In our paper, we shall analyse an occurrence of “discovery work” (Koschmann, & Zemel, 2006) accomplished by two students (BA in Education) who are jointly engaged in a TUI*-mediated physics problem solving activity. The latter is a computer simulation of a biker’s applied force and work done to the bike while driving over different road surfaces, climbing more or less steep hillsides, travelling over various distances, and while changing pedal and wheel gears. Participants are asked to solve several tasks to eventually find out which factors influence the dependent variables “Force on Pedal” and “Work”.

To evaluate the prototype of this bicycle scenario and to gain insight into the situated organisation of joint problem solving processes, we videotaped three small groups of students while they were interacting among themselves and with the TUI-interface. By relying on an ethnomethodological conversation analytic framework (Koschmann, 2013; Mondada, 2013) to conduct a moment-by-moment video based analysis, we shall here highlight how two students accomplish the interactional work of discovering which factors influence the work done to the bicycle. While constantly displaying a joint orientation to their task, they are doing a multimodally embodied work of noticing, of directing the other’s attention, of seeking and of securing mutual understanding. Finally, new insights are introduced in their shared world.

However, while we could observe discovery work being accomplished with and around the TUI-interface, our analysis also points to the need of re-designing the tasks and the interface in order to afford a more advanced reflective understanding.

*TUI: Tangible User Interface tangible tabletop interfaces make use of physical objects that can be placed, moved or rotated in order to interact with the system.

Koschmann, T. (2013). Conversation Analysis and Collaborative Learning. In C. E. Hmelo-Silver, C. A. Chinn, C. K. K. Chan, and A. O'Donnell (ed.), The International Handbook of Collaborative Learning (pp. 149-167). New York and London: Routledge.

Koschmann, T., & Zemel, A. (2006). Optical pulsars and black arrows: discovery's work in 'hot' and 'cold' science. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences (ICLS '06).

Mondada, L. (2013). The conversation Analytic Approach to Data Collection. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 32-56). Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.