A study of mobile computer supported collaborative learning on fraction addition

Abstract

According to constructivists, learning should be an active and constructive process; learners construct their knowledge by engaging in learning activities. With the advancement in wireless connection of handheld devices, collaborative interaction can be promoted and facilitated among learners and facilitators, and information flow can be enhanced everywhere. A web-based cognitive tool with the Graphical Partitioning Model (GPM) designed by Kong & Kwok (2002) is a scaffold that supports individual learning on comprehending the procedural knowledge of fraction operations. Collaborative learning is a special form of interaction that stresses the idea of the co-construction of knowledge and the mutual engagement of participants. With regard to the availability of mobile technologies and the potential of developing the GPM as a collaborative learning tool, we aimed to redesign the web-based cognitive tool onto a mobile platform with collaborative features. In order to promote cooperative behavior, mutual dependence among group members must be developed through the design of the task structure, incentive structure and group motivation. Furthermore, two main issues were addressed in redesigning the cognitive tool for collaborative learning in handheld devices: the human-computer interface and the communication model between students and teachers. In designing the human-computer interface, we needed to preserve the original features of the cognitive tool, but also to provide a new interface to facilitate collaborative learning and to allow for the constraints and limitations of handheld devices. Windows Mobile 2003 was selected as the mobile platform because of its stability and relatively standardized screen size. The proposed mobile computer supported collaborative fraction learning was tested in a primary school. From the experiment, we found that all learners could construct the procedural knowledge of fraction addition with common denominator after working with the cognitive tool for two sessions. The result of this research study shows that a mobile device can provide a physical affordance and flexibility to promote learning interactively in a well-structured learning activity. Moreover, the result shows that the proposed collaborative fraction learning activity with the cognitive tool on a mobile platform is highly potential to be used in a large classroom for further evaluation on the effectiveness of learning.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2007
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Lam For KWOK (Supervisor)