Considering the Intrinsic Constraints for Groups Management of TAPPS and Jigsaw CLFPs

When applying a Collaborative Learning Flow Pattern (CLFP) to structure the sequence of activities in a real context, one of the tasks is to organize groups of students according to the constraints imposed by the pattern. Sometimes,unexpected events occurring on runtime force this pre-defined distribution to be changed. In such situations, a re-definition of the group structure for adjusting the activity to the actual context is needed. This paper proposes a flexible solution for supporting teachers in the group organization and adaptation profiting from the intrinsic constraints defined by a CLFPs codified in IMS Learning Design. A prototype of a web-based tool for the TAPPS and Jigsaw CLFPs and the preliminary results of a controlled user study are also presented as a first step towards flexible solutions in this context.