995) also supports cooperative learning among distributed students. Again, participation is principally asynchronous with students dialling in at any time from any location with access to a telephone system. Both of these systems focus upon student-centered cooperative learning, but do not provide a great deal of support for synchronous collaboration, or for transfering knowledge gained to work-related activities. The Forum Project (Isaacs, 1994) from Sun Microsystems allows broadcasts of remote speakers’ presentations to the desktop workstations of audience members. Interaction between audience members and the speaker is enabled through electronic comments, anonymous voting and verbal asking of questions via a microphone. All of the above-mentioned projects feature the use of technology to support cooperative learning and working in various degrees. None, however, appears to address the integration of cooperative learning and working to much of an extent. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no other cooperative learning system provides asynchronous, synchronous and autonomous collaboration modes as found in CLear. A more detailed analysis of the CLear approach follows. The CLear Approach As stated previously, effective knowledge management requires learning (training) and working to be integrated. The distinction between learning and working is becoming increasingly blurred as the two overlap each other. Moreover, „learning is not something that requires time out from being engaged in productive activity; learning is the heart of productive activity. To put it simply, learning is the new form of labor.“ (Zuboff, 1988) Yet most cooperative learning systems do not include any type of integration with or transfer to the work environment. In the CLear (Cooperative Learning) project at GMD-IPSI we develop cooperative learning environments in order to meet those needs. The current CLear prototype, named VITAL, supports asynchronous learning (individual exercises and self-study), synchronous interactive presentations (briefings, demonstrations) and synchronous cooperative learning (group work, discussion, brainstorming), thereby enabling the acquisition of knowledge and skills in cooperative settings independently of time and space. For these purposes, VITAL provides a virtual world consisting of participants representing real-world users and locations (see Fig. 1). Participants can play the role of learners, trainers/facilitators and remote experts. Locations include virtual learning and work rooms for each participant as well as special group work rooms and lecture halls. The metaphor of virtual rooms containing learning or working material in the form of hypermedia documents and room-specific tools is used to structure the different sets of functionalities which support cooperative learning. Functionalities found in a group room are different from those found in a private workspace or virtual office. Similarly, the content found in these virtual rooms varies. Thus, in our system, hypermedia models both content and location. As participants can move freely from room to room they can choose with whom to cooperate, on which topic, and under which conditions.
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
Fig. 1: The ‘world browser’ showing the locations in the virtual world of VITAL and the whereabouts of the inhabitants. The learners are connected to each other and to trainers by audio/video and data networks. Each learner can create and edit documents individually or cooperatively in his or her virtual individual room (virtual office), in group rooms or in public places, such as a virtual auditorium. For example the learners can jointly create, manipulate, annotate and link hypermedia nodes (locations, documents, links) and media objects such as text, graphics or scribbles.
Fig. 2: Martin and Rüdiger are currently working in group room 1. The screenshot shows the people in the virtual room on the left side and available tools in the top line. In the main area Martin is using a telepointer to pinpoint a location to the group. The Clear system supports all phases of learning including asynchronous, synchronous, and autonomous learning (Edwards & Mynatt, 1997), which is characterized by periods of independent loosely-coupled work followed by intense tightly-coupled collaboration to integrate the individual work. Furthermore, as stated previously, Clear supports both co-
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
located and distributed participants. Another point of interest involves CLear’s target user group - adults in distributed organizations. Adults prefer a problem-centered rather than a content-oriented approach to learning, especially when the learning is needed for their job. Adults prefer to be actively engaged in the learning process and to take part in practical exercises which can be applied directly to the work task at hand. Team work plays a predominant role in most organizations thus necessitating a system with extensive collaboration support. CLear responds to collaboration requirements through audio/video connections and internal features such as annotating, virtual communication gestures (i.e. raising of hands), joint editing of documents, joint manipulation of hypermedia elements, public and anonymous voting, and awareness of each particiants’ actions and virtual whereabouts. For example, in Fig.2 we see two users currently working jointly in a virtual group room. Both are aware of each other’s presence and actions. This focus on cooperation enables effective conducting of team work. Organizations generally have several divisions and subdivisions. Within each of these components is a team of people. We have decided that these ‘small’ distributed teams of 530 people are Clear’s target user group. However, this figure is subject to change as we are currently evaluating the effects of accomodating a larger number of users. We aim to determine the point at which the number of participants and the number of distributed locations using the system is optimal. The First Prototype The current prototype of the CLear project, named VITAL, is based upon previous work at GMD-IPSI in the field of cooperative work, building upon ideas of the electronic meeting support system DOLPHIN (Streitz et al., 1994) and implemented using the COAST (Schuckmann et al., 1996) framework, which allows the easy development of synchronous cooperative applications. It runs on Microsoft and UNIX platforms requiring only the standard TCP/IP protocol for communication between VITAL installations. In the VITAL architecture a single server stores all data of a virtual world including hypermedia documents, locations, and participants. An arbitrary number of VITAL clients can connect to this server at any time to access and modify the data provided by the server. Data replication and optimistic concurrency control are used to ensure a high responsiveness of the client’s user interfaces as well as low bandwidth requirements while working with the system. VITAL is a fully group-aware application. As participants move from location to location or modify parts of the hypermedia document this is immediately reflected in the user interface of all users. Participants in the same virtual room have the same view of the hypermedia document at all times, receiving very fine-grained updates of document modifications (e.g. single character inserts). VITAL introduces a simple yet flexible hypermedia document model in which pages can be arbitrarily linked. Pages can contain text, bitmaps, and tables which can be freely positioned on a page. Finally, any page element can have attached annotations and can serve as a link anchor. Annotations can be private and thereby invisible to other users. VITAL offers tools to create, modify, and extend hypermedia documents very easily. Furthermore, functionality for browsing hypermedia document structures is provided. To support coordination tasks VITAL includes a flexible voting facility and functionality for participants to attract attention (e.g. raise a hand feature). As mentioned before, participants can play different roles (e.g. tutor or learner). These roles are used by the system to handle access rights and floor control. In an auditorium learners can raise their
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
hands to attract the teacher’s attention. The teacher has no such functionality, but is allowed to modify and browse (i.e. present) the hypermedia document which serves as material for the current lecture. Outlook Next steps of the CLear project include the development and maintenance of a repository that will serve as an ever-expanding, always accessible knowlege base in which workers could both record and retrieve needed knowledge. Another future goal is to extend the classroom mode to training on demand. Currently we are working on simplifying the handling of access rights by refining the user model and introducing group modelling capabilities. Extended room and situation awareness is expected to improve storage and retrieval of knowledge. Also, improving the integration of audio/video components with the VITAL system is a major objective. In addition, we are working on further smoothing the transition between the various usage modes (i.e. asynchronous, synchronous). VITAL is currently being evaluated at GMD-IPSI by a multi-disciplinary group consisting of members with expertise in instructional design, psychology, pedagogics, and computer science. Preliminary results indicate that the prototype appears to meet the needs of users. Issues of access control (who can do what, where) and user and group models (1 group versus 20 participants) need to be refined. Additionally, this internal evaluation will provide useful feedback regarding the virtual room metaphor and other features of VITAL. A real world evaluation of VITAL both in a university and a corporate setting is currently being planned. VITAL will be utilized during the 1998 winter term by members of a class at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Meanwhile, arrangements to incorporate VITAL into a corporate setting are currently being discussed. References Anderson, J. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: a social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. Edwards, W.K, Mynatt, E.D. (1997), Timewarp: Techniques for Autonomous Collaboration. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI ‘97 Atlanta, Georgia March 22-27. Forsyth, D. (1990). An introduction to group dynamics. Monterey: Brooks and Cole. Hawkridge, D., Jaworski, J., & McMahon, H. (1990). Computers in third world schools. London: Macmillan. Hiltz, R.S. (1995). Teaching in a Virtual Classroom. Invited paper for 1995 International Conference on Computer Assisted Instruction (ICCAI ’95) Hooper, S. (1992). Cooperative learning and computer-based instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40, 21-38. Isaacs, E. (1994). A Forum for Supporting Interactive Presentations to Distributed Audiences. In: Proceedings of the ACM 1994 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ’94), ACM Press, New York. Lumsdaine, A.A., Glaser, R. (1960): Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning - A 7 Source Book. National Education Association of the United States ( 1966). Newell, A. (1990). Unified theories of cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Piaget, J. (1950). The psychology of intelligence. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Proc. of the conference BITE Bringing Information Technology to Education. Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 25-27, 1998.
Pressey, S.L. (1926). A Simple Apperatus Which Gives Tests and Scores - and Teaches. In:Lumsdaine & Glaser (1960), p. 35-41. Schuckmann, C., Kirchner, L., Schümmer, J., Haake, J.M. (1996). Designing objectoriented synchronous groupware with COAST. In: Proceedings of the ACM 1996 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '96), Boston, Massachusetts, November 16-20, 1996, pp. 30-38. ACM Press, New York. Skinner, B.F. (1954). The Science of Learning And the Art of Teaching. In: Lumsdaine & Glaser (1960), p. 99-113. Streitz, N.A., Geißler, J., Haake, J.M., Hol, J.(1994), DOLPHIN: Integrated Meeting Support across LiveBoards, Local and Remote Desktop Environments. In: Proceedings of the 1994 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '94), Chapel Hill, N.C., October 22-26, 1994, pp. 345-358. ACM Press, New York Suchman, L. A. (1987). Plans and situated actions: The problem of human/machine communication. New York: Cambridge University Press. Zuboff, S. (1988), In the Age of the Smart Machine. New York, Basic Books.
