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Students’ Cognitive Thinking on Blogs: A Tale of Two Leader Types
PROCEEDINGS

, George Mason University, United States ; , University of New Mexico, United States ; , The Pennsylvania State University, United States

E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education, in Vancouver, Canada ISBN 978-1-880094-76-1 Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), San Diego, CA

Abstract

Cognitive deep learning refers to a learner’s purposeful and conscious manipulation of ideas toward meaningful learning. Strategies such as journaling/blogging and peer feedback have been found to promote deep thinking. This presentation reports a research study about the effects of two blog leader styles on students’ deep thinking exhibited on blogs. Thirty-four students in two sessions of a class blogged for 10 weeks. Students were put into 4-5 member groups in their blogging exercises. In the first session, the “starters/leaders” of each week’s blog introduced two alternative views with articles about a concurrent topic, posted a few questions and the rest of the group responded to the questions. In contrast, the “starters” in the second session found a topic of interest, wrote a post and the rest of the team commented on the post. Data analyses revealed that different leader styles influenced both the quantity and quality of starters’ posts as well as peer feedback.

Citation

Xie, Y., Ke, F. & Sharma, P. (2009). Students’ Cognitive Thinking on Blogs: A Tale of Two Leader Types. In T. Bastiaens, J. Dron & C. Xin (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2009--World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 3267-3274). Vancouver, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved March 28, 2024 from .

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