Teachers' Instructional Planning for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Macro-Scripts as a Pedagogical Method to Facilitate Collaborative Learning

This article was published in Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol 26, Issue 4, Author(s): Raija Hämäläinen and Päivi Häkkinen, “Teachers' Instructional Planning for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Macro-Scripts as a Pedagogical Method to Facilitate Collaborative Learning”, Pages 871-877, Copyright Elsevier (May 2010).

Technological tools challenge teachers' pedagogical activities. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education should help teachers integrate new pedagogical methods into their work.

The current study explores macro-level computer-supported collaborative learning scripts as a pedagogical method to facilitate collaboration. Macro-scripts set up conditions in which favourable collaborative activities such as argumentation should occur.

This case-study examines the difference between the “ideal” script and the “actual, realized” script to find out how collaboration differs between different groups.

This study demonstrates that macro-scripts support collaboration by introducing the reason for interaction and by helping students solve learning tasks. However, macro-scripts do not guarantee high-level collaboration.