Collaboration Scripts: Guiding, Internalizing, and Adapting

Abstract

Research and practical experience show that for successful collaborative learning, learners need to be willing and able to engage in particular activities. Learners hardly reach this state when left to collaborate on their own. Thus, collaborative learning may rather be set up with particular instructions to learning together effectively. In this chapter, we introduce the Script Theory of Guidance (SToG) to explain how individual learners obtain, adapt, and use cognitive schemas (i.e., internal scripts) about collaborative learning scenarios. The theory further explains how external collaboration scripts can scaffold collaborative learning for collaborative learning. We report on evidence that shows how scripts may help learners engage in transactive group processes that are conducive to joint knowledge construction. Moving beyond currently used scripts, future scripting may focus on the facilitation of interdisciplinary collabortion and scaffolding of learners' mutual regulation throughout collaborative learning processes.