The Effect of Digital Versus Traditional Orchestration on Collaboration in Small Groups

We are developing an intelligent orchestration system named FACT (Formative Assessment using Computational Technology). Orchestration refers the teacher’s management of a face-to-face classroom workflow that mixes small group, individual and whole class activities. FACT is composed of an unintelligent Media system and an intelligent Analysis system. Although the Analysis system, which is still being refined, is designed to increase collaboration, prior work suggests that the Media system could possibly harm collaboration. Thus, we conducted an evaluation of the FACT Media system in classrooms, comparing it against traditional classrooms. We coded videos of small groups in order to measure their collaboration. The FACT Media system did no harm: the distribution of collaboration codes in FACT classrooms is statistically similar to the distribution in traditional classrooms. This null result is welcome news and sets the stage for testing the benefits of the Analysis system.