Ámbito de acción del negocio

The first point to note about the 2nd discussion thread is that it contains 2 topics that contributors seem to stick to – the first is about a class activity on problem solving and the second is a broader discussion about genius and art. The second point to note is that the final post in the selection by Frances was agreed by all raters (lecturers) as being collaborative:

I personally see all art as a form of communication, you communicate your thoughts, feelings, perspectives, opinions etc., everything you do in your art has a reason whether you're completely aware of it or not. I believe you never just see something and paint it just because 'it's nice' - there has to be something in what you see that you are relating to and you choose to communicate that through your art. If something is not communicating something, or trying to communicate something, either to the artist or viewer, then I do not think it is art. If someone is not experiencing an 'artwork' - sight, touch, sound etc. then it cannot be communicating anything and cannot be art until it is experienced. (Frances)

What happened before to create this collaborative and insightful observation? As Stahl (2009b) points out in his analysis of maths chat rooms we may as educators focus on the problem solver or the end point of a discussion and ignore the vital role of other members

in leading to that point. I would argue that the preceding contributions to this discussion thread would have played a vital part in this construction of knowledge and it seems to be strong evidence for a group of students collaborating to construct ideas of a deeper nature.

This discussion thread represents Asynchronous Learning as people can read and post comments at times that suit them. In relation to the first topic in this 2nd discussion thread we can note that 6 different people including one tutor contributed. The thread was started by a student Karen on 12th December and received a response on 16th December by a tutor followed by other students on the next day. The discussion explores the original proposal of Karen about the competitive element of problem solving with a variety of different opinions expressed. The second topic was started after the Christmas holidays and the postings span a 5 week period. This time a tutor (Brian) proposed a theoretical discussion of genius as myth to which the same student (Karen) responded with a contribution of more knowledge gained from her reading of a related article which she attached to her post. A week later I posted a response to her and to Brian to which he replied. A week later 6 students contributed their thoughts on the discussion about art. Why did it take this long for students to respond to the thread? As a researcher using Conversation Analysis I am required to stick to the data yet the Action Researcher in me is interested in what was going on. As this was in the middle of the module it may be that there was a drop in motivation as there was no assessment required. To me the data does not answer fully why students respond or don’t respond to proposals from students or lecturers.

So going back to other data were they contributing elsewhere? As Figure 7 shows the most postings were to the 3rd year Professional Practices Exhibition discussion forum and I was led to check back to the original forum. I noticed that during this same period a large number of postings discuss the name, location, publicity and title of the exhibition that the students were busy organizing in the community with a great amount of collaboration. They decided to call their exhibition ‘Stone Soup’ based on a story about communities learning to share in hard times. What do I learn from this? If I based my conclusions solely on my choice of discussion board to analyze then it might not represent the full range of experience. It seems that students are collaborating elsewhere

on the practical task of organizing and exhibition. However, I chose this discussion thread to examine whether students can construct ideas together. If I am to put a strong argument for collaborative learning what can I learn from this discussion board? First that students can dialogue together if supported by tutors who prompt, encourage and support their dialogue. It takes time also. It also needs to be around their area of interest – in this case art. Are they as interested in Community? Actually they did post a variety of ideas on different aspects of community and I noticed some similar ideas surfaced later in the interviews. I also feel the practical nature of the task is important as the exhibition forum was based on a task that gave the group of students a practical focus. It may have been easier for all students to respond to this forum than the more intellectual questioning their lecturers were asking for. However, the collaborative aspect is apparent in debating the topic on genius and art with the posting by students of relevant links to other material for sharing. Possibly the experience of sharing responsibility for organizing the exhibition and producing their exhibits fed into their more abstract thoughts about art. The sense of doing art becoming an artist and thinking about the artistic process may have been going on at this time.