Introduction
The current chapter reviews relevant literature on the
learning, and teaching strategies of collaborative visualisation, collaborative
learning, and communication skills. This is for the sake of setting a ground
that allows us to analyse the attitudes that are held by both teachers and
students in the Department of English at Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi
Ouzou towards collaborative visualisation (CV) in developing communication
skills (CS) in English. This chapter is composed of seven basic parts. The
first part is devoted to collaborative visualisation. We start this section
with several definitions proposed by authors to collaborative learning (CL);
then, we move to a brief literature review of collaborative visualisation. The
second section deals with the importance of collaborative visualisation in the
process of learning. We define, in the third position, visual aids and explain
their types. Afterwards, communication skills are defined and the different
types which might be involved in the collaborative visualisation are explained
in the fourth part. The fifth part reviews the relationship between
collaborative visualisation and communication skills from a constructivist
approach. The concept of attitude and its definition are dealt with at the
level of the sixth part. The seventh part is concerned with the theoretical
framework on which this research is based.
I. Collaborative Visualisation
Collaborative Visualisation can be understood as collaborative
learning using visual aids. Collaborative learning can be confused with
cooperative learning; however, these two terms can be used interchangeably.
According to Bruffee (1995: 12), «Cooperative learning and
collaborative learning are two versions of the same thing», «...
their long-range goals are strikingly similar» (ibid).
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
1. Collaborative Learning
According to Luther (2000), the major premise of the new way
of learning is that students are active learners who work in groups. They
engage in the learning experience and each member contributes to group success.
Students take part in group activities centred on problem solving; thus, they
try to share knowledge and discuss how to solve issues. In other words, they
are involved in their own learning. It is logical that in a group, students
might have diverse opinions; consequently, the exchange of information helps
one another to think critically.
1.1. Conceptions of Collaborative Learning
According to Jenni and Mauriel, 2004 (cited in Marjan and
Mozhgan, 2012: 491) the term «collaborative learning» is used in many
disciplines and fields. Although authors have not agreed on one definition of
the term, there are some features that are common in their definitions.
Mercer and Littleton (2007) define collaborative learning as
an activity in which «participants are engaged in a coordinated,
continuing attempt to solve a problem or in some other way construct common
knowledge» (cited in Reusser and Pauli, 2015:916). That is to say, in
collaborative activities, students must work together. By coordinating their
efforts, they try to find a way to successfully manage a problem or a
difficulty to reach a consensus. In addition, Johnson and Johnson (1999:73)
state that cooperative learning is «the instructional use of small
groups in which students work together to maximize their own and each other's
learning». In other words, working in groups improves learning
efficiency. Communication is essential for coordination because during
collaborative activities, students give their opinions and share their ideas.
The exchange of knowledge helps each one to solve
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
academic problems (for example, misunderstanding the topic of
the study). Consequently, Zambrano et al., (2019) think that there is one
option to optimise collaborative learning; it is by developing effective
collaborative groups. Indeed, collaborative learning needs effective
communication to occur. Johnson and Johnson (1999) mention that there are five
conditions to achieve the desired goals in Cooperative Learning.
1) Students must be mutually interdependent to assume group
reaching goals. For example, during a lecture, the students who are divided
into groups of four or five are recommended to write a dissertation on a
specific topic; this implies that each student shares his knowledge with
others, to depend on each other for a common purpose. Students are connected in
a way that the success of each student makes the success of all group
members.
2) Individual accountability: students work together and help
each other to become stronger through explaining the concepts studied,
assessing one another, etc. Even though everyone is responsible of his
performance and own learning, this does not prevent the group members to help
one another.
3) Students must participate in important face to face
interactions, in which they share knowledge, give constructive feedback,
encourage each other to achieve cognitive activities. In fact, students'
participation attracts the other members' attention to listen and to
reflect.
4) Students should be taught the leadership, decision-making,
trust-building, communication and conflict-management skills as academic
skills. To exemplify this, students are usually asked to prepare exposés
depending on the module and the teacher. It is by giving this type of activity
(exposés) that students learn to become leaders, to share the tasks with
the group members, to avoid conflicts within the group or to manage them.
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
5) Group processing: this exists when the students try to
organise themselves during activities, negotiate ideas; discuss topics in an
effective way.
Lastly, Dillenbourg (1999) means by the term
«collaborative learning», a process by which two or more people
learn, acquire knowledge or try to memorise something. During collaborative
activities, students are expected to interact with one another, to be mutually
engaged in conversations, to coordinate their efforts to solve problems.
Interaction with pairs would lead to produce learning mechanisms, development
of critical thinking and communication. This means that collaborative learning
is an active process. However, it is not a method, but rather a social act,
between either peers or between peers and the teacher Dillenbourg (1999).
Although the environment in the classroom is student-centred, it is not certain
that the expected conversations will happen; this is why in collaborative
classes, the teacher has his/her responsibilities. The teacher is supposed to
know what happens inside the group of students who are working together; how to
maintain their concentration and know how to control critical situations that
may happen as well as how to avoid them (Bruffee,1981). The following section
will deal with collaborative visualisation and its importance in the process of
learning.
2. Collaborative Visualisation
According to Pea (2002), Harb Manssour Freitas (2000) and
Arcavi (2003), collaborative visualisation is mainly used in the domain of
science, mathematics, etc. The use of this strategy in teaching EFL requires
listening comprehension and oral expression. To apply collaborative
visualisation in EFL classroom, the principles of coordination process theory
should be followed. This means, students would listen and watch videos, films,
documentaries; coordinate their efforts, share their knowledge and comment on
them effectively.
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
With the exception of this research, a number of definitions
have already been given to describe particular perspectives of collaborative
visualisation. They are too specific; however, none has endeavored to encompass
the scopes of group work around visual representations of information (Isenberg
et al., 2011). Because of this, Isenberg et al., (2011: 312) have agreed on one
specific definition that broadly describes the scope that CV can encircle; it
«[...] is the shared use of computer-supported, (interactive,) visual
representations of data by more than one person with the common goal of
contribution to joint information processing activities». This
indicates that, multiple people communicate with the same computer to share
their ideas with one another or to discuss the meaning of information
cooperatively; however, CV can be divided based on the spatial location
(co-located and distributed) and the moment in the time, synchronous and
asynchronous, it occurs.
Figure1. Collaborative visualization
according to space and time. Matrix adapted from Baecker and Dix et al (cited
in Isenberg et al., 2011: 313).
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
This Matrix shows that collaborative visualisation happens, on
the one hand, depending on the location of the participants. On the other hand,
it occurs depending on the time, synchronously or asynchronously. In
synchronous collaboration, for example, the students watch a video conferencing
at the same time; whereas, asynchronous collaboration, it allows a group of
people to have many actions at different times without waiting for the others.
Asynchronous collaboration «involves exchange of letters, faxes, or
emails, between members of a group» (Brodlie et al., 1981: 03), that
is, the group members need to use means of communication (letter, faxes or
emails) to be able to collaborate with each other. Through these means, the
data or the information exchanged between the members are stored.
To recapitulate, in collaborative visualisation, a group of
people can work together on a project at the same time and the same place. This
allows them to have a face-to-face interaction. For instance, viewing a video
and discussing it together. On the other hand, the group of people may be
separated geographically and work on a project through computers. They may have
synchronous or asynchronous distributed interactions (Brodlie et al., 1981:
02).
Visualisations are, in fact, intended to support collaboration
of multiple users to share their ideas, their involvement and analytical
skills, as well as develop each other's knowledge and professionally reach more
profound and valuable information. They are also used to facilitate
communication, «a collaborative visualisation enhances the way the
doctors would communicate and interact, as well as support the exchange and
manipulation of the patient's medical information» (Cernea, 2015:
02). In this case, doctors can work on projects such as preparing surgeries
either synchronicallyor asynchronically. They may not be in the same work
place, but they deal with the same subject. They can manipulate data through
their
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Chapter I: Review of the Literature
tablets as they can comment about it. Consequently,
visualisation supports social interaction between doctors.
Indeed, the involvement of the group in the collaborative
visualisation adjusts the help and encouragement offered to the individuals and
to the group as a whole entity; therefore, it would improve multiple users'
communication and interaction, as well as sharing, exchanging and manipulating
the information (Cernea, 2015).
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