Supporting Explorative Learning by Providing Collaborative Online Problem Solving (cops) Environments

Research confirms that people learn more effectively by active enquiry rather than passive reception and through experimentation and collaboration. Collaborative problem solving comprises a set of skills that are considered necessary for success in today’s world (O’Neil et al. 2003). Importantly, the development of such skills requires a learning/teaching approach that combines both problem centred learning and collaborative/co-operative learning (Nelson 1999). The COPS project seeks to go beyond current Online Learning and Teaching (OLT) resources to provide a framework and system to create and deploy environments where teams of undergraduate learners at Queensland University of Technology can collaborate, engage, grapple and seek to make sense of authentic problems within an online environment. It will do so by creating problem centred 'learning designs' that can be integrated with face to face teaching to bridge the gap between the classroom and real world experience. This paper introduces the teaching and learning philosophy behind COPS and explains our approach to developing this new