Designing Collaborative Social Networks to Scaffold Complex Content Thinking and Problem Solving

• In Event: Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: Integrating Technologies to Support Student Learning

Abstract

This paper reports the impact of a web-based social network designed to scaffold complex thinking within teacher learning relationships. An online social network was designed to function using social constructivist instructional principles as a tool for teacher co-development of complex thinking with content. Web functions and instruction within the network were designed to serve as tools in a teacher professional development program scaffolding complexity into teacher relationship-based thinking with the content they teach. Changes in teacher conceptual thinking, capacity for dynamic assessment, and perceptions of self-efficacy as teacher leaders are presented. Implications for web-based programming and pedagogical design of social networks for scaffolding increasingly complex learning relationships are also discussed.

Authors

• Roger B. Peckover, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

• Pat Christiansen, Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

• Suzanne Peterson, Saint Mary's University