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Restricting social interaction to cognitive processes

15 January, 2016 - 09:49

Research studies (Montoya et al., 2011; and Kreijns et al., 2003) suggest that educators recognizing the first pitfall often tend to limit their actions to the task context which is tightly related to the collaborative execution of learning tasks. In addition, they tend to limit their actions to the educational dimension –where social interaction is solely in service of the cognitive processes or other educational purposes. This, however, might not be enough. Moreover, research findings (Peter et al., 2010; and Kirkwood, 2010) emphasize the need for relationship building and sharing a sense of community and a common goal. Another research finding is that forming a sense of community, where people feel they will be treated sympathetically by their fellows, seems to be a necessary first step for collaborative learning. The fact remains that without a feeling of community, people are on their own, likely to be anxious, defensive, and unwilling to take the risks involved in learning.

It follows that the second pitfall relates to restricting social interaction to the cognitive processes in learning and ignoring or forgetting the importance of the social (psychological) dimension. This dimension concerns social interaction for group forming, group structure, and group dynamics – all of which are essential for building learning communities. This has been characterized in the literature as the “member support and group well-being functions”- which are so important for successful technology-mediated group-work. However, these group well- being functions are often neglected or worse yet, not even considered (Kirkwood, 2010; McConnell, 1994).