Students across disciplines struggle with sensemaking when they are faced with the need to understand and analyze massive amounts of information. This is particularly salient in the disciplines of both history and data science. Our approach to helping students build expertise with complex information leverages activity theory to think about the design of a classroom activity system integrated with the design of a collaborative open-source network-analysis software tool called Net.Create. Through analysis of network log data as well as video data of students’ collaborative interactions with Net.Create, we explore how our activity system helped students reconcile common contradictions that create barriers to dealing with complex datasets in large lecture classrooms. Findings show that as students draw on details in a historical text to collaboratively construct a larger network, they begin to move more readily between small detail and aggregate overview. Students at both high and low initial skill levels were able to increase the complexity of their historical analyses through their engagement with the Net.Create tool and activities. Net.Create transforms the limitation of large class sizes in history classrooms into a resource for students’ collaborative knowledge building, and through collaborative data entry it supports the historiographic practices of citation and revision and helps students embed local historical actors into a larger historical context.

跨学科的学生在面临理解和分析大量信息的需求时，他们都在为意义建构而苦苦挣扎。这在历史和数据科学学科中尤为突出。我们帮助学生建立具有复杂信息的专业知识的方法利用活动理论来思考课堂活动系统的设计与名为 Net.Create 的协作开源网络分析软件工具的设计相结合。通过分析网络日志数据以及学生与 Net.Create 协作互动的视频数据，我们探索了我们的活动系统如何帮助学生调和常见矛盾，这些矛盾为在大型课堂中处理复杂数据集造成障碍。结果表明，当学生利用历史文本中的细节来协作构建更大的网络时，他们开始更容易在小细节和总体概述之间移动。初级技能水平高低的学生都能够通过参与 Net.Create 工具和活动来增加他们历史分析的复杂性。Net.Create 将历史课堂大班级规模的限制转化为学生协同知识构建的资源，并通过协同数据录入支持引用和修订的史学实践，帮助学生将当地历史参与者嵌入更大的历史背景中。初级技能水平高低的学生都能够通过参与 Net.Create 工具和活动来增加他们历史分析的复杂性。Net.Create 将历史课堂大班级规模的限制转化为学生协同知识构建的资源，并通过协同数据录入支持引用和修订的史学实践，帮助学生将当地历史参与者嵌入更大的历史背景中。初级技能水平高低的学生都能够通过参与 Net.Create 工具和活动来增加他们历史分析的复杂性。Net.Create 将历史课堂大班级规模的限制转化为学生协同知识构建的资源，并通过协同数据录入支持引用和修订的史学实践，帮助学生将当地历史参与者嵌入更大的历史背景中。