21st Century Skills Development: Learning in Digital Communities: Technology and Collaboration

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Date

2012

Authors

Short, Barbara

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Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

This study examines some aspects of student performance in the 21st century skills of Information and Communication (ICT) Literacy and collaboration. In this project, extant data from the Assessment and Teaching for 21st Century Skills project (ATC21S) will be examined. ATC21S is a collaborative effort among educational agencies in six countries, universities, educational research groups, high tech innovators and the multinational corporations Cisco, Intel and Microsoft. ATC21S demonstration tasks explore the use of digital literacy and collaborative problem solving constructs in educational assessment. My research investigates evidence from cognitive laboratories and pilots administered in one of the ATC21S demonstration scenarios, a collaborative mathematics/science task called "Global Collaboration Contest: Arctic Trek." Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, I analyze student work samples. Specifically, I (i) develop a rubric as a measurement tool to evaluate the student assessment artifact "Arctic Trek Notebook" for (a) generalized patterns and (b) trends that may indicate skill development in collaborative learning in a digital environment and (ii) conduct descriptive studies among the variables of student age and student notebook characteristics. Results are intended to inform instructional leaders on estimates of student ability in virtual collaboration and to make suggestions for instructional design and professional development for online collaborative learning assessment tasks in K-12 education.

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Keywords

21st century skills, Digital collaboration, Instructional design for digital collaboration, K-12 education, Performance assessment, Technology: Information & Communication Literacy

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