Eu-Tu: An Adaptive Colaborative Learning

Project
George Alex Fernandes Gomes
gafgomes@hotmail.com
The serious methodological and conceptual changes and the
rapidly increasing speed of information flow within the past fifty
years show that the phenomenon of globalization is an effect of
complexity theory in our society.

This paradigm has also proved the complex and adaptive nature
of the teaching and learning, which no longer believes that this
process takes place by the types and amounts of information
involved, but the actions that are established between them.

In way to this turmoil of concepts, the use of information

technology and communication in education has allowed the
creation of networks for teaching and collaborative learning,
distributed in time and space, where the roles played by teacher
and students not more can be fixed by traditional educational
models.

Students no longer have the teacher as the only source of

knowledge and imposes its own pace of learning. They want to
exploit the knowledge, and not just absorb what is presented to
them. They desire opportunities for self-directed learning,
carried out in interactive environments and provide them with
an education more practical and in accordance with their
individual preferences.

The teacher should take advantage of these changes and provide

intentional educational activities, thus becoming a designer of
learning, able to select the better content and introduce it
through an appropriate way to their students.

Collaborative learning is another trend that adds stigmergy to

the pedagogic line of the process of teaching and learning.

In this new scenario, it is evident that the interactions of

individuals became the starting point for the construction of
social reality and that the education structured platforms should
be replaced by services for the interests and demands of users.

For these reasons, there are no more conditions for teachers and
students remain permanently and statically in the focus of the
process.

Complexity increases the possibilities of teaching and learning

and allows the creation of a new process that do not involves a
fixed center anymore. As anyone may be a source of innovative
knowledge, in the new process the center moves continuously
through the interactions between teacher and students . We call
this new process as one focused on interactions.

Considering a teaching and learning process focused on

interactions, the aim of our study is to examine how teachers
and students can obtain educational resources more specific and
appropriate to its own features.

For this, we started from the observation that the characteristics

of the new roles of teachers and students depend on the ability
to ask. However, it is not enough ask questions anyway. It is
necessary that the questions be made in a logical sequence.

Another important premise is that when a question is asked,

both students and teachers put all their selves in question,
including their preferences for learning and teaching.

This observation led us to conclude that the use of FAQ is an

effective educational method for teaching and learning focused
on interactions.

Thus, we hypothesized that it is possible to mediate teaching e

learning styles through Computer Supported Inquiry Learning
associated with adaptive hypermedia, computer supported
colaborative learning and collective intelligence techniques.
Our proposal is to build and implement a system of collaborative
and adaptive learning through FAQ in a context of distance
education.

In ou project, the teacher will propose the development of a

collaborative-based task to students, in which all will have to
exercise at different times, the role of learner, asking questions,
or the role of tutor, formulating responses.

Through the FAQ, we will create a collection of questions and

their responses on specific questions, asked and answered by
students and teachers.

Those questions and answers will be sorted according to a survey

about the teaching and learning styles of a sample of teachers
and students, as well as other characteristics that are considered
significant in both groups.

After, the questions will be grouped by similarity using adaptive

and collective intelligence techniques focused on learning.
To test our hypothesis, we will compare the degree of adequacy
between the learning styles of grouped questions and the
teaching styles found in their responses.