Many authors have argued the benefits of collaborative learning (diSessa and Minstrel, 1995; Cohen, 1994; Reynolds, 1995; Bruer, 1993; von Glaserfield, 1991) and activity based courses (Jones, 1991; Yackel, Cobb and Wood, 1991). However, few have presented tools or methods for applying these ideas in large undergraduate service courses. In the context of undergraduate statistics education, we introduce ``Virtual Benchmark Instruction'' a method to facilitate collaborative learning using HyperNews, a structured hypertext bulletin board on the World Wide Web. We draw extensively on previous work by Minstrell, diSessa, and others, who developed and evaluated ``Benchmark Instruction'' in the context of the high school physics classroom. We adapt their ideas and add a virtual environment, generalizing the technique to larger audiences.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education