Collaborative agency that drives collaborative problem-solving and learning

Collaboration learning in small groups is a complex phenomenon that involves all cognitive, socio-emotional, metacognitive, socio-cultural, and historical aspects. It happens at both group and individual levels where collaborative learning is constructed by individual members with the use of mediational means but cannot be reduced by the summation of individual contributions. Collaboration agency is a property that also belongs to both individual members and the whole group, which can be empirically examined through the placemaking practice and mediational means. Through the analysis of a case episode, we presented the complexity of one group’s collaborative problem-solving effort and evidenced the criticality of analyzing placemaking practice and mediational means. This analysis helps expand our view of agency in classroom beyond the dilemma resulted from a felt need to control, or the power relations, and further bears implications for learning design practitioners.