Knowledge Building

Facilitating Collaborative Knowledge Building

This article describes a detailed analysis of knowledge building in a problem-based learning group. Knowledge building involves increasing the collective knowledge of a group through social discourse. For knowledge building to occur in the classroom, the teacher needs to create opportunities for constructive discourse in order to support student learning and collective knowledge building. In problem-based learning, students learn through collaborative problem solving and reflecting on their experiences. The setting for this study is a group of senior three students working with an expert facilitator. The analysis was designed to understand how the facilitator provided opportunities for knowledge-building discourse and how the learners accomplished collective knowledge building. We examined episodes of knowledge-building discourse, the questions and statements that the students and facilitator generated throughout the tutorial, the change in their understanding of the problem that they were solving, and the collective knowledge that was constructed. The results indicate that the group worked to progressively improve their ideas through engaging in knowledge-building discourse. The facilitator helped support knowledge building through asking open-ended metacognitive questions and catalyzing group progress. Students took responsibility for advancing the group's understanding as they asked many high-level questions and built on each other’s thinking to construct collaborative explanations. The results of this study provide suggestions for orchestrating knowledge-building discourse.

Principles of Knowledge Building

A school culture that fosters KB supports research, innovation, and high expectations for student achievement and participation. The twelve KB principles are continuously emphasized for and by teachers, students, and the school environment as a whole.

• Real Ideas and Authentic Problems – students identify real problems to study
• Improvable Ideas – ideas are improvable rather than accepted or rejected
• Epistemic Agency – students plan and engage in the process
• Collective Responsibility for Community Knowledge – all participants contribute to community goals
• Democratizing Knowledge – all participants are empowered; no knowledge have/have-not lines
• Idea Diversity – knowledge advancement depends on diversity of ideas, just as an ecosystem depends on biodiversity
• KB Discourse – problems progressively identified and addressed and new conceptualizations built
• Rise Above – by transcending trivialities and oversimplifications, students work towards more inclusive principles and higher level formulations of problems
• Constructive Use of Authoritative Sources – critically evaluate authoritative sources, don't just find “the answer”
• Pervasive KB – KB is a continuous process and can happen anywhere; it is not unique to the classroom
• Symmetric Knowledge Advance – “to give knowledge is to get knowledge”; there is no one expert
• Embedded and Transformative Assessment – integral to KB and helps to advance knowledge through identifying advances, problems, and gaps as work proceeds

This tool-set guides you through the process of taking Future Classroom Scenarios and using them as the inspiration for creating innovative Learning Activities with the intention of bringing advanced approaches in learning and teaching, supported by technology, to the classroom.

 Future classroom scenarios are intended to act as a vision of what may be possible and desirable for the future of learning and teaching in your school. To make these visions a reality a group of teachers should work together to create a set of Learning Activities, which include the innovative ideas in a realistic and practical context. A Learning Activity could be something that happens in a single lesson or may take place over several lessons. An example of a Learning Activity could be creating a video, or working outside of school to collect data or images.

The starting point for designing a Learning Activity is to select, or create a suitable Future Classroom Scenario. You then need to arrange some time with a group of teachers to collaboratively design the Learning Activity.

PRINCIPLES FOR INNOVATIVE LEARNING.

1.      Learners have to be at the center of what happens in the classroom with activities focused on their cognition and growth. They have to actively engage in learning in order to become self-regulated learners who are able to control their emotions and motivations during the study process, set goals, and monitor their own learning process.

2.      Learning is a social practice and can’t happen alone. “By our nature we are social beings and we learn by interacting,” Groff said. “We learn by pushing and pulling on concepts with one another.” Structured, collaborative group work can be good for all learners; it pushes people in different ways.

3.      Emotions are an integral part of learning. Students understand ideas better when there’s interplay between emotions, motivation and cognition, so positive beliefs about oneself are a core part of reaching a more profound understanding. The power of emotions and motivation in the classroom are well documented, but often overlooked because they are “soft.” Still most teachers know that if a student is upset about something that happened at home or in school, he won’t learn well. Similarly, keeping students motivated should be the starting point of learning. If students understand why it matters, learning becomes more important to them.

4.      Learners are different and innovative learning environments reflect the various experiences and prior knowledge that each student brings to class. “You really want practices and processes that help teachers engage each student where they are,” said Groff. This principle is understood by every frustrated educator teaching to a “middle” that doesn’t exist.

5.      Students need to be stretched, but not too much. “It’s really critical to find that student’s sweet spot,” Groff Said. Educators should try to prevent both coasting and overloading. Students need to experience both academic success and the challenge of discovery. In a diverse classroom group work can help achieve this as students at different levels help one another.

6.      Assessment should be for learning, not of learning. Assessments are important, but only to gauge how to structure the next lesson for maximum effectiveness. It should be meaningful, substantial, and shape the learning environment itself. “Good teachers do this informally most of the time,” Groff said. “But when it’s done well and more formally it’s a whole structure and methodology where you collect feedback on the learning pathway and it drives the next step that you take.”

7.      Learning needs to be connected across disciplines and reach out into the real world. Learning can’t be meaningful if students don’t understand why the knowledge will be useful to them, how it can be applied in life. Understanding the connections between subjects and ideas is essential for the ability to transfer skills and adapt. “We can’t just have things remain in silos that never interact,” Groff said.

IMPLEMENTING THE PRINCIPLES

Many of the seven principles outlined are second nature to good teachers, but they can feel hard to achieve within education systems that are slow-moving, bureaucratic and resistant to change. There are ways for teachers who want to create an innovative learning environment to begin down the path, even without the full support of their colleagues and administration. Shifting to the Common Core could offer openings for building in these practices. It’s designed in a way that condones a lot of the principles that we’ve been talking about.

Everyone knows the common barriers educators face: the school culture, the students and themselves. Some reflection and problem solving, teachers can often begin to work around these barriers. An educator might think she’s open to innovation without realizing that there are preconceived notions about how one should teach that are deeply ingrained.

Educators can also test ideas with students before implementing them. Students have been indoctrinated into the same educational mindset about what makes a “useful” education as everyone else, and some might be resistant to new teaching methodologies. Without their enthusiasm it can be hard to persevere through other obstacles.

5.1.4 REFLECTION

The kind of learners you teach

There are a variety of types of learners in my single classroom. Therefore, it is important to incorporate multiple teaching methods. It is also important to know what your own predominant learning style is, because when you teach, you may unintentionally favor your learning style and shortchange other types of learners in the classroom.

 An active learning process involves listening, demonstrating, interacting, and understanding in order to engage all learners. Adult learners tend to have a need to interact and share with others. Well-designed training and educational programs use both active and passive methods. There needs to be some information transfer, but information that is only shared in a passive learning format is likely to become boring or seem irrelevant to learners. The key to teaching adults is to provide new information that is relevant and usable within a relatively short period of time. A good framework to keep in mind is the active training credo:

As a teacher, my goal is not only to present information those learners need but also to facilitate experiences that will help them gain and master the knowledge and skills that they need to know and practice. By using a variety of teaching techniques and by actively involving learners in the experience, we increase the chances that they will retain and use the information.

How effectively you and your school prepare learners/students for the digital society;

All educators want to help their students succeed in life. What was considered a good education 50 years ago, however, is no longer enough for success in college, career, and citizenship in the 21st century.

1)      If the digital society is used correctly, will help prepare students for their future careers, which will inevitably include the use of different use of technology.

2)      Integrating technology into the classroom is definitely a great way to reach diversity in learning styles but this one can be implemented by both the teachers and even schools.

3)      Teachers give students the chance to interact with their classmates more by encouraging collaboration.

4)      Technology helps the teachers prepare students for the real world environment. As our nation becomes increasingly more technology-dependent, it becomes even more necessary that to be successful citizens, students must learn to be tech-savvy.

If you are going to invest in the work to improve your innovation culture, you are investing in change. Prepare your people for your culture change, and keep in mind some of the best practices in managing change

1.      Establishing a Sense of Urgency

2.      Creating a Guiding Coalition

3.      Developing a Change Vision

4.      Empowering Broad-based Action

5.      Never Letting Up

6.      Incorporating Changes into the Culture