Shared Cognition is seen as being situation dependant; it specifically enables social interactions (and knowledge sharing) within a given context that is immediately applicable to the task at hand. By linking context and knowledge the learner is made aware of the conditions under which the knowledge should be applied. In the wider realm the learner may thus see how such knowledge can best be applied in outside situations – thus fostering critical and creative thinking within an online environment, as with traditional face to face teaching, the relevancy of case based scenarios, or contextualised data is essential to focusing the learners attentions on the immediate needs of a problem or example and on the identified module learning outcomes in assuring strategic approaches to online experiences (Evans et al 2003).
The idea of co-construction of shared knowledge supports the premise that shared cognition is not just reliant on the factual knowledge and the common social grounding around that knowledge but on the processes and practices in which one may attain knowledge (Resnick, Levine, Teasley 1991). This implies that collaboration is most effective when there are common objectives i.e. that individual participants are working towards the same goal or set of goals, e.g. engaged in mutual problem solving. However work by Boxtel et al (2000) noted no discernable differences whilst testing collaborative and individual learning outcomes, this is an area of study that requires further quantitative analysis in particular.
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