Research on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) has provided significant insights into why collaborative learning is effective and how we can effectively provide support for it. Building on this knowledge, we can investigate when collaboration is beneficial to support learning. Specifically, collaborative and individual learning are…

Prior research shows that multiple representations can enhance learning, provided that students make connections among them. We hypothesized that support for connection making is most effective in enhancing learning of domain knowledge if it helps students both in making sense of these connections and in becoming perceptually fluent in making…

Prior research shows that representational competencies that enable students to use graphical representations to reason and solve tasks is key to learning in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics domains. We focus on two types of representational competencies: (1) "sense making" of connections by verbally explaining how…