Dan Suthers: Introduction to CSCL Research
Basic reading
- Suthers, D. D. (2012). Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. In N. M. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. New York: Springer. [Online]
Additional reading
- For conceptions of learning in social settings, how technology might support such learning, and a proposed research agenda:
Suthers, D. D. (2006). Technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making: A research agenda for CSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), 1(3), 315-337. - For a summary of the historical origins of CSCL and its evolution in terms of conceptions of learning, methods, and core issues (based partly on Suthers, 2006 above), this longer encyclopedia article serves well:
Stahl, G., Koschmann, T, & Suthers, D. (2006). CSCL: An historical perspective. Based on a chapter in: R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 409-426). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. - For those who prefer specific examples of research, you might wish to contrast a series of experimental studies on "representational affordances" for collaborative learning, summarized in:
Suthers, D. D. (2008). Empirical studies of the value of conceptually explicit notations in collaborative learning. In A. Okada, S. Buckingham Shum & T. Sherborne (Eds.), Knowledge Cartography (pp. 1-23). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. - ... with an ethnomethodologicaly inspired study of learner's representational practices, with my former student Richard Medina:
Medina, R., & Suthers, D. D. (2013). Inscriptions becoming representations in representational practices. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22(1), 33-69.
All the papers can be found online.