Comunidades autônomas de aprendizagem on-line na Perspectiva da Complexidade

Abstract

The creation of on-line learning communities in distance learning has been recognized as a pedagogical intervention capable of promoting the construction of shared knowledge. One of the challenges researchers are faced with is the need to advance understanding of how to facilitate the construction of shared meaning in on-line collaborative contexts. Based on this idea, I have adopted theories on groups, learning communities and on-line colaboration as well as some notions borrowed from complexity theory as a foundation on which to epistemologically analyze and discuss this research. In addition, I present a thorough review of such elements as social, cognitive and instructional presences under the Community of Inquiry Framework defined by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000), which will guide the analysis and discussions of the data in this work. In this study, I seek empirical evidence of the properties of complex systems such as emergence, self-organization and adaptability in the collaborative on-line experience as well as emerging patterns, factors and elements that may positively or negatively influence collaboration and the construction of meaning in this context. To that extent the analysis of this study will center around the interlocutions of fifty students that interact in small groups herein termed autonomous on-line learning communities without the direct intervention of the teacher in a course offered by the School of Languages and Literature of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). I have demonstrated through data analysis that out of the interactions among the pairs of the autonomous on-line learning communities arise patterns of social, cognitive, instructional and managerial dimensions such as reciprocity, construction of shared meaning, distributed leadership as well as the fractal character of the communities of the course Dimensões Comunicativas. I believe that a better understanding of the characteristics as well as emerging and working patterns of such communities can contribute to augment discussions on collaborative practices in a virtual environment.