Integrating cognitive apprenticeship strategy with the use of online forum in developing product assignments

Abstract

Regardless of majors that education students are pursuing, they must enrol in multimedia subjects where developing educational courseware is the most common type of assignment. However, it is not an easy task to develop courseware as it involves several important stages. Apart from meeting face-to-face, the students were required to have discussions online in completing their assignments. In the literature, the advantages of using online forum have been widely discussed. However, when the students' online discussions at each stage are not guided systematically, the assignment development can be affected. To overcome this problem, a theoretical framework was developed. Through this framework, the teacher can guide the students throughout their online discussion with practical skills in developing their assignments and the processes of thinking within this learning activity, visible to both the students and the teacher. The research instruments used were questionnaires and the online forum. The questionnaires were used to gauge the respondents' background skills in using online forum. The transcripts of the online discussion forum were analysed using coding procedures developed from the combination of cognitive apprenticeship methods and the interaction analysis model (IAM). The results show that the integration of cognitive apprenticeship strategies into students' learning had successfully helped them in developing their courseware.