Using virtual teams to improve information literacy and distributed cognition in a collaborative writing and general chemistry assignment

摘要

Two collaborating faculty developed a linked assignment in a general education chemistry course and an upper-level technical writing course. The goals of our collaboration were to foster students' control, awareness and demonstration of learning, improve student information literacy, and cultivate students' negotiations with team members. We use the term "distributed cognition" to describe virtual interactions among students that led to fulfilling the goals of the linked assignment. Students' information literacy skills "funded" the pool of knowledge for student teams to access as they address the problems posed by their assignment to build a presentation.