A critical systems perspective on how to improve a collaborative learning process

Abstract

This thesis emerged as a way to describe and reflect on the learning acquired throughout the process of designing and implementing two Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) projects in the field of Mathematical Problem-Solving (MPS) in education. This included reflections about how to improve mathematics students' skills and how to overcome CSCL-MPS challenges within the projects' perspective and according to the interests of the Colombian educational system. In doing so, the thesis takes into account, on one hand, the challenges to effective use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education in Colombia, and, on the other hand, the improvement of mathematics learning. This research is aimed at understanding how Critical Systems Thinking (CST) can contribute to improving a CSCL-MPS process in education. In general terms, this aim is achieved by analysing a collaborative learning process from a systemic intervention perspective that allowed us to take advantage of the theoretical and methodological pluralism, to pursue learning while improving the problem situation, and to use the theory of boundary critique to improve that process and to overcome the methodological challenges of CSCL-MPS research. Consequently, different theories and methodologies support this research. First, the learning process is analysed from a constructivist perspective on learning, taking into account diverse approaches (i.e. socio-constructivism, socio-culturalism, group cognition, knowledge building, situated learning, distributed cognition) and dimensions of the process (i.e. cognition, metacognition, collaboration, attitudes, etc.). Second, theories about the use of technology in education add elements to the learning process (ICT literacy, Virtual Learning Environments [VLEs]). Third, different approaches in mathematics learning, including "mathematical problem -solving" and "drill-and-practice", are used to explore the complexity of the mathematics learning-teaching process. Fourth, some traditional methods in the CSCL-MPS field (i.e. Social Network Analysis [SNA], Content Analysis [CA], and mathematical tests) are supported by methods from the systems thinking field (i.e. Critical Systems Heuristics [CSH] and Soft Systems Methodology [SSM]) to analyse the CSCL-MPS process, including learning purposes, participants' identities, cultural perspectives on the learning process, and the context of application. Finally, in addition to the main objective, the results of this research help to put together a proposal taking advantage of the Community of Practice (CoP) framework to support systemic intervention in analysing participants' identities. Hence, the CoP framework puts into consideration learning as a social, active, contextual process with different ways of building identities as trajectories of learning and different modes of identification and accountability. The CST field also supports the CoP framework by taking into account the concepts of boundary and rituals within the dimensions of design for learning in CoPs. Consequently, the research provides feedback to the fields of CSCL-MPS, CST, and CoP, as well as to the practical projects onto which the conceptual framework was applied