UC Santa Barbara

This study was conducted to understand student and teacher perspectives of the ways on-line learning projects provide opportunities for collaborative inquiry-based learning. Towards this end, the researcher utilized text analysis to compare what “counted” to the project's designers to what “counted” to project participants. The study also used ethnographic methods to examine classroom social dynamics through microanalysis of social interactions, discourse, and texts.

The researcher served as principal/co-teacher/participant observer and worked with a sixth grade class and their teacher as they participated in the America Dreams on-line project; an Internet based collaborative, inquiry-based learning project sponsored by the Library of Congress. Text from the America Dreams web pages, linked sources, and e-mail interviews with the project designers served as data for analyzing what “counts” as the project from the designers' point of view. Student created texts, videos of student group collaborations, teacher interviews, surveys, and field notes served as the data for analyzing what “counts” as the America Dreams project from the perspective of the students, teachers, and researcher. The researcher explored the ways that student groups negotiate and take up common tasks as well as examining various sources of discourse and texts and their relative influence on individual student opportunities for learning.

The most significant findings pertained to the intentions of the project designers as they relate to actual usage of the project. Pedagogical, technological, and content related issues concerning the American dream were found to “count” to both the designers and users of the project. A student—centered, constructivist approach that asked students to become researchers was found to serve students and teachers as they explored their community's and their own visions of the American dream. While the project was designed to wed technology with these pedagogical concerns, several of the technological components of the project were not implemented. Internet-based research and web publishing, however, played a significant role in the actual usage of the project. Gender and social status issues among students in the classroom and group cultures emerged as significantly influential in quantities and qualities of speech during group work.