Collaborative educational location-based activities with no teacher supervision: design implications

Abstract

This paper analyses a gamified collaborative formal–informal outdoor activity and uses the findings to inform the design of future mobile collaboration tools. We present a case study framed in two editions (in years 2018 and 2019) of a (math) gymkhana1 for 15- and 16-year-old students, during which small groups worked collaboratively outside school, with no teacher supervision. From the case study, we present the analysis of the observations of three groups that participated in the activity and the post-activity questionnaire answered by 80 students. The analysis of the questionnaire reveals factors that students appreciated as promoting productive work (i.e. working together, a sense of agency because they were completely on their own and a change of perception of the nature of the subject matter). The analysis of the observations points to other elements that promote successful collaborative work, most of them confirming findings from previous research, such as engaged feedback, joint attention and alignment of goals. But other elements require more research, such as the importance of role changes over time and a broader view of the subject matter, as well as those specific to collaborating outdoors, such as finding/locating the task and matching the description of the task with the real object/place. From those elements, we derive design implications that should inform the design of future mobile educational location-based apps (ELbAs) for collaboration.