The Textbook Learns to Talk: How to Design Chatbot-Mediated Learning to Foster Collaborative High-Order Learning?

The tasks and challenges for the teacher in the classroom are diverse. Especially in collaborative group settings, the teacher cannot give feedback to different groups at the same time. In such situations, textbooks are often used because they allow students to work independently. However, previous research has shown that current textbooks are not well suited for high-order learning (evaluating, creating) which requires a high level of interaction among students and teacher in order to complete complex collaboration-oriented tasks. To address this issue, this paper investigates how chatbot-mediated learning can be designed to foster students in collaborative high-order learning based on an electronic textbook. By means of conjecture mapping, we visualize our assumptions and illustrate how we designed the learning support system. Preliminary findings suggest that a textbook-based chatbot may support collaborative students’ tasks and promote high-order learning, increasing students' task accomplishment, content knowledge, and team-reflection. However, further evaluation is necessary to confirm or reject our hypotheses.