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Supporting Critical Thinkingin Interactive LearningEnvironmentsCarol B. Macknight aa Office of Information Technologies, LederleGraduate Research Center , University ofMassachusetts , Amherst , MA , 01003 , USAPublished online: 11 Oct 2008.
To cite this article: Carol B. Macknight (2001) Supporting Critical Thinking inInteractive Learning Environments, Computers in the Schools: InterdisciplinaryJournal of Practice, Theory, and Applied Research, 17:3-4, 17-32, DOI: 10.1300/J025v17n03_02
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Carol B. MacKnight
Supporting Critical Thinkingin Interactive Learning Environments
SUMMARY. The aim of this paper is to investigate the utilization of crit-ical thinking in different applications and in different types of learning en-vironments. The art of analytical reading includes the same skills as thoseinvolved in the art of problem solving and communicating. These skillsare essential to the process of filtering, assimilating, and finding newmeaning in the torrents of information faced daily. Described are a prob-lem-solving environment and Web communication systems, with the sug-gestion that the Web tools have not yet come up to faculty expectations forteaching and learning. [Article copies available for a fee from The HaworthDocument Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2001 byThe Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Critical thinking online, reading critically, critical ques-tioning, analytical skills, knowledge creation, problem solving, inquiry-based learning
The intellectual gap between those who enter college able to readcritically and those who have difficulty even in identifying an author’smajor thesis may be the single most important issue in postsecondaryeducation (Orndorff, 1987). Reading is an active, thinking process
CAROL B. MACKNIGHT is Instructional Technologist, Office of Information Tech-nologies, Lederle Graduate Research Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,MA 01003 (E-mail: [email protected]).
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Supporting Critical Thinking in Interactive Learning Environments.”MacKnight, Carol B. Co-published simultaneously in Computers in the Schools (The Haworth Press, Inc.)Vol. 17, No. 3/4, 2001, pp. 17-32; and: The Web in Higher Education: Assessing the Impact and Fulfilling thePotential (ed: Cleborne D. Maddux, and D. LaMont Johnson) The Haworth Press, Inc., 2001, pp. 17-32. Sin-gle or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service[1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].
2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 17
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(Adler & Van Doren, 1972; Spiro, 1980). It helps students constructmeaning from a book or a research article, participate in online coursediscussion, and evaluate resources on the Web. Orndorff (1987) sug-gests that students’ inability to read critically is related to the fact thatthis skill has not been widely taught.
Students are introduced to elementary reading, making sense ofwords and sentences, in the early years of their schooling. By juniorhigh, some students may be able to complete what Adler and Van Doren(1972) call an inspectional reading; that is, they can answer what thebook is about, what its structure and parts are, and identify the kind ofbook it is. Students, however, continue to have trouble with these firsttwo levels of reading. Few, upon entering college, progress to the thirdlevel of reading, analytical reading, where the reader asks many orga-nized, critical questions of what is read. Still fewer are capable of read-ing many books on a topic and able to construct an analysis that may notbe in any of them, in effect, create new knowledge (Adler & Van Doren,1972; Browne & Keeley, 1986; Jonassen, 1996).
Following is an examination of the essence of active reading, a kindof “talking back” to the author, and a description of how the art and skillinvolved in interacting with texts are utilized in a problem-solving envi-ronment on the Web and possibly underutilized in online communicationtools. It is argued that analytical skills must be taught and that the Webcould offer an appropriate environment for developing and using in-sightful reading skills.
WHAT IS READING REALLY?
Some students are naturally gifted interrogators of information andcapable of evaluating a wide variety of resources. Many others have tolearn how to interact with texts. To get the most out of a journal article,critique of a book or a poem, the active reader must engage in a criti-cal-questioning strategy. It is not enough to simply get the overall ideaof what the book is about, an inspectional reading. This is a necessarystep, but it represents a more passive approach, a reading purely for in-formation or entertainment, than the one required to develop criticalthinking for analytical reading described below.
Being a Demanding Reader
The techniques that reviewers and editors apply to books and articlesare those that active readers also employ when interacting with the au-
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thor and the text. They read a book, as they would look at a house withan orderly arrangement of rooms. Each room may be an independentunit but, nevertheless, relate in such a way to the other spaces as to makethe whole useful, and the architectural plan intelligible. Reviewers, likeall good readers, find the author’s organizational plan by asking appro-priate questions.
Indeed, “None of the more complex steps in the critical-reading pro-cess is particularly helpful until the [pattern of] organization is discov-ered” (Browne & Keeley, 1986, p. 9). What is the structure? What arethe parts? What are the major organizational functions that sentencesand paragraphs offer that good readers look for as they read? The im-portant parts of the structure are the leading theme and the argu-ments–issues, reasons, and conclusion(s). The critical question to ask ofeach is “what?” followed by “why?”
Critical reading is a sorting-out process. Active readers search for thewriter’s reasoning, which may not always be obvious. They questionwhether important elements are present, whether those present areclear, and chafe at those elements in an article that don’t belong there.They are active searchers in a dialog with the writer, asking criticalquestions, as all good readers should do.
Acquiring “question-asking” skills begin with knowing the rightquestions to ask and applying them to a variety of reading materials,from a research article to a novel. In their book, Asking the Right Ques-tions, Browne and Keeley list the following questions as a preconditionfor critical thinking:
1. What are the issue[s] and the conclusion[s]?2. What are the reasons?3. What words or phrases are ambiguous?4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions?5. What are the definitional and descriptive assumptions?6. Are the samples representative and the measurements valid?7. Are there flaws in the statistical reasoning?8. Are there alternative causal explanations?9. Are there any errors in reasoning?
10. What significant information is omitted?11. What alternative conclusions are consistent with the strong rea-
sons?12. What are your value preferences in this controversy? (Brown &
Keeley, 1986, p. 8).
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Active readers use their analytical skills preeminently for the sake ofunderstanding. They are not the type of readers who finish a book onlyto start another, and who may, therefore, become superficially ac-quainted with a large number of books (Adler & Van Doren, 1972).Good readers not only evaluate the significance of what they are read-ing, but also spend time in reflection (Harste, 1986). The seeds of ideasthat emerge from their reflections are often discussed in classrooms,book clubs, and coffee shops. And sometimes, after refining theseideas, these seeds grow beyond the condition of personal understandingand become new knowledge for others to use.
Traditionally, books have been an important tool in our endeavors tomove from understanding less to understanding more. “If we want to goon learning, then we must know how to learn from books” (Adler &Van Doren, 1972, p. 115). It is an impossible task to learn more frombooks without at least some skill in analytical reading: being able to de-fine the problem or problems that the author is trying to resolve (Adler &Van Doren, 1972). To go on reading actively requires not only the will-ingness, but also the skills to do so. Like all skills, acquiring them takespractice. Analytical skills are not reserved only for reading, for allforms of communication require them. They can, therefore, be trans-ferred to diverse applications, as we will see later in this article.
The creation of new knowledge rests on students’ well-developed ca-pabilities to problem solve and think critically.1 Those who excel arethose who can go beyond collecting information and can add new valueto information. “Faced with the explosion of information and its frag-mentation, . . . the faculties of our universities are confronted with thedifficult choice of balancing analysis with synthesis, methodology, andthe relevant course content, thus placing more and more responsibilityon the student to form his own syntheses” (Gregorian, 1996, p. 599).New technologies give us the tools and resources to help students de-velop critical-thinking skills and establish coherence, connection, andmeaning in many disciplines.
In the next section, an online problem-solving environment is de-scribed, the Knowledge Integration Environment,2 which focuses onthe development of similar skills to those used in analytical reading.The Knowledge Integration Environment uses Web-based tools devel-oped specifically to structure learning activities in science that addressstudent misconceptions, and that seek student elaboration of their an-swers and justification of their responses through discussion, interac-tive questioning, and group presentations.
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MAKING THE PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCESS VISIBLE
The Knowledge Integration Environment3 is a joint project betweenhigher education (engineering and education) and public schools. It of-fers a learning environment that “uses the Internet to help middle andhigh school students develop an integrated understanding of scienceand a critical eye toward the complex resources found on the Web”(Knowledge Integration Environment, 1997, p. 1).
The Knowledge Integration Environment is based on ScaffoldedKnowledge Integration, a framework developed through more than 10years of cognitive research on students’ scientific thinking and influ-enced by Vygotsky’s work on social interaction in cooperative learningand scaffolding. Scaffolding is the process of providing the help andguidance necessary for solving problems that are slightly more difficultthan those that students can tackle independently (Collins, Brown, &Newman, 1989; Palincsar & Brown, 1984).
The Knowledge Integration Environment students begin their projectby stating their own opinion about a scientific question or theory, suchas heat transfer. Will aluminum foil or wool keep something hot that hasbeen taken out of the oven? Students restate the problem identifyingwhat they already know about it, and what they need to learn. Then theysearch the Internet for evidence; evaluate the quality of evidence; createevidence through observations, experiments, and simulations; organizeevidence; develop an argument; and conclude with a classroom debate,in which students present their arguments and supporting evidence, andfield questions from the rest of the class. There are many similarities inthis process to those used by a critical reader who continually asks ques-tions of the author, reflects on these questions, and discusses points ofunderstanding, disagreement, or confusion with others.
A key feature of the Knowledge Integration Environment is its suiteof online tools for problem solving (see Table 1). These tools help stu-dents “express and reflect on their conceptual ideas about scientificphenomena, explore and compare their ideas to those of others, andmake sound discriminations between the set of models under consider-ation” (Bell, 1997, p. 2).
Supporting Group Argumentation and Knowledge Construction
The SenseMaker tool in the Knowledge Integration Environment“provides a spatial and categorical representation for a collection ofWeb-based evidence” (Bell, 1997, p. 2). It allows groups of students to
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organize, annotate, and rate a collection of evidence associated withtheir project. As part of the process, students use the online Guide com-ponent to elaborate on their scientific ideas and SenseMaker to developbroad conceptual categories in which to group the evidence. SenseMakerhas built-in scaffolding to help students as they create new frames (cate-gories) for their evidence. It also has a Frame Library, modeling goodexamples and criteria for new conceptual categories. Research indicates“SenseMaker arguments can foster meaningful collaboration betweenstudents by making thinking visible between the individuals involved”(Bell, 1997, p. 7).
To add to our knowledge, it is helpful to test and solidify new ideaswith others. Oral communication–student-student, student-teacher, stu-dent-class–is also an important component of the Knowledge Integra-tion Environment. The Knowledge Integration Environment succeeds,says Marcia Linn, a professor at the University of California at Berke-ley, “by helping students link, connect, distinguish, compare, and ana-lyze their repertoire of ideas” (Linn, 1996, April, p. 34).
The Knowledge Integration Environment offers an exciting onlineenvironment for students and teachers in their exploration of scientificideas. Its integrated suite of tools helps learners establish a visual pic-ture of the complex process involved in problem solving and deci-sionmaking. The built-in tools support them in their investigations in aninquiry-based pedagogy and help them become improved problemsolvers. The Checklist, a form of labeling, tracks what needs to be donenext, helping the teacher maintain the role of facilitator and giving stu-dents more self-directed responsibility for their own learning andknowledge creation.
22 THE WEB IN HIGHER EDUCATION: ASSESSING THE IMPACT
TABLE 1. Online Tools for the Knowledge Integration Environment
Tools Function
Checklist Tracks what they have done; what is left to be done; and how todo it
Mildred the Cow Serves as an online guide providing cognitive guidance
Note Taking A place to write ideas and evidence down
SenseMaker Allows students to organize evidence into a coherent scientificargument
Evidence Database A collection of individual pieces of evidence
SpeakEasy Allows students to exchange and evaluate scientific ideas withclassmates, other students, and scientists over the Internet
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Most importantly, students gain lifelong learning skills relating to theuse of evidence in supporting arguments and the interpretation of currentscientific debates, such as the deformed frog controversy. Collected evi-dence is evaluated and color-coded according to its importance in support-ing the competing hypotheses–a chemical hypothesis or a parasitehypothesis–that explain the cause of the current deformity found in frogs.
In the final section, the potential of online communication tools(e-mail, distribution lists, bulletin boards, group forums, and confer-ences) is considered as it applies to advancing critical thinking, andbuilding collaborative communities of learners.
CAN WEB COMMUNICATION TOOLSPROMOTE CRITICAL THINKING?
The potential of the Web for establishing communication and collab-oration among individuals and groups has long been recognized as oneof its major features. Faculty has used the Web to conduct group discus-sions that could not be effectively handled in class due to time con-straints and class size. The quality of the discussions, however, has beenmixed. In those cases where quality was relatively poor, major reasonsgiven were unclear objectives and requirements, insufficient mentoring,and lack of critical-thinking skills. With respect to the performance ofstudents in discussing a text just read, the National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress (1981) noted:
Students seem satisfied with their initial interpretations of whatthey have read and seem genuinely puzzled at a request to explainor defend their point of view. As a result, responses to assessmentitems requiring explanations of criteria, analysis of texts or de-fense of a judgmental point of view were disappointing. Few stu-dents could provide more than superficial responses to such tasks,and even the “better” responses showed little evidence of well de-veloped problem-solving or critical thinking skills. (pp. 28-29)
Online communications put emphasis on student comprehension andknowledge of the elements of an argument. We cannot assume that allstudents will come with sufficient critical thinking skills to advance anonline conversation. The building blocks of an argument must becomesecond nature to students. If we want to get beyond the point of “I agreewith Harry’s statement,” then we must consider the issues described
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earlier that focus on the process of reading critically for understanding.Throughout their educational studies, students should have repeated op-portunities to practice critical thinking.
Techniques for Monitoring Discussions
In current communication tools on the Web, the instructor must demon-strate the quality of critical thinking. Acting as a coach or facilitator, the in-structor models critical thinking with Socratic questions that are designedto clarify, summarize, probe, and move the students’ thinking along (Paul,1996). Exactly what is to be achieved from thinking critically is stated bythe National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking:
Disciplined thinking with respect to any subject involves the ca-pacity on the part of the thinker to recognize, analyze, and assessthe basic elements of thought: the purpose or goal of thinking; theproblem or question at issue; the frame of reference or points ofview involved; assumptions made; central concepts and ideas atwork; principles or theories used; evidence, data, or reasons ad-vanced; claims made and conclusions drawn; inferences, reason-ing, and lines of formulated thought; and implications andconsequences involved. (National Council for Excellence in Criti-cal Thinking, p. 1)
Online communication tools do not address the elements of criticalthinking described in this paper. Therefore, questions raised by the in-structor, acting as a facilitator, become critical and the role of the facilita-tor more demanding. A few examples of Socratic questioning reportedhere are taken from Paul and Binker (1990) and may serve as one line ofquestioning students who are participating in bulletin boards, conferencing(a system for enabling written, online group discussions), or e-mail (seeFigure 1).
Effective Communications
As participants in online discussions, students should ask themselvesseveral questions. The first question is what makes a good conversationor discussion? Bronson Alcott, an innovative educator in the nineteenthcentury, thought conversation to be the most important school activity(MacKnight, 1996). His conversational method has been described inthese terms:
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Conversation was no mere question-and-answer session for Alcott.It was a mood, an atmosphere; it was a work of art as surely as werepaintings or symphonies. Alcott especially liked the analogy to asymphony. He believed that the ideal conversation developed a sin-gle theme and presented it in a variety of ways, providing thegreatest scope and freedom for the genius of the participants. Eachof the participants would contribute his or her ideas about the
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FIGURE 1. Questions for Online Facilitators
Socratic Questioning
Questions for Clarification
13.What do you mean by________?� What is your main point?� Could you give me an example?� What do you think the main issue is here?
Questions that Probe Assumptions� What are you assuming?� What could we assume instead?� How would you justify taking this for granted?� Is this always the case?
Questions that Probe Reasons and Evidence� What would be an example?� Could you explain your reasons to us?� Are those reasons adequate?� Do you have any evidence for that?
Questions about Viewpoints or Perspectives� How would other groups of people respond? Why?� How could you answer the objection that ____would make?� Can anyone see this another way?� What would someone who disagrees say?
Questions that Probe Implications and Consequences� What are you implying by that?� What effect would that have?� What is an alternative?� If this is the case, then what else must be true?
Questions About the Initial Question or Issue� How can we find out?� Can we break this question down at all?� What does this question assume?� Why is this question important?
(From Font, Todd, & Welch, 1996, p. 4)
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theme, thus presenting differing expressions of the theme like the var-ious instruments in an orchestra. All would blend together in beauti-ful harmony as the session progressed. (Dahlstrand, 1945, p. 216)
This definition of a conversation constitutes a well-developed argu-ment: Conversation is an art (claim); participants presented differingperspectives (evidence); all came to a shared meaning on the issue (con-clusion). The aim of education, Alcott declared, is “the production andoriginal exercise of thought [not the learning of facts and the productionof right or wrong answers]” (McCuskey, 1940, p. 32).
Face-to-face conversations or discussions differ from online discus-sion in several respects. In a classroom setting, the instructor can imme-diately refocus or redirect the conversation. Feedback can also be quicklyprovided, but given to fewer students in most classroom settings. Online,asynchronous conversation may allow for increased participation,greater reflection, giving and accepting feedback, group process skills,and achieving negotiation skills. It is important, then, for online partici-pants to be aware of the significance of their responses. In developingthe critical thinking skills, it is necessary to help students assess textualmaterials in light of the following questions.
1. What is the goal of the activity?2. How will my contribution advance the conversation?3. How would I evaluate my contribution?4. Are there errors in my reasoning?5. How good is my evidence?6. Are there alternative causal explanations?7. What significant information is omitted?8. How close are we to solving the problem?
Getting students to think critically over a networked environment canbe time consuming for the facilitator, states Goddard (1996), particu-larly when the class size is larger than 15 students. Chong (1998) af-firms the difficulties of managing asynchronous discussions andenumerates some of the management challenges facilitators must con-sider that arise in large classes. To meet the many challenges, facultymust be prepared to make some changes such as:
1. Increasing their preparation time for successful online activities2. Blocking off sufficient training time for both instructors and stu-
dents
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3. Giving timely and appropriate feedback to large numbers of stu-dents
4. Assessing student progress when the amount of data can be un-manageable
5. Reviewing task clarity and expectations frequently6. Providing support strategies and personnel for technical and
course assistance7. Establishing clear grading criteria when assessment models may
not exist
Chong writes that the amount of information presented in an onlineconference is often overwhelming to students.
Instructionally Relevant Communication Tools
Unlike the Knowledge Integration Environment’s problem-solvingenvironment, many online communication tools (bulletin boards, con-ferences, forums, etc.) fail to meet the immediate instructional needs offaculty who are engaged in critical inquiry. By their lack of structure,these tools imply that discussions are just “talk.” However, for manystudents, interacting with content effectively and interacting socially toconstruct meaning are skills that need to be developed. Bulletin boards,conferences, and forums proliferate with examples of students respond-ing to statements or questions by talking past each other, possibly with agrade in mind. This often happens when the task and expectations areunclear to students and peer interaction isn’t appreciated or is seen ascriticism. Students need to be able to construct their own knowledge: re-formulating it, making it their own personal interpretation, sharing itwith others, and building on these ideas through the reaction and re-sponses of peers (Brown & Thompson, 1997). They must understandthe elements of critical thinking and exercise this thinking. Faculty, onthe other hand, must possess the requisite skills necessary to help stu-dents become conscious of their process of inquiry. Their job as a facili-tator is made that much harder because of the lack of sophistication ofcurrent communication tools.
The communication tools found on the Web were not designed withpedagogical goals in mind. They were designed to attract a general audi-ence with their ease of use. The options for participation are often restrictedto the posting of comments and responses in a single format. The process ofaccessing comments by individual students in a threaded discussion is of-ten unwieldy. Vaughn (1999), in addressing some of the limitations of
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WebCT bulletin boards, speaks of a need to limit the number of messagesdisplayed while still providing a way for students to know what they haveand have not read. To meet some basic faculty requirements, homegrowncommunication tools have appeared on individual campuses. These toolsorganize messages by topic, and by student, and by time, and send studentresponses directly into the student’s portfolio for easy access in grading.But, these improvements only offer better course management support.They, too, lack the pedagogical supports mentioned below.
What remains inadequate in Web communication tools are featuresthat support critical thinking and group processes, and that enhance thefacilitator’s ability to offer constructive guidance on problem solvingand critical thinking. For distance education, tools that provide appro-priate structure for different communication needs–brainstorming, de-fining problems, generating questions, analyzing evidence, drawingconclusions or solutions–are essential (Duffy, Dueber, & Hawley,1998). Bonk and Dennen (1999) further suggest that activities that sup-port critical thinking (structured debates, case analysis, rebuttals, etc.)might be made available to learners in an environment containing tem-plates for critical-thinking activities. Without some built-in structurefor solving problems or other supports in Web tools (such as those dem-onstrated by the Knowledge Integration Environment) that develop stu-dents’ mental faculties in critical thinking, students may be at a losswhenever critical considerations are required. Until educators and de-velopers work together toward developing pedagogically sound com-munication tools, the missing piece in online courses will continue to bea “natural” collaborative system that allows groups the means to definewhat they know, question what they believe, identify weak arguments,and foster new discoveries (Keeley, 1997).
CONCLUSION
Reading books need not be a reclusive experience between the readerand author. Once readers know the right questions to ask of the authorand reflect on the material, they can discuss their understanding withothers on the Web and build conceptual connections to their ownknowledge base. The Web, through its community of users, providesunlimited human resources with whom readers can share their knowl-edge. The American Literature site (http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/survey.html) is a good example. When students posted their anal-yses of books read in an American literature class, they received inter-
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active comments from all over the United States. In fact, when thecourse ended, students continued to receive comments on their interpre-tations of the author’s use of certain literary techniques.
The Knowledge Integration Environment is a wonderful example ofproviding a strong online support system to help students arrive at a per-sonal understanding of science by utilizing a problem-solving environ-ment. It offers another avenue for developing critical thinking skills.Many students will not major in science, says Marcia Linn (1996), but wedo need to help students know enough about science that they can be-come critics of information and be capable of critiquing evidence in vari-ous media formats, including films, photographs, and persuasive speechesin order to perform their civic duties: to vote, to serve on juries, to pre-serve the environment, etc.–to act as knowledgeable human beings.
Finally, as Paul states, “critical thinking is not a separate set of skills sep-arable from excellence in communication, problem-solving, creativethinking, or collaborative learning” (Willsen & Binker, 1993, p. 93). Theanalysis of texts, or the thought process applied in a problem-solving situa-tion, uses the same skills that are needed in the creation of new knowledge.Critical thinking skills–the ability to reorganize knowledge in meaningfuland usable ways–are essential to the creation of new knowledge.
How well current Web communication tools meet the needs of an in-tellectually diverse body of students is debatable. By themselves, theavailable Web tools do not provide aids for the development of criticalthinking. The expectation in using them is that students and facilitatorswill already possess critical thinking skills–assessing information, ana-lyzing ideas and their organization, and connecting relationships be-tween objects or events and theories. However, their potential can beextended through better-designed tools for self-learners, distance learn-ers, and others as they pursue inquiry-based learning and practice usingcritical thinking skills. These tools can be designed to teach thinkingskills and help users work out solutions to problems, illustrating impor-tant ideas about thinking and problem solving as it is going on.
Customizing a Web space into a critical-learning environment withembedded supports to facilitate knowledge building and socio-affectiveactivities is a highly desirable endeavor. Students will need experiencein interacting with a variety of different information resources and toolsand will need opportunities to sharpen their skills in inquiry-basedlearning, individually and in collaboration with others. In this century,students will live in a networked, global society where knowledge mayvery well be the most critical resource for future economic development(Harasim, 1995). We must prepare them.
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NOTES
1. Critical thinking includes the ability to respond to material by distinguishing be-tween facts and opinions or personal feelings, judgments and inferences, inductive anddeductive arguments, and the objective and subjective. It also includes the ability togenerate questions, construct and recognize the structure of arguments, and adequatelysupport arguments; define, analyze, and devise solutions for problems and issues; sort,organize, classify, correlate, and analyze materials and data; integrate information andsee relationship; evaluate information, materials, and data by drawing inferences, ar-riving at reasonable and informed conclusions, applying understanding and knowledgeto new and different problems, developing rational and reasonable interpretations, sus-pending beliefs by assimilating information and remaining open to new information,methods, cultural systems, values and beliefs. (MCC General Education Initiatives,p. 2, http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/definitions.htm)
2. Other systems worthy of learning more about are the Computer-Supported Inten-tional Learning Environment (CSILE) and the Collaborative Visualization project(CoVis). CSILE has been used in many disciplines with primary and secondary stu-dents. In a CSILE classroom students are required to label their contributions: What Ineed to know; What I need to understand; high-level questions, new learning, plan, mytheory, new experiment, conclusion, and synthesis (Oshima, 1994); “The labels serveto mentor students in the elements of inquiry in a way analogous to the facilitator in aproblem-based learning environment. That is, students must think about how their en-try contributes to the problem-solving effort” (Duffy, Dueber, & Hawley, 1999, p. 62).Both CSILE and CoVIS address pedagogical goals. CoVIS, developed at Northwest-ern University, has similar functions to those of CSILE. High school students, for ex-ample, use the Notebook for collaborative inquiry about science problems. Here, too,students must label how their entry contributes to the inquiry: information, commen-tary, question, conjecture, evidence for, evidence against, plan, and step in plan (Duffy,Dueber, & Hawley, 1999; Edelson & O’Neill, 1994).
3. The Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) has a change of name, theWeb-based Integrated Science Environment (WISE). In this paper I refer to the origi-nal in terms of goals, which remain the same, and to WISE in the description of the lat-est tools. Both are available at:
KIE: http://www.kie.berkeley.edu/KIE/curriculum/curriculum.htmlWISE: http://wise.berkeley.edu/WISE/pages/about.html
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