Information Technology Reference
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Script “ ArgueGraph”
Script “ ConceptGrid ”
Fig. 26.2
Integration of activities in two macro-scripts
ArgueGraph (Dillenbourg, 2002) aims to trigger argumentation by forming pairs
of students with conflicting opinions. It is run in five stages: (1) individuals
answer a questionnaire; (2) the system computes their opinion by compiling their
answers and locates them on a map that is projected in the classroom and dis-
cussed collectively; (3) groups are formed with individuals to maximize their
distance on the map; they have to answer the same questionnaire as in the first
phase; (4) the teacher gives a debriefing lecture based on the answers provided
by individuals and pairs; (5) students have to write a summary of the arguments.
Typical ArgueGraph sessions last 3-4 h depending on the number of questions.
Experiments showed that the ArgueGraph conflict mechanism leads students to
express more elaborated arguments (Jermann & Dillenbourg, 1999)
The ConceptGrid script (Dillenbourg & Jermann, 2007) aims to trigger expla-
nations. (1) each team has a set of papers to read and a set of definitions to
produce; students distribute their work within teams; (2) students individually
read the papers they have been assigned to; (3) students individually enter the
definition of the concepts that they have been assigned; (4) teams have to build
a grid of concepts in such a way that they are able to explain the relationship
between two neighbours on the grid (by entering a short text in the system); (5)
the teacher gives a debriefing lecture based on the grids built by students. A typ-
ical ConceptGrid sessions lasts 2-3 weeks, including the time for their readings.
Experiments showed that ConceptGrid forces students to elaborate upon each
other's explanations (Dillenbourg & Hong, 2008).
These examples of macro-script rely on the same design principle that makes
the team interactions more difficult than if the teacher let them freely collaborate.
Collaborative learning is often described as the side effect of the effort engaged
to build a shared understanding of the task at hand. This effort is represented as
on Fig. 26.3: there is a natural divergence in teams at the beginning (
1) and the
script actually increases this divergence (
2) in order to increase the intensity of
interactions required to finally minimize this divergence (
3). In ArgueGraph, the
effort necessary to reach agreement is higher since we pair students who disagree.
In ConceptGrid, the effort necessary to build a consistent grid is increased by the
fact that no student has enough knowledge to do it; they have to explain it to each
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