Promoting effective peer interaction in an intelligent collaborative learning system

Abstract

Placing students in a group and assigning them a task does not guarantee that the students will engage in effective collaborative learning behavior. The collaborative learning model described in this paper identifies the specific characteristics exhibited by effective collaborative learning teams, and based on these characteristics, suggests strategies for promoting effective peer interaction. The model is designed to help an intelligent collaborative learning system recognize and target group interaction problem areas. Once targeted, the system can take actions to help students collaborate more effectively with their peers, maximizing individual student and group learning.