Cognitive Tools in Online Education

• In Event: 34.097 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Four - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 34.097-2 - Cultural Tools for Social Inclusion: Designing Educational Interventions to Support the Development of Agency

Abstract

A central concept in online course design, cognitive tool, has historical roots in Vygotsky’s concept of mediation, but is usually interpreted in North America as an adjunct to a cognitive approach to learning as an individual internal mental process. This results in research on cognitive tools that focus on software. We propose a reorientation of cognitive tool, using Engeström’s Activity Theory. By adopting this framework, the unit of analysis in designing online learning moves from the software to the learning activity, in which cognitive tools serve as mediators. To that end, we present a design research study describing how a series of cognitive tools were designed for a series of leaning activities for an online course in statistics.

Authors

• Michael Lindsley Hoover, McGill University

• John Cripps Clark, Deakin University