Writing-to-learn

Definition

Writing-to-learn refers to a family of instructional design models that postulate positif effects of pedagogical scenarios that engage learners in writing activities.

Overview

Research reveals that one learns both from and with interactive technology. Writing-to-learn focuses on the use of ICT as social expressive digital media. In this cognitive tools approach, interactive expressive tools are given directly to learners to use for expressing what they experience and know to themselves and also to others.

(1) "Writing-to-learn" has a long research tradition that initially focused mostly on the effects of individual writing and related cognitive issues. Klein's (1999) detailed research review identifies four major research lines and associated main hypothesis:

1. The "point of utterance" hypothesis: writers spontaneously generate knowledge when they write (Galbraith, 1999).
2. The "forward hypothesis": writers externalize ideas in text, and then reread them to generate new inferences.
3. The "genre hypothesis": writers use genre structures to organize relationships among elements of text, and thereby among elements of knowledge (Newell, 1984).
4. The "backward hypothesis": writers set rhetorical goals, and then solve content problems to achieve these goals (Flower & Hayes, 1994).

These four hypotheses invoke different aspects of writing and are in principle compatible with regard to the learner's competence matrix. According to Klein (1999:252) there are plenty of supportive studies, but only the genre hypothesis has been systematically tested against measures of writers' learning, and shown to have generally positive effects. See also the debate on genres

(2) More recent research mainly conducted in the CSCL (computer-supported collaborative work) community focused on collaborative learning mechanisms, its impact on individual learning and development of tools that enhance collaborative and social learning. Learners can be co- located, e.g. in computer-integrated classrooms (Tewissen, 2001).

Writing activities are essential to many different CSCL paradigms. While mainstream "writing-to-learn" research focuses on the production of larger texts or at self self-contained entries, writing in the CSCL perspective concerns rather producing short texts in various genres (questions, arguments, definitions, etc.). Learner productions plus interactions are meant to provoke various meta-cognitive mechanisms beneficial to learning e.g. conceptual change and deeper understanding. "Restructuring learning environments" (Flower & Hayes, 1994; Erkins et al. 2003) are based on the main hypothesis is that knowledge transformation leads to knowledge constitution (Galbraith, 1999).

Restructuring and knowledge building can be enhanced through computer-supported "knowledge building communities". Writing then contributes to a larger collective body of knowledge whose elements can be edited, manipulated and put in relation. A good example are so-called computer-supported intentional learning environments (CSILE) (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994), that aim at reframing classroom discourse to support knowledge building in ways extensible to out-of-school knowledge- advancing enterprises and make school education more situated (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In one scenario, records made at the place of work (knowledge in action) "ground" reflective activities in the classroom.

Many compatible instructional models, like inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning or project-based learning can integrate research results from successful experimental of clinical CSCL studies.

(3) Co-construction enhanced by collective knowledge management is also related to organizational learning. Community memories are to communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) what human memories are to individuals. They make use of explicit, external, symbolic representations that allow for shared understanding within a community. They make organizational learning possible within the group (Stahl, 2000). Conversely, such communities need a social infrastructure around the technical infrastructure (Hakkarainen 2003; Bielaczyc, 2001). Interest in knowledge-building communities is both shared by education and the business literature (Snyder, 2003; Bereiter, 2002; Paavola, 2002). In other words, individual learning in school and workplace, life-long learning, and organizational learning are related issues in this perspective (Scardamalia, 2001).

The genres debate

Writing-to-learn refers to different instructional design models. Catel (2001) distinguishes several dimensions of research according to genre:

1. Expository writing refers to process that engages a learner in reusing existing knowledge, e.g. to test his knowledge in an examination.
2. Scientific writing: learners are engaged into different kinds of academic writing, like lab notes, field notes, presentation in poster of paper form.
3. Interpretative (expressive) writing in different genres focusses on exploration of personal thinking, like conceptual cards, stories, slogans
4. Social (collaborative, cooperative and collective) writing as social pratice

Examples

• This Wiki will be used in some of courses for student writing activities, e.g. they have to improve articles, add new ones, add cases studies, and so forth [more details will follow]

Technology

under construction

• Wikis
• C3MS Portals
• Knowledge Forum

References

• Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and mind in a knowledge society. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

• Bielaczyc, K. (2001). Designing social infrastructure: The challenge of building computer-supported learning communities. In P. Dillenbourg, A. Eurelings, & K. Hakkarainen (Eds.), European perspectives on computer-supported collaborative learning. The proceedings of the First European Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (pp. 106-114).

• Catel, Laurence (2001), Ecrire pour apprendre ? Ecrire pour comprendre ? Etat de la question. in Fillon, Pierre et Vérin, Anne (eds.) Ecrire pour comprendre les sciences, Aster, recheres en didactique des sciences expérimentales 33.

• Erkens, G., Kanselaar, G., Prangsma, M., & Jaspers, J. (2003). Computer Support for Collaborative and Argumentative Writing. In E. De Corte, L. Verschaffel, N. Entwistle, & J. van Merriënboer (eds). Powerful Learning Environments: Unravelling basic components and dimensions (pp. 157- 176). Amsterdam: Pergamon, Elsevier Science.

• Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1984). Images, plans, and prose: The representation of meaning in writing. Written Communication 1: 120-160.

• Galbraith, D. (1999).� Writing as a knowledge-constituting process.� In M. Torrance and D. Galbraith (eds.), Knowing What to Write: Conceptual Processes in Text Production Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. (pp. 139-160).

• Klein, P.D. (1999). "Reopening Inquiry into Cognitive Processes in Writing-To-Learn", Educational Psychology Review, 11 (3), 203-270.

• Newell, G. E. (1984). Learning from writing in two content areas: A case study/protocol analysis. Research in the Teaching of English 18: 265-287.

• Paavola, S., Lipponen, L., & Hakkarainen, K. (2002). Epistemological foundations for CSCL: A comparison of three models of innovative knowledge communities. In G. Stahl (Ed.), Computer- supported collaborative learning: Foundations for a CSCL community. Proceedings of the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning 2002 Conference (pp. 24-32). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

• Scardamalia, M. (2003). Knowledge Forum (Advances beyond CSILE). Journal of Distance Education, 17 (Suppl. 3, Learning Technology Innovation in Canada), 23-28.

• Scardamalia, M. (2004a). CSILE/Knowledge Forum. In Education and technology: An Encyclopedia (pp. 183-192).� Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

• Scardamalia, M. (2004b). Knowledge technologies in education: Beyond learning environments. In Education and technology:� An Encyclopedia (pp. 393-400).� Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

• Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1994). The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into world 3. In K. McGilly, ed., Classroom Lessons: Integrating Cognitive Theory and Classroom Practice (pp. 201-228). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford Books.

• Snyder, W. and E. Wenger (2003), Our world as a learning system. A community of practice approach. in Clawson, J. and Conner, M. (eds.) Creating a Learning Culture: Strategy, Practice, and Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press

• Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Wenger, E., R. McDermott and W. Snyder (2002). Cultivating communities of practice, A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.