How is Cognition Distributed Across a Group Of Students Collaborating on a Learning Task in a Technologically Enabled Classroom in a Japanese University?

This study investigates a classroom learning activity where students collaborate using technology in a university in Japan. This dissertation adopts an interpretivist perspective using the notions of extended and distributed cognition to study the flow and organisation of information in a classroom. The main source of data comes from repeated classroom observations of 24 group activities, twelve group interviews with students and three individual interviews with teachers in a liberal arts college. The first major outcome of this study is the conceptual mapping of a cognitive system of the classroom, which identifies and illustrates the processes of memory, distribution and information processing. The second outcome is the discovery of how students and teachers use artefact, interaction and cultural tools to leverage their cognitive processes to enhance their cognitive activity, particularly in the processes of memory, distribution and information processing. Other outcomes include the nature of collaboration at five levels of class, group, individual, sub-group and sub sub-group that engender learning interactions and interaction with cognitive artefacts. Another outcome revealed how cognition is distributed via nine distributional media where technological artefacts are leveraged for information on demand and at the same time. At the same time, these outcomes have implications for the development of theory, practice, policy and future research.