David Williamson Shaffer
Biographic Data
| ID | 214675 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Williamson Shaffer |
| GIVEN NAMES | David Williamson |
| FAMILY NAME | Shaffer |
| SIGNATURE | SHAFFER D W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9613-5740 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Temporal Network Analysis of Collaborative Prototyping from a Knowledge Creation Perspective
This study analyzed data from prototyping sessions to support learners’ engagement in collaborative problem-solving through design-mode thinking. Knowledge creation (KC) is essential for addressing 21st-century complex problems, yet learners struggle to share incomplete ideas due to unfamiliarity with design-mode thinking. Although prototyping is known to be effective for sharing and improving incomplete ideas in the business sector, few studies …
Community of inquiry in motion: Modeling inquiry dynamics with movement analysis (Mova)
Collaborative inquiry is a well-established pedagogical approach for fostering learner collaboration, critical thinking, and higher-order thinking skills. However, its complex and dynamic nature presents challenges for educators and learners in monitoring and regulating group interactions effectively. While previous research guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) model has employed descriptive, correlational, and sequential analyses to examine …
Unveiling joint attention dynamics: Examining multimodal engagement in an immersive collaborative astronomy simulation
The authenticity dilemma: Towards a theory on the conditions and effects of authentic learning
A highly authentic learning setting is likely to trigger positive motivational and emotional reactions due to its emphasis on promoting the acquisition of knowledge that is connected and transferable to real-world phenomena outside the learning environment. However, a high level of authenticity is usually accompanied by a high level of complexity due to the complexity inherent in the real world. This complexity can be overwhelming for learners an…
Dissecting learning tactics in Mooc using ordered network analysis
Towards strengthening links between learning analytics and assessment: Challenges and potentials of a promising new bond
Assessing individual contributions to Collaborative Problem Solving: A network analysis approach
Sens: Network analytics to combine social and cognitive perspectives of collaborative learning
Epistemic Network Analysis: A Worked Example of Theory-Based Learning Analytics
data-driven -approach. We do so by presenting 1) epistemic frame theory as an approach cational game design based on epistemic frame theory; and 3) epistemic network analysis of learning analytics.
A Tutorial on Epistemic Network Analysis: Analyzing the Structure of Connections in Cognitive, Social, and Interaction Data
This paper provides a tutorial on epistemic network analysis (ENA), a novel method for identifying and quantifying connections among elements in coded data and representing them in dynamic network models. Such models illustrate the structure of connections and measure the strength of association among elements in a network, and they quantify changes in the composition and strength of connections over time. Importantly, ENA enables comparison of n…
Skills: Escher’s World
Computers let us do more than we know how to do on our own—and thus let kids do things that innovative professionals do, and learn the ways of innovative thinking in the process. This chapter is about how professionals learn to be innovative thinkers.
Values: The Pandora Project
This chapter focuses on the values of professional practices: on how thinking and working like a professional means caring about the things a professional cares about—and thus how learning to think like a professional means learning to value the things professionals think of as important, interesting, and meaningful.
Identity: Science.net
The future: Urban Science
So far we’ve looked at five epistemic games, each of which shows the importance of one of the elements of an epistemic frame. With these illustrations I’ve argued that epistemic frames are a new way of thinking about thinking, and epistemic games like Digital Zoo, Escher’s World, The Pandora Project , and science.net offer a new way of thinking about learning—one that is critical to education in the high-tech, digital world of global competition.…
Knowledge: Digital Zoo
This chapter looks at how computers change what it means to think and thus what it means to learn. It begins by looking at Digital Zoo , a game developed by researcher Gina Svarovsky at the University of Wisconsin. 1 In the game, players become biomechanical engineers and design virtual creatures. Along the way, they learn about science and engineering. The computer plays a central role in this process, as players learn fundamental physics concep…
Epistemology: The Debating Game
On September 26, 1960, 70 million Americans watched the first televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. The moderator, journalist Howard K. Smith, began: Good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. The candidates need no intro…
Toolforthoughts: Reexamining Thinking in the Digital Age
In this article we argue that new computational tools problematize the concept of thought within current sociocultural theories of technology and cognition by challenging the traditional position of privilege that humans occupy in sociocultural analyses. We draw on work by Shaffer and Kaput (1999) and Latour (1996a, 1996b, 1996c) to extend the analytical reach of "activity theory" (Engestrom, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999; Nardi, 1996b), "mediated …
How Computer Games Help Children Learn
Video Games and the Future of Learning
Will video games change the way we learn? We argue here for a particular view of games-and of learning-as activities that are most powerful when they are personally meaningful, experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time. From this perspective, we describe an approach to the design of learning environments that builds on the educational properties of games, but deeply grounds them within a theory of learning appropriate for an …
What Good are Statistics that Don’t Generalize
Quantitative and qualitative inquiry are sometimes portrayed as distinct and incompatible paradigms for research in education. Approaches to combining qualitative and quantitative research typically “integrate” the two methods by letting them co-exist independently within a single research study. Here we describe intra-sample statistical analysis (ISSA) as a general technique for using quantitative tools to support qualitative inquiry so as to si…
Us, ourselves, and we: Thoughts About Social (Self-) Categorization
In a recent Workshop on community-based learning at the 6th International Conference on Learning Sciences (ICLS 2004), one persistent theme was the variety of terms used to describe collections of people (group, community, network, collective) and components of interaction (culture, identity, collaboration, cooperation) in group learning activities. Here, we describe some of the thinking that emerged in those discussions, not as a comprehensive l…
Pedagogical praxis: Using Technology to Build Professional Communities of Practice
Over the past decade and a half, work in the field of education on communities of practice [20] and/or communities of learners [2] has focused on how individual development takes place within the larger context of the norms and activities of a community. Recognizing this, educators working within the sociocultural tradition have focused on documenting the practices of extant communities [12; 18--20; 35] and/or on ways in which the "community of p…
Video Games and the Future of Learning
Will video games change the way we learn? We argue here for a particular view of games-and of learning-as activities that are most powerful when they are personally meaningful, experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time. From this perspective, we describe an approach to the design of learning environments that builds on the educational properties of games, but deeply grounds them within a theory of learning appropriate for an …
How Computer Games Help Children Learn
What Good are Statistics that Don’t Generalize
Quantitative and qualitative inquiry are sometimes portrayed as distinct and incompatible paradigms for research in education. Approaches to combining qualitative and quantitative research typically “integrate” the two methods by letting them co-exist independently within a single research study. Here we describe intra-sample statistical analysis (ISSA) as a general technique for using quantitative tools to support qualitative inquiry so as to si…
Us, ourselves, and we: Thoughts About Social (Self-) Categorization
In a recent Workshop on community-based learning at the 6th International Conference on Learning Sciences (ICLS 2004), one persistent theme was the variety of terms used to describe collections of people (group, community, network, collective) and components of interaction (culture, identity, collaboration, cooperation) in group learning activities. Here, we describe some of the thinking that emerged in those discussions, not as a comprehensive l…
Pedagogical praxis: Using Technology to Build Professional Communities of Practice
Over the past decade and a half, work in the field of education on communities of practice [20] and/or communities of learners [2] has focused on how individual development takes place within the larger context of the norms and activities of a community. Recognizing this, educators working within the sociocultural tradition have focused on documenting the practices of extant communities [12; 18--20; 35] and/or on ways in which the "community of p…
What Good are Statistics that Don’t Generalize
Quantitative and qualitative inquiry are sometimes portrayed as distinct and incompatible paradigms for research in education. Approaches to combining qualitative and quantitative research typically “integrate” the two methods by letting them co-exist independently within a single research study. Here we describe intra-sample statistical analysis (ISSA) as a general technique for using quantitative tools to support qualitative inquiry so as to si…
Video Games and the Future of Learning
Will video games change the way we learn? We argue here for a particular view of games-and of learning-as activities that are most powerful when they are personally meaningful, experiential, social, and epistemological all at the same time. From this perspective, we describe an approach to the design of learning environments that builds on the educational properties of games, but deeply grounds them within a theory of learning appropriate for an …
Skills: Escher’s World
Computers let us do more than we know how to do on our own—and thus let kids do things that innovative professionals do, and learn the ways of innovative thinking in the process. This chapter is about how professionals learn to be innovative thinkers.
Values: The Pandora Project
This chapter focuses on the values of professional practices: on how thinking and working like a professional means caring about the things a professional cares about—and thus how learning to think like a professional means learning to value the things professionals think of as important, interesting, and meaningful.
Identity: Science.net
The future: Urban Science
So far we’ve looked at five epistemic games, each of which shows the importance of one of the elements of an epistemic frame. With these illustrations I’ve argued that epistemic frames are a new way of thinking about thinking, and epistemic games like Digital Zoo, Escher’s World, The Pandora Project , and science.net offer a new way of thinking about learning—one that is critical to education in the high-tech, digital world of global competition.…
Knowledge: Digital Zoo
This chapter looks at how computers change what it means to think and thus what it means to learn. It begins by looking at Digital Zoo , a game developed by researcher Gina Svarovsky at the University of Wisconsin. 1 In the game, players become biomechanical engineers and design virtual creatures. Along the way, they learn about science and engineering. The computer plays a central role in this process, as players learn fundamental physics concep…
Epistemology: The Debating Game
On September 26, 1960, 70 million Americans watched the first televised presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. The moderator, journalist Howard K. Smith, began: Good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. The candidates need no intro…
Toolforthoughts: Reexamining Thinking in the Digital Age
In this article we argue that new computational tools problematize the concept of thought within current sociocultural theories of technology and cognition by challenging the traditional position of privilege that humans occupy in sociocultural analyses. We draw on work by Shaffer and Kaput (1999) and Latour (1996a, 1996b, 1996c) to extend the analytical reach of "activity theory" (Engestrom, Miettinen, & Punamaki, 1999; Nardi, 1996b), "mediated …
How Computer Games Help Children Learn
A Tutorial on Epistemic Network Analysis: Analyzing the Structure of Connections in Cognitive, Social, and Interaction Data
This paper provides a tutorial on epistemic network analysis (ENA), a novel method for identifying and quantifying connections among elements in coded data and representing them in dynamic network models. Such models illustrate the structure of connections and measure the strength of association among elements in a network, and they quantify changes in the composition and strength of connections over time. Importantly, ENA enables comparison of n…
Epistemic Network Analysis: A Worked Example of Theory-Based Learning Analytics
data-driven -approach. We do so by presenting 1) epistemic frame theory as an approach cational game design based on epistemic frame theory; and 3) epistemic network analysis of learning analytics.
Sens: Network analytics to combine social and cognitive perspectives of collaborative learning
Assessing individual contributions to Collaborative Problem Solving: A network analysis approach
Towards strengthening links between learning analytics and assessment: Challenges and potentials of a promising new bond
Dissecting learning tactics in Mooc using ordered network analysis
Unveiling joint attention dynamics: Examining multimodal engagement in an immersive collaborative astronomy simulation
The authenticity dilemma: Towards a theory on the conditions and effects of authentic learning
A highly authentic learning setting is likely to trigger positive motivational and emotional reactions due to its emphasis on promoting the acquisition of knowledge that is connected and transferable to real-world phenomena outside the learning environment. However, a high level of authenticity is usually accompanied by a high level of complexity due to the complexity inherent in the real world. This complexity can be overwhelming for learners an…
Temporal Network Analysis of Collaborative Prototyping from a Knowledge Creation Perspective
This study analyzed data from prototyping sessions to support learners’ engagement in collaborative problem-solving through design-mode thinking. Knowledge creation (KC) is essential for addressing 21st-century complex problems, yet learners struggle to share incomplete ideas due to unfamiliarity with design-mode thinking. Although prototyping is known to be effective for sharing and improving incomplete ideas in the business sector, few studies …
Community of inquiry in motion: Modeling inquiry dynamics with movement analysis (Mova)
Collaborative inquiry is a well-established pedagogical approach for fostering learner collaboration, critical thinking, and higher-order thinking skills. However, its complex and dynamic nature presents challenges for educators and learners in monitoring and regulating group interactions effectively. While previous research guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) model has employed descriptive, correlational, and sequential analyses to examine …
Computer Science (16 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Data science (8 works) · Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Cognitive science (5 works) · Mathematics education (5 works) · Cognition (4 works)