Reviews of Group Cognition
“In this bold and brilliant book, Stahl integrates three distinct fields of knowledge: computational design, communication studies, and the learning sciences. Such an interdisciplinary effort is both timely and necessary to foster innovations for human learning. This book shows how small-group cognition can be the underlying building block for individual and collective knowledge building.”
— Sten Ludvigsen, Professor and Director of InterMedia, University of Oslo
“This book, which synthesizes research by a leading thinker in computer-supported collaborative learning, offers a thought-provoking and challenging thesis on the relationship between collaboration, technology mediation, and learning. Its scope is broad, encompassing philosophy, AI, and social science, and it is bound to stimulate the kind of productive debate that Stahl argues is core to knowledge building.”
— Claire O’Malley, Professor of Learning Science, University of Nottingham
“Gerry Stahl's new work targets a vitally important issue facing a twenty-first-century knowledge-based economy: How can group cognition be fostered as a new unit of analysis for research and design of computer systems crafted for building collaborative knowledge? There are many golden nuggets in this volume that will help advance the collective intelligence available on the planet for finding and tackling hard problems, from educational systems to informal workplace learning.”
— Roy Pea, Professor of Education and the Learning Sciences, Stanford University
“This groundbreaking book reflects on the decade of research that led Stahl to the timely notion of group cognition. Those interested in collaboration will find here a plethora of insights into the relationship between design, communication, and learning.”
— Barbara Wasson, Professor of Pedagogical Information Science at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen
“This book is, I may say, one of the kind of books I always wanted to have, to read and revisit for getting its golden nuggets. It is unique because it provides, from several different perspectives (technical as well as philosophical), deep insights in what is going on in computer-based collaborative applications, with emphasis on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. The need of collaborative applications is justified and analysed starting both from practice and theoretically. The text very well presents and analyses the valuable experience of the author in designing and implementing a wide range of applications in e-learning, groupware, artificial intelligence (expert systems and knowledge-based and text processing with Latent Semantic Indexing). This experience description may be better understood if we see the text almost as a saga ending with one of the main ideas of the book: knowledge building appears in verbal-mediated collaboration in small groups. The practical experiences are doubled by deep interdisciplinary theoretical considerations, including philosophy (integrating ideas from Heidegger, Vygotsky, Derrida, Bourdieu, Bakhtin, Adorno, etc.), learning sciences and sociology (e.g. Garfinkel's ethnomethodology, and Schegloff's and Sacks' conversation analysis). State of the art theories like activity theory, distributed cognition, situated learning, knowledge building, and group cognition are also integrated in the whole.”
— Stefan Trausan-Matu, Professor of Computer Science, Politehnica University of Bucharest
“This is not so much a book as a library. And it is not so much a text about computer support for building collaborative knowledge as an autobiographical account of the writer’s imaginative and successful ventures into a wide range of developments. He describes how he has used computers and presents the collaborative assembling of knowledge as but one of the features of his subject matter.
“Like the book (p. 278), this review “has been in gestation for some time.” It has taken me much longer than BJET expects or allows for the process of review, because there has been so much to assimilate, to ponder over, to evaluate. I have read and re-read, on several occasions during long journeys and in the empty evenings associated with overseas travel. I have been reading, engrossed, of one fascinating development after another, I have been challenged by each anecdotal account or analytical essay to see how the lessons summarised by the writer and appreciated, to some extent, by this limited reader, might be applied in my own teaching and that of my colleagues.
“Gerry Stahl is adamant and persuasive in his conviction that “small groups are the engines of knowledge building.” Consequently, the examples which he presents all explore the potential of collaborative software in innovative settings, wherein he claims that the notion of group cognition is more readily studied— and understood—than individual learning. Equally, they all concentrate on “knowledge building” which I compare, at something of the same level, with the way many writers dealing with online learning write of “delivering the content.” I felt a modest yearning for something more than either of these, as I read this wonderful account of an intellectual giant’s progress.
“In the first part of the book, Stahl describes and traces the development and application of eight studies of technology design. All are of absorbing interest in their own right. As the writer says, they provide “little windows on illustrative experiences of designing software for collaborative knowledge building”. In the second part, he presents five essays covering aspects of research methodology for the study of small-group interactions. These I found slightly more laboured, and open to questions from even such as me, who might be looking for more depth and more probing in the researches described. The final eight chapters deal with Stahl’s reflections on the discovery of group meaning, and its further analysis; these certainly prompted me to think, I hope deeply, but did not entirely persuade me of the conclusions which he reaches. For, although the collection of texts does, as claimed, provide “different perspectives on the concept of group cognition”, yet, as he himself freely admits, “the concept of group discussion as discourse is not fully or systematically worked out in detail.”
“In the first, descriptive, section, a number of points bothered me even while I was beguiled by the subject matter within which the software was developed. The summary of what the writer learnt from his use of his teachers’ curriculum assistant, if taken in generic terms, seemed to contain nothing new for those who have themselves engaged in action researching of their use of online learning facilities. His developments using WebGuide seem almost like attempts to find uses for WebGuide (once he had designed it). It’s difficult to see how this software developed from scratch to meet basic pedagogical needs. It is hardly surprising that “people express confusion about how to use the perspectives” which WebGuide sets out to make “natural and simple to navigate”. Indeed, there was an emphasis here, as at other parts of the text, on questions which still needed to be answered, and potential which still needs to be confirmed. For the use of WebGuide as a “threaded discussion medium for superficial opinions and socialising”—rather than as a knowledge construction space—is a common weakness of most discussion board software, or rather of its use, with which many of us are already familiar, and which we, too, have yet to solve. Finally, in the discussion of online knowledge negotiation, the writer seems to assume that groups can and will communicate, whatever their composition—and that they should agree on the co-operatively discovered knowledge. I question these assumptions.
“In the analytical second part of the book, Stahl depends heavily on views and decisions recounted—as his track record well entitles him to do—in the first person singular. He tries to analyse the nature of small group interaction, suggesting a model, appraising other models for computer-supported collaborative learning, and drawing on his own studies to substantiate his approach. I see how his experiences corroborate his assumptions, but not necessarily how they justify them. I am also disappointed that the emphasis here is so much on knowledge building and the building of shared meaning, a praiseworthy but somewhat low-level educational aim. I would rather have seen much more emphasis on the explicit and reflective development of those abilities that can have good effect in building, applying, evaluating and enhancing knowledge. I found little here focussing on such higher level goals.
“In consequence, I struggled somewhat to find advice and analysis in the final section which relates to the higher level cognitive and interpersonal professional development. Such reservations trouble me, for the back cover of the book carries powerful testimony from greater authorities than me, describing this “bold and brilliant book” which “offers a thought-provoking and challenging thesis on the relationship between collaboration, technology mediation, and learning” with “a plethora of insights into the relationship between design, communication, and learning.” I can only say “amen” to that. For this is certainly a rich and readable library of writings by a highly regarded writer. But, having read it several times with great interest and renewed enthusiasm, I find myself taking into my own teaching relatively little from it that is new. My advice is that you should encourage your library to stock it, borrow it, read and re-read it, expect to enjoy what you will find there— and so make up your own mind thereafter.”
— John Cowan, Visiting Professor, Birmingham City University, UK. British Journal of Educational Technology. Vol. 39, No. 3, 2008, pp. 568-9.
“Gerry Stahl is planning a follow-up study to his 2006 MIT Press book, Group Cognition: Computer Support for Building Collaborative Knowledge. The new monograph will be an exploration of online math discourse in virtual math teams, his research project at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is professor of information science at Drexel and founding editor of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, published by Springer.”
— Technology Review. Vol. 111, No. 4, July/August 2008, p. M37.