Collaborative environments through dialogues and PBL to encourage the self-directed learning in computational sciences

Abstract

Self-directed learning has been one of the main objectives in the education domain. A learning model can drive a self-directed learning if an adequate educational environment is built. We propose an educational environment to encourage the self-directed learning, which is composed of a computer collaborative tool that uses dialogues and the concept of ill structured problems. The knowledge being learned is represented by a network of concepts built by the students through the exchanged messages. The network of concepts expressed the relation between the main concepts of the topic being learned. A coherent network is the tangible proof that the process of self-directed learning has been correctly achieved. Two topics of computer sciences are reported: Object Oriented Programming and Case Based Reasoning. The results have proven that along with the knowledge acquired, self-directed learning contributes directly to the development of skills for solving problems and attitudes of collaborative work. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.