Collaborative learning and remembering
The term collaborative remembering refers to people recalling, as a group, past experiences that may have been shared. The topic finds application in team-learning contexts. The EU-funded DISTRIBUTEDLEARNING (Effects of joint and multimodal remembering on collaborative learning) project examined the mutual dependencies involved. Using new methods, researchers studied the various interactions and modes of behaviour during collaborative recall. Results indicated that experiment participants structured collaborative remembering in a spiral and iterative way. The process involved associating semantic elements of a conversation. The team further found that the most elaborated categories were best remembered. Participants best recalled the creative moments involving the most joint engagement, and the stages that generated the most joint activity. Outcomes from the design studio indicated that material resources supported collaborative remembering. Reminder questions similarly supported recall, and such questions related to designers' workplace role and status. The study yielded a new theoretical model of how social interaction shapes remembering. The major conclusions were that collaborative remembering should not be considered solely as joint information retrieval. Instead, the principle is necessary for maintaining workplace cohesion, decision-making and planning. Project findings may facilitate the creation of computer-supported external memory systems that support the way team members actually remember. The work may help team members increase performance.
Keywords
Collaborative learning, remembering, DISTRIBUTEDLEARNING, multimodal, team members
