Computer‐supported peer commenting: a promising instructional method to promote skill development in vocational education

In vocational education, a challenging issue is to help apprentices build integrated knowledge from workplace training and school teaching. The present research proposes a learning design in which apprentices are required to write with a reciprocal peer‐tutoring approach about situations they encountered in the workplace in order to help in building such articulation. Two studies were conducted in order to investigate the effect of peer‐commenting learning designs that were elaborated in close collaboration with teachers, on the basis of both theoretical assumptions and field specificities. The findings showed that in both studies, apprentices were able to provide useful comments, corrections and revisions to their peers' entries and that the productions significantly improved as a result of these interventions. Furthermore, apprentices found the writing activity useful for learning and enjoyable. These studies provided insightful information regarding the implementation of computer‐supported writing activities that can actually foster professional skill acquisition and development. Moreover, they illustrate a concrete learning design that could be adapted to any vocational education level and subject matter.

[1]  Päivi Tynjälä,et al.  Writing as a Learning Tool: Integrating Theory and Practice. Studies in Writing, Volume 7. , 2001 .

[2]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[3]  D. Schoen,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action , 1985 .

[4]  R. Thibert,et al.  "L'apprentissage coopératif : Origines et évolutions d'une méthode pédagogique" , 2008 .

[5]  R. J. Bogumil,et al.  The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action , 1985, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[6]  J. Fantuzzo,et al.  The effects of reciprocal peer tutoring and group contingencies on the academic performance of elementary school children. , 1986, Journal of applied behavior analysis.

[7]  P. Tynjälä.  Perspectives into learning at the workplace , 2008 .

[8]  M. Scardamalia,et al.  The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into World 3. , 1994 .

[9]  Hayes.  identifying the organization of wi iiing processes , 1980 .

[10]  Linda Flower,et al.  Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing. , 1979 .

[11]  John R. Anderson,et al.  Rules of the Mind , 1993 .

[12]  M. Eraut,et al.  Informal learning in the workplace , 2004 .

[13]  Sabine Vanhulle,et al.  How Future Teachers Develop Professional Knowledge Through Reflective Writing in a Dialogical Frame , 2005 .

[14]  James P. Shaver,et al.  Reliability and Validity of Measures of Attitudes toward Writing and toward Writing with the Computer , 1990 .

[15]  John R. Anderson.  Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications , 1980 .

[16]  Sarah Ellen Ransdell,et al.  Working memory constraints on writing quality and fluency. , 2013 .

[17]  P. Falzon,et al.  Auto- and allo-confrontation as tools for reflective activities. , 2004, Applied ergonomics.

[18]  John R. Anderson.  Cognitive psychology and its implications, 2nd ed. , 1985 .

[19]  M. Jasper,et al.  Professional development, reflection, and decision-making , 2007 .

[20]  M. Scardamalia,et al.  The psychology of written composition , 1987 .

[21]  Laurent Filliettaz,et al.  « Vos mains sont intelligentes ! » : Interactions en formation professionnelle initiale. , 2008 .

[22]  A. Collins,et al.  Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning , 1989 .

[23]  John R. Anderson,et al.  The acquisition of robust and flexible cognitive skills. , 2008, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[24]  Sarah Gielen,et al.  Effects of formative peer-assessment on writing performance: What is the most beneficial role of the assessee? , 2007 .

[25]  John W. Fantuzzo,et al.  The effects of reciprocal peer management and group contingencies on the arithmetic proficiency of underachieving students , 1986 .

[26]  Mark Torrance,et al.  Writing as a Knowledge-Constituting Process , 1999 .

[27]  W. Sandoval.  Developing Learning Theory by Refining Conjectures Embodied in Educational Designs , 2004 .

[28]  Annie Weill-Fassina,et al.  13. Les compétences professionnelles et leur développement , 2004 .

[29]  Robert E. Slavin.  L'apprentissage coopératif: pourquoi ça marche ? , 2010 .

[30]  Michael D. Miller,et al.  The Empirical Development of an Instrument to Measure Writing Apprehension. , 1975 .

[31]  Ronald E. Riggio,et al.  Effects of Reciprocal Peer Tutoring on Academic Achievement and Psychological Adjustment: A Component Analysis. , 1989 .

[32]  Mark Torrance,et al.  Knowing what to write : conceptual processes in text production , 1999 .

[33]  Patrick Jermann,et al.  Designing Integrative Scripts , 2007 .

[34]  John R. Anderson.  Acquisition of cognitive skill. , 1982 .

[35]  Frank Fischer,et al.  Scripting Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning : cognitive, computational, and educational perspectives , 2007 .