Canadian

include, among others, investigating factors influencing the facilitation of higher order

Most definitions of constructivism include a strong emphasis on socially mediated discussion as a critical element (Bruner, 1986(Bruner, , 1990Jonassen, 1991a;1991b.). Jonassen, Davidson, Collins, Campbell, & Bannan Haag, (1995) claim that, under constructivist approaches, "learning is a social and dialogical process in which communities of practitioners socially negotiate the meaning of phenomenon" (p. 9). Garrison (1997) argues effectively for the use of computer conferencing as the most feasible and effective technology for achieving the ideals of a collaborative , constructivist approach to education at a distance, claiming that such a technology can support learners in the processes of "collaboratively constructing meaning and confirming understanding" (p. 3). Sherry (2000) adds that all computer mediated communication (CMC) systems can be described as socio-technical networks, in which the technical and social forces, such as conversation, cannot be clearly separated. She underscores the social dimension of such technologies because they facilitate, and shape human interactions and ultimately, social change. According to Laurillard (1993), the primary function of such discursive media as computer conferencing is to bring people together for discussion. Gibson (1995) claims that the real promise of these computer mediated communication tools for learning is to enable "connection to other learners and to resources within a potentially rich, discursive learning environment" (p. 8).
This paper describes the design and implementation of a collaborative issues analysis project (IAP) that attempted to operationalize, within the context of an online learning environment using asynchronous computer conferencing, the designer's constructivist assumptions and models (Gibson, 1995). An evaluation of the relative success of this initiative is presented in light of nine principles of computer-supported collaborative learning environments (Means et al., 1993). In addition, activity theory (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy , 1999) and related activity centered design (Gifford & Enydey, 1999) are combined and used as a valuable conceptual framework with which to examine and evaluate the extent to which the IAP online learning activity reflects the values and principles of a constructivist learning environment. In addition, results of a transcript analysis of one IAP group's online interactions indicated two of the relative success of this initiative, namely high levels of collaboration and active peer facilitation of discussion. An important overlay to this discussion is the fact that this online learning project was, in large part, designed to facilitate the use and development of higher order thinking skills.

The Case Study Context
Thirty adult learners (16-male/14 female) from across Canada participated in a nationally funded 18-month agricultural leadership development initiative entitled the Canadian Agricultural Lifetime Leadership (CALL) program. The overall goal of the program was to enable and empower graduates to provide vision and leadership to Canadian agriculture, and to assume important leadership and advocacy roles at the national level.
Program objectives included: to learn about agricultural issues, to share this knowledge with others, and to improve individual leadership skills.
In addition to face-to-face delivery strategies (e.g., Leadership, and Study Travel Seminars)the CALL Program employed the FirstClass™ computer-conferencing environment for the duration of the program, which served to facilitate leadership development at a distance. To assist in achieving this goal an online learning project was designed, which required participants to form small working teams (3-5 members) each of which focused their activities on the analysis of a particular issue relevant to agriculture leadership. Referred to as the Issues Analysis Project or IAP, this learning activity enabled team members to work collaboratively within an asynchronous computer conference environment to create a coherent and detailed report concerning a key issue facing the Canadian agriculture industry.
The computer conference provided continuity between CALL face-to-face sessions and allowed IAP team members to work together despite geographic distances. For most, this was a new and challenging approach to learning. Therefore, learner support strategies were integrated into the program design (e.g., an initial orientation to the IAP task and computer conference system, the provision of an IAP Guide , and regular online coaching).

The Issues Analysis Project
The IAP allowed participants to apply leadership development theory to an authentic task (i.e., a real issue) in a context relevant to Canadian agriculture. The conceptual framework for the IAP was based on Ruggerio's (1988) issues analysis model which included five basic process stages whereby participants explored options and issues, expressed a chosen issue precisely, investigated sources of information, produced ideas about the issues, and evaluated and refined these ideas into a final written report and an oral presentation. Guidelines for the selection of issues to analyze required that they be nationally significant, somewhat controversial, and reasonable in scope, and that evidence be available.
The aforementioned IAP Guide provided a step-by-step process outlining the IAP stages, procedures, associated timelines, and products for each stage. This gave participants a quick summary of what they needed to do, and by when. The IAP processes and product challenges for each stage are briefly listed in Table 1. Table 1. IAP process and product by stage.

IAP Stage Team Process and Product Challenge
Exploration within a stated area of interest, teams identify an issue Expression create a written statement summarizing the issue, its importance, and manner in which the analysis is to be conducted Investigation use a variety of research methods to gather evidence and reports on sources Idea production enter into the production of ideas via summarizing, analyzing, synthesizing, and compiling evidence Evaluation/refinement create a final written and oral report describing the issue, outline evidence, state your position Additional information was included that helped guide teams in their approaches to thinking about the issues.
A sample of question prompts for each IAP stage is shown below in Table 2.

An Overview of the Education IAP
The Education IAP group's transcript was selected for analysis, as their focus was most in line with the researcher's interest and background. In addition, this group actively and effectively used the computer conference space to complete the various stages of the IAP. A brief overview of the Education IAP processes, themes and foci for discussion evident within the online transcript is presented below. During the exploration stage of the IAP, the group spent considerable time discussing the issue of education in agriculture in the broadest sense possible. As Ruggerio (1988) suggests, this process was stimulated by "discontentment" with the status quo (p.35). These discussions ranged from the perceived lack of agriculture education in the public school system, to the relative ignorance of urbanites regarding the importance of agriculture, to misguided corporate and political policies that reveal a general lack of awareness of the human and economic impacts on agriculture. The need for an increased emphasis on training employees to meet current and future agricultural demands was an additional topic explored. The group next moved to the second stage of the IAP, further articulating the above topics into a formal expression of the issue. Following the suggestions laid out by the IAP Guide, the group "determined the essential elements of the issue and expressed them in writing" (Ruggerio, 1988, p. 35). This statement, posted and shared with the wider CALL group, was to form the Education IAP's general framework for the succeeding stages, and provided the structure for their final written report. The third stage of the IAP was investigation and the task for the group was to determine what information was necessary or helpful and what evidence was relevant to the issue, and then obtain that information or evidence. Ruggerio (1988) claims that this phase of an issues analysis process is "especially important in dealing with complex and controversial issues" (p.35). Efforts were taken by the group to determine the background of the issue, the various viewpoints involved, and the different lines of reasoning that have been or could be advanced. In line with Ruggerio's recommendation, the Education IAP group consulted three sources of information to investigate the issue-themselves, peoplearound them , and authorities . The participants consistently shared their personal perspectives and interpretations, based on their considerable collective experience in agriculture. They also regularly tapped into professional resources available to them (e.g., professional contacts). Finally, the breadth of information gathered from a wide variety of authoritative resources (e.g., government reports, books, articles), then shared and discussed with team members, was impressive. After having spent time investigating the issue of agriculture education, the group moved to working with the general conceptual framework they had constructed and began to produce ideas.
This fourth phase of the issues analysis process is critical as it is here that the "aim is to force our thinking out of the molds which conditioning and habit have created and consider many possible responses before embracing any" (Ruggerio, 1988, p.35). The group worked diligently at crafting a number of tenable solutions to the problems explored, expressed, and investigated within the main issue. For the fifth and final stage of the IAP, the Education team strove to evaluate and refine their analysis of the issue. They examined, through ongoing discussion, the ideas generated in the earlier stages and identified those that seemed most reasonable.
Through posting a series of iterations of the written report, the Education IAP group framed their "response to the essential elements of dispute" (Ruggerio, 1988, p. 35). This stage facilitated the construction of the final draft of their written report, the essence of which was formally presented to peers and a variety of program stakeholders at the conclusion of the CALL Program. The IAP, embedding cognitive tasks within collaborative processes, from initial identification and exploration of the issue, through to the final written report and presentation represents what might be considered a tangible application of constructivist principles to an online learning environment. However, the relative success of such an approach needs to be articulated in equally tangible terms; we need specific markers of success if this initiative is to receive a reasonable evaluation. A brief critique of the design of the IAP online learning activity, in light of the goals of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (Means, et al, 1993), and Activity Centered Design principles (Gifford & Enyedy, 1999) is presented below. Use of these two conceptual frameworks offers some measure of the relative success of the IAP, both in terms of how well it operationalized constructivist values and principles, and its utility in providing an online learning context in which holistic thinking was stimulated.
The IAP as a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environment Sherry (2000) claims that Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is an emerging paradigm of education that emphasizes a melding between individual cognitions and socially shared representations, developed through ongoing discourse and joint activities that take place within a learning community. Put more simply, the community learns from its individual participants, and each individual learns from the community:powered by the engine of cognitively engaging discussion, a functioning, dynamic learning system is created. Typically, CSCL environments incorporate CMC tools to facilitate communication among all participants for the purposes of developing shared knowledge and understandings.
According to Sherry (2000), one of the contributing foundations of CSCL is based on the concept of situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This, and other related perspectives (e.g., communities of learners, cognitive apprenticeships) challenges traditional views on the nature of learning and cognition, and instructional design, to move "beyond the individual mind to include learning that is built up by mediated conversations among members of peer groups, local learning communities, and broader cultural systems" (Sherry, 2000, p. 21).
CSCL environments often represent a process of combining particular pedagogical assumptions and then operationalizing these with the use of computer mediated communication tools. This approach demands a reconceptualization of learning from individual acquisition of knowledge and skills to learning as individual and collective engagement (Jones, Valdez, Nowakowski, & Rasmussen, 1995) , with relevant activities and authentic tasks embedded within and contiguous with the larger online learning community or environment. Table 3.
A comparison of educational authentic task markers and elements designed into the IAP.
Markers of an Authentic Task Means, et al. 1993) The Issues Analysis Project… multidisciplinary curriculum required participants to consult a wide variety of information sources, across a variety of disciplines. Given the central importance of embedding authentic learning tasks within the context of CSCLs, it is critical to ask, "Was the IAP an authentic, relevant task and how would we evaluate this?" Means et al (1993, p. 4) provides a useful set of interrelated elements or markers to describe educational authentic tasks. Following is a comparison between these markers and elements designed into the IAP.
It is my opinion that the learning tasks or activities embedded within CSCL environments cannot be treated as atomistic phenomena, as it might be under a domain-centered, or even student-centered instructional design approach (Gifford & Enyedy, 1999). Rather, drawing on the precepts of activity theory and following an activity centered design considers the online learning activity to be a holistic phenomenon, influenced by a complex variety of contextual and process factors, all dynamically interacting and transforming the particular CSCL environment.
Finally, as in the case of the design of the IAP described above, other factors may need to be considered when analyzing the design of an online learning activity. For example, one of the underlying purposes of the IAP activity, and embedded within the activity structure, was that it attempt to stimulate holistic thinking (content-basic, critical, creative, and complex thinking) (Iowa State Dept. of Education, 1989) and by extension, deep learning (Evans & Honour, 1997). These goals are not uncommon sentiments among educators and are likely critical considerations and hoped for outcomes in the design of constructivist online learning activities and environments. Research exclusively concerned with describing cognitive changes assumed to occur within the individual independent of contextual influences such as the IAP learning activity described above, can only hope to tell part of the story (Bullen, 1998). Findings indicating that cognitive skills fluctuate as a function of the situation, suggest that thinking skills, per se, are limited in their generality and that " context is an integral aspect of cognitive activities and events, not a nuisance variable" (Rogoff & Lave, 1984, p. 1).
Higher order thinking can thus be seen as intricately interwoven with the problem to be solved or issue to be analyzed and the learning to be realized, with the context in which all are situated. Context here includes the physical and conceptual structure of the learning environment, the purpose of the activity, and the social milieu in which it is embedded. From a research perspective, one must attend to the content and the context of intellectual activity in order to understand phenomena such as holistic thought processes underlying deep learning. In other words, understanding the detailed circumstances and influences of cognitive activity, including context, is essential to developing a more sufficient theory of holistic thinking development and deep learning. A broader view of context was taken in the case of this study, the IAP within CSCL environment, required that "task characteristics and cognitive performance be considered in light of the goal of the activity and the interpersonal and cultural context in which the activity is embedded" (Rogoff & Lave, 1984, p. 4).
Coming round full circle, central to the online learning context, the technical and process milieu in which a variety of cognitive activity occurs, is the assumed interaction with other people and the use of socially provided tools and schemes for discussing issues and solving problems (Woods, 1994). In the context of the IAP, the cognitive activity or thinking was socially defined, interpreted, and supported in and by the CSCL environment. Participants in this CMC environment, in conjunction with each other and guided by implicit, and sometimes explicit, social norms set goals, negotiated appropriate means to reach the goals, and assisted each other in implementing the means and resetting the goals as activities evolved (Rogoff & Lave, 1984, p. 5). The individual members of the Education IAP and the social milieu of learning of the CSCL environment interacted over time to strengthen and transform one another in a reciprocal spiral relationship (Salomon & Perkins, 1998).
Addressing the application of the apparent contrasting perspectives of traditional ISD vs. a constructivist approach to the challenges of creating online learning environments, Yarusso (1992, p. 9) states that he would use the former when faced with a need to be productive and the latter when faced with a need to be creative.
This view seems unnecessary (Gibson, 1995), too simplistic, and underlines a false dichotomy between thinking and doing. Alternatively, Barell (1991) talks of creating a learning climate wherein learners feel invited to think productively. He calls this kind of environment invitational, wherein learners feel comfortable expressing their ideas, do not fear being wrong, are willing to challenge established points of view, and can risk asking, "What if?" and "Why not?" (Barell, 1991, p. xiii-xiv). In my view, at least two necessary design elements are required for the creation of such an invitational constructivist online learning environment: 1) the creation of online activities reflecting basic principles of computer-supported collaborative learning, and 2) that an activity-centred design process be followed.
Finally, activity theory holds promise as a useful conceptual framework with which to analyze and evaluate the relative success of CSCL environments and embedded learning activities regarding the extent to which these are reflective of constructivist values and principles. However, more research is needed to further articulate how such a framework can be translated into specific design approaches for the development of wider variety constructivist online learning environments. This article has added to that research by providing a retrospective analysis of one online learning activity, namely, the CALL Program's Issues Analysis Project , framing that analysis within CSCL principles, and using activity theory as a conceptual framework for evaluation.