An activity-oriented approach to visually structured knowledge representation for problem-based learning in virtual learning environments

摘要

Knowledge that needs to be learned in the workplace may often be ill-structured, arising from the need to solve a problem, rather than from a motivation to learn an entire content domain. Existing visually structured knowledge representation methods for education are designed to support subject-based learning. In this paper we describe our conceptual model of collaborative learning which is developed according to constructivist and situated learning principles. On the basis of this model we argue that an activity-oriented approach to representing knowledge is the most suitable for the support of learner-centered learning in a collaborative setting. We derive requirements for our new activity-oriented knowledge representation method which are based on our model of collaborative learning. We describe the method in detail, and apply it to the support of problem-based learning.