Background: Collaborative learning is widely applied in real-world classrooms while young learners still have challenges engaging in high-quality knowledge co-construction processes. Researchers suggested an individual preparation activity before collaboration. However, there remains a limited understanding of the role of individual preparation on…

The hurried pace of the modern classroom does not permit formative feedback on writing assignments at the frequency or quality recommended by the research literature. One solution for increasing individual feedback to students is to incorporate some form of computer-generated assessment. This study explores the use of automated assessment of…