Collaborative Learning in Asynchronous
Learning Networks
Starr Roxanne Hiltz, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Wednesday, Nov. 11th, 10 - 11 AM
Asynchronous online interaction leads to new paradigms for teaching and learning, with both unique problems of coordination and unique opportunities to support active, collaborative (group or team-based) learning. The research reported here was designed to test the premise that collaborative learning is key to achieving superior learning outcomes in this medium. Analysis of post course questionnaires for a recently completed three year project, which produced and delivered 26 courses in Computer and Information Science using ALN to over 1000 students, shows a significant correlation between measures of collaborative learning and measures of desirable course outcomes. A field experiment using a 2 x 2 factorial design was used to test for a cause and effect relationship. On the basis of both cross sectional survey data and experimental data, collaborative learning appears to be crucial to the effectiveness of Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN's). However, collaborative learning strategies are "labor intensive" in terms of the time needed for facilitation and the class size that can be accommodated with current software. Many issues are raised in terms of the role of and rewards to faculty. Will learning via the Internet in the future, assume the form of a rich experience in a collaborative learning community, or will economics and reward systems turn it into a kind of educational factory where materials are posted for thousands of students to work on as individuals, graded by software or part time personnel who are not faculty members?
Starr Roxanne Hiltz is Distinguished Professor of Computer and Information Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology, where she also directs the Collaborative Systems Laboratory. She has spent most of the last twenty years engaged in research on applications and social impacts of computer technology, publishing widely in journals including JMIS, MISQ, Communications of the ACM, and Management Science. Her research interests currently include Group Support Systems and Asynchronous Learning Networks. In particular, with major funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, she has created and experimented with a Virtual Classroom [TM] for delivery of college-level courses. This is a teaching and learning environment which is constructed, not of bricks and boards, but of software structures within a computer-mediated communication system. For more information, see http://eies.njit.edu/~hiltz