SCAFFOLDING COMPLEX TASKS BY OPEN ONLINE SUBMISSION: EMERGING PATTERNS AND PROFILES

Abstract

Students in higher-education courses are often confronted with complex tasks that require application and integration of newly gained knowledge. Different students require different types and amounts of instructional scaffolding for coping with such challenging tasks. The incorporation of asynchronous online elements into academic courses offers various ways of implementing traditional instructional scaffolding methods, as well as the ability to incorporate new strategies made feasible by this medium.This paper presents and discusses the potential and challenges of using open online submission of assignments via asynchronous networking as a strategy for providing differential scaffolding in the preparation of complex tasks (not as an alternative model for online peer collaboration).A pilot study, performed with five graduate education courses, showed that open online submission of assignments led to spontaneous, informal peer-evaluation, enabling students to learn from peer examples. The detailed analysis of students’ activity and their reflections has revealed four typical learner profileswith respect to open assignment submission, self-evaluation and characteristic benefit from peer work.