Research On Interpersonal Interaction In Web-based Collaborative Learning

Constructivism learning theory thinks that whether the interaction between the members in the learning group is enough or not is very important to the success of the collaborative learning. The network with its strong interactive funcition supplies a useful communicating platform for the learners' collaboration. In the web-based collaborative learning environment, learners can use the network to communicate and collaborate with learning companions , communicate with the teachers and professors online. So a new type of interpersonal interaction space comes into being, which is the precondition and base of collaborative learning.From a perspective of interaction, the paper takes a case study of the "WebCL platform" of Beijing Normal University to study interpersonal interaction in web-based collaborative learning. This paper mainly analysises the content of interpersonal interaction in "basic knowleges of computer science" course BBS of 2005 college students; does an investigation about the interpersonal interaction on the platform .Through the research, the paper comes into conclusions as following: (l)The interpersonal interaction between the students has become the main mode of interaction in the web-based collaboration learning, and the content of the interaction has become more and more wide; (2) Most of the students are peripheral paritcipator (they mainly browse others' notes on course BBS, but seldom send notes actively); (3)The purpose of the students engaging the interpersonal interaction is to get learning information; (4)The students don't show strong motivation in the collaborative learning ,and their critical thinking is not very good; (5)The topics in course BBS is not focused, for the supervision is not very well;(6)The students eager to get more real-time interation;(7)The real-time interacition funciton and the collaborative tools in groups of the WebCL platform are not very satisfying;(8)Teachers engaging in the interpersonal interaction can prompt the students to join in, but teachers don't play sufficient roles in interpersonal interaction;(9)Proper social affectional interaction is useful to create positive atmosphere;(10) The...