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This chapter describes the change efforts and action research projects at a Dutch multinational which, over a period of 25 years, produced in one of its businesses a zigzag path toward collaborative leadership dynamics at the horizontal and vertical interfaces. The chapter also identifies the learning mechanisms that helped achieve this transformation. Changing the patterns at the vertical interfaces proved to be a most tricky, complex, and confusing operation. The data show that organizations need hierarchical interfaces between levels, but are hindered by the hierarchical leadership dynamics at these interfaces. The data furthermore show that competitive performance requires more than redesigning horizontal interfaces. A business can only respond with speed and flexibility to threats and opportunities in the external environment when the leadership dynamics at agility-critical vertical interfaces are also changed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore shared workspace and professional learning community (PLC) interactions in schools. The collaborative culture and PLCs were parts of the school culture. The collaborative culture of each school was designed to ensure teachers share intellectual and physical contributions in learning to investigate the impact of teaching and learning on students. The workspace overlap for teachers was part of the culture of each school and a function of the PLC interactions. PLCs provided opportunities for collaboration and therefore opportunities to share intellectual and physical workspace.

A grounded theory research approach was taken to this investigation, primarily because of the common experiences of educators in schools (Creswell, 2013). Collaborative process between educators in schools was qualitatively investigated as a function of PLC interactions. In all, three communities, five schools, and 70 educators were purposefully selected to participate. Data were collected, including semi-structured interviews, observations, artifacts, and researcher field notes.

The workspace interactions include shared leadership, decision making, teaching and learning practice, and accountability measures. Attributes and characteristics of effective collaboration and PLCs greatly affect the outcomes of PLCs. An emergent framework is provided that includes attributes of effective collaboration and the characteristics of effective PLCs that merge into intellectual and physical shared workspace.

This paper focuses on the connections between PLCs, school culture, and professional educator collaboration. This paper proposes to provide a unique model called the shared workspace. The model combines the intellectual and physical aspects of group members to ensure the effectiveness of collaborative systems that promote quality practice in schools through functional PLCs as part of a positive school culture. This paper further offers extensions to the shared leadership concept (Carpenter, 2015) in how schools, administrators, and teachers should work together, thus more collaboratively through a continuous improvement process of the school as a workplace and a learning organization.

Against the background of empirical research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), the purpose of this paper is to advocate implementing collaborative learning activities into online distance education courses to engage learners in interactive knowledge construction. This study uses empirical evidence to illustrate how educators can integrate collaborative learning and designated collaboration support into their instructional design.

This study presents a general review of research literature from the field of CSCL to highlight productive interaction between learners as key learning mechanisms, summarize core features of collaborative tasks, which promote interaction between learners and present group awareness tools and collaboration scripts as two complementary approaches to support groups during collaborative learning.

Empirical research suggests that collaborative learning is an effective learning activity and that incorporating collaborative learning into online courses benefits learners in terms of learning and social aspects such as social presence. However, to leverage the potential of collaborative learning, careful instructional design that promotes productive interaction between students is necessary.

This paper provides an overview on the topic of collaborative learning and how meaningful interaction between learners can be fostered. Specifically, this study details how collaborative tasks can be designed and how collaboration support can be used to provide students with opportunities for interaction that fosters acquiring new domain-specific knowledge as well as collaboration skills. To allow educators to design and incorporate collaborative learning activities into their own online teaching, the authors provide a theoretical basis for understanding the mechanisms behind effective collaborative learning as well as examples and practical considerations.

The purpose of this paper is to address the major findings of published research on the factors influencing students’ knowledge building in an online collaborative environment.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses was used to review and synthesize existing empirical studies on knowledge building in a collaborative learning context. In total, 24 studies were identified from major electronic bibliographic databases. The research was conducted between 2017 and 2019. Results of these studies were analyzed to determine potential factors that may influence the knowledge-building process among students.

Factors related to interaction and participation, task, student and support were found to be the major factors driving students’ knowledge building in the online collaborative learning environment. The association between these factors and certain collaborative tasks was mapped.

Findings from this review can help decision makers of higher education in both developing and developed countries to take the necessary steps in order to promote effective knowledge-building practices in online collaborative learning. It may also help educational policy makers to understand the particulars of collaborative knowledge-building practices, so to increase organizational overall effectiveness and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore educator collaborative inquiry in the shared workspace in professional learning communities (PLCs). Specifically, this investigation was part of an ongoing investigation of well-established PLC collaborative interactions and self-directed learning of educators as part of the shared workspace as a component of school improvement.

A qualitative design was used for this investigation. Participants were purposefully selected to provide qualitative data on existent, well-established PLCs and their practice as educators in the shared workspace. Qualitative data were collected about participant perception. Data were collected from each participant by conducting semi-structured interviews, observations, and the collection of document and artifacts.

Findings from this ongoing investigation point to positive collaborative physical interactions and intellectual discourse that lead to educator learning through the collaborative inquiry process.

Theories on PLCs and educator job-embedded professional learning are unique in this paper. The concepts of PLCs and the collaborative inquiry process have been well developed but not in the context of the shared workspace. Recent literature on effective collaborative inquiry educators undergo in PLCs as a continuing professional development model provides a foundation for the work done in this ongoing case study. Sustained collaboration and continued professional development of teaching innovations as a product of the collaborative inquiry process in the shared workspace are underdeveloped as yet but further developed in this paper.

This paper aims to clarify opportunities for collaborative interactions between cooperating teachers (CTs) and preservice teachers (PTs) in practice-based teacher preparation programs (TPPs). The study aimed to explore the discursive moves that facilitate collaboration between one CT and PT.

Grounded in the critical sociocultural theory, this study applied a qualitative microanalytic approach to the study of coaching interactions for the purpose of understanding why and how collaborative discourse developed between a CT and a PT.

This study of discourse moves within collaborative coaching interactions revealed collaborative interactions developed from strategic repositioning of social roles, which created space for authentic problem-posing by both the CT and the PT, and the co-construction of teaching events, which supported more specific planning toward future lessons; and routine and appreciative use of observational data created space for co-construction and co-inquiry.

This study illuminated the complex social and discursive dance embedded within collaborative interactions. The findings also suggested that the project of co-constructing curriculum with someone is a powerful and necessary experience for a PT because it is through this co-construction that PTs learn how to design meaningful curriculum and critically reflect on practice.

This study offers new understandings around how collaborative talk in educational discourse transpires and why providing opportunities for PTs to take a more active role in their own learning is important.

This paper aims to present a model of collaborative inquiry play: rule-based imaginary situations that provide challenging problems and support agentic multiplayer interactions (c.f., Vygotsky, 1967; Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Drawing on problem-based learning (PBL, Hmelo-Silver, 2004), this paper provides a design case to articulate the relationship between the design goals and the game-based learning environment.

Drawing on conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), this paper presents an iterative development of the conjecture map for crystal island: ecojourneys and highlights the development of the story and tools in crystal island: ecojourneys, an immersive game based on PBL pedagogy. By articulating this development, the authors highlight the affordances and constraints of designing for collaborative inquiry play and address challenges in supporting learner agency.

The PBL inquiry process served as the foundation of collaborative inquiry play. Attending to the rules of inquiry fostered student agency, and in turn, playful engagement in the game-based learning environment. Agency however meant holding students accountable to actions undertaken, especially as it pertained to generating group-based explanations and reflecting on productive collaboration. Moreover, socially shared regulation of learning and systems thinking concepts (i.e. phenomenon, mechanisms, and components) must also be externalized in representations and interactions in the game such that students have the agency to decide on their learning paths.

This paper presents the model of collaborative inquiry play and highlights how to support player agency and design content-rich play environments which are not always completely open.

Collaboration is often required for activities that are too complex or difficult to be dealt with by a single individual. Many situations requiring information-seeking activities also call for people to work together. Often the methods, systems, and tools that provide access to information assume that they are used only by individuals working on their tasks alone. This review points to the need to acknowledge the importance of collaboration in information-seeking processes, to study models, and to develop systems that are specifically designed to enable collaborative information seeking (CIS) tasks. This chapter reviews the literature from various domains including library and information science, human–computer interaction, collaborative systems, and information retrieval. Focus of the review is on the extent to which people work together on information seeking tasks and the systems and tools that are available for them to be successful. Since CIS occurs in the broader context of collaboration in general, a review of literature about collaborations is first undertaken to define it and place it into context with related terms such as cooperation and communication. A more focused review of research follows relating CIS to systems that have attempted to support such interactions. Included are identification and synthesis of a number of core issues in the field and how best to evaluate systems and collaborative tools. Key lessons learned from the review are summarized, and gaps in the literature identified to spur future research and study.

Multi-party systems (MPS) comprise interdependent stakeholders (teams, organizations) that engage in complex interactions and negotiations. Building on the approach/inhibition theory of power, the self-enhancement strategy and on social interdependence theory, this study aims to understand the mediating role of attributions (i.e. perception of who/what is responsible for a certain outcome) in the relation between perceptions of the stakeholders’ power (i.e. self-perceptions of power, power ascribed to others and others’ perception of one’s own power) and their perceptions of intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions.

Data were collected from 30 groups (113 participants) that took part in five multi-party simulations concerning the negotiation of funds allocation among six stakeholders. The authors have evaluated attributions, intergroup climate and future collaborative intentions using questionnaires and different facets of systemic power were derived from a round-robin procedure.

Mixed models and multi-level mediation analyses were carried out, and the results show that self-attributed power and power attributed by others predict internal attributions, while power attributed to others predicts external attributions. Moreover, attributions mediate the relationship between perceived power and future collaborative intention, as well as between power and perceptions of intergroup climate.

Managing the multi-party systems is a complex endeavor, and the results point toward ways in which power dynamics in multi-party systems can be addressed.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical attempts to explore the association between the perceptions of power and attributions in multi-party systems engaged in negotiation tasks.

During oral exams at the German distance learning university, we noticed that students fear that they will be faced with questions that they have not anticipated. In our opinion, this is mainly because students have no chance to train and thereby gather positive experiences with exam situations as they are distributed all over Germany and thus it is difficult for them to meet each other. In this paper, we present a design space of 23 learning gadgets, i.e. tools that support collaborative learning, to allow collaborative exam preparation in peer‐based distributed student groups. We discuss this design space according to eight dimensions of the concept of FLOW (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991) that constitutes enjoyable situations. Two of the learning gadgets were implemented and integrated in the CURE environment, a web‐based collaborative learning platform that was developed to support different collaborative learning scenarios, e.g. collaborative exercises or virtual seminars. We discuss these learning gadgets in more detail and show how they promise an enjoyable collaborative exam preparation.