Design Elements for a CSCL Environment in a Teacher Training Programme

In the design of a Telematic Learning Environment (TLE) in which student teachers learn collaboratively, we consider three clusters of design elements as important: the Telematic Work Environment, the guidance of the instructor and the task instruction. We will have a look at the way group and task behaviour, triggered by these design elements influence the collaborative outcomes. Experiments have revealed that the technical environment is not as important as we had expected beforehand. This research shows that the task instruction (pre-imposed structure, role taking and intrinsic motivation for the task) and the group process itself have far more impact on the online collaborative work of the student teachers.