"How Big Is a Tilapia?" Negotiating Collaborative Inquiry in a Game-Based Learning Environment

• In Event: Orchestrating Collaborative Play for Diverse Participation Across Contexts and Disciplines

Abstract

Purpose and Framework
Collaborative inquiry play is a complex activity that may not spontaneously happen and requires expert facilitation to support learner success (Authors, 2019). Successful collaborative play occurs through classroom discourse, and facilitators’ discursive moves play a critical role in determining the direction of the conversation (Chin, 2007; Weinberger & Fischer 2006). Productive discourse can be recognized by specific signifiers associated with Accountable Talk (Michaels et al., 2008): making reasoning explicitly public, listening carefully, and building on one another’s reasoning. However, teachers are often not familiar with this kind of facilitation and tend to structure collaborating activities. Although students still need support to be productive, this tendency to structure can challenge the nature of student-led collaboration. This study aimed to develop an understanding of how a facilitator might balance between student agency with the need to achieve defined learning goals.

Methods and Data Sources
Participants were from two class periods (N=27) and worked in groups of four with a trained facilitator. In this study, we used an Interaction Analysis approach (Jordan & Henderson, 2009) to analyze a group of four students and a facilitator. Primary data was chat logs from a multiplayer game focused on ecosystems content (Authors, 2019).

Results
Preliminary findings highlighted a tension between facilitator aims and student impulses, interests, and goals, primarily in how the facilitator and students negotiated the direction of discourse as they continued to interact in the task. In one example, students were discussing the possible hypothesis for the death of tilapia in a fishery. Students referred to the ideas that were introduced in the game and highlighted a topic of their interest that was not covered in the game but highly relevant to the problem. Specifically, a student, Jeepney initiated a topic about commercial farming, and another student, Sun, asked about the size of tilapia. The students kept bringing up this topic until it was discussed by the group. Moreover, once students were engaged with the topic, the facilitator’s bid to move the task forward was not immediately taken up. This interaction demonstrated how the students appeared to have a form of student agency and resistance to follow the facilitator’s direction. At the same time, the facilitator seemed to try to redirect the conversation to the desired and targeted task while letting student discussion flow by marking their idea, providing information about the weight of the tilapia, and asking questions. Later, the students eventually returned to the task and kept exploring the pre-designed learning materials but actively discussed the tilapia topic that they brought up.

Significance
Across all groups, there was a common tension between structuring the activity and letting students explore their set goals in facilitating collaborative inquiry learning. A key takeaway from this work was how playfulness can trigger student interest were sometimes at odds with the facilitators’ goals. Rather than dismissing students’ playful attempts and ideas, it is instead important to acknowledge students’ interests, even if these interests may not fully align with curricular goals.

Authors

• Haesol Bae, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Yuxin Chen, Indiana University

• Asmalina Saleh, Indiana University

• Krista D. Glazewski, Indiana University

• Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Indiana University

• Thomas Brush, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Seung Lee, North Carolina State University

• Bradford Mott, North Carolina State University

• James Lester, North Carolina State University