Biosketch: Anita Mattsson

My thesis is about distance education design in a CSCL framework, building on socio cultural theories and theories of communities of practice. One teacher and nine student groups in higher education is followed during one course. An analysis is made on 1098 contributions posted in an asynchronous conference system. The result shows that the teacher says she is embraced by socio cultural theories. However, in practice she chooses not to intervene in students' interaction, leaving it up to the students to form their pedagogical practice to a great extent on their own. Structuring assignments, feedback, designing for the unexpected, teacher as a co-learner, are aspects highlighted in the analysis. The preliminary title of my thesis is "Online pedagogical Practices".