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Collaborative learning in Knowledge Forum: A study of the process of knowledge building

NG Siu-kai

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Purpose of this study

To investigate the knowledge building process in a computer supported collaborative learning environment - Knowledge Forum

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Research questions

1. How can students’ knowledge building process in Knowledge Forum be characterized in terms of participation and interaction?

2. What are the discourse characteristics of knowledge advancement in students’ inquiry process?

3. Can knowledge building be evidenced in the inquiry process?

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Knowledge building

Scardamalia and Bereiter (in press) contend that learning is different from knowledge building.

Learning refers to the improvement of personal knowledge through some tasks or activities.

Learning is internal, unobservable process that results in changes of belief, attitude, or skill.

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Knowledge building, by contrast, results in the creation or modification of public knowledge – knowledge that lives “in the world” and is available to be worked on and used by other people (Scardamalia & Bereiter, in press).

Lamon, Reeve & Scardamalia (2001) interpret knowledge building is trying to improve knowledge itself by considering ideas in regard to their strengths, weaknesses, applications, limitations and potential for further development. Both learning and knowledge are needed in schools.

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Bereiter (2002) calls a collaborative process of advancing and creating of knowledge, knowledge building.

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Van Aalst (1999) proposed a 3-phase knowledge building model for supporting students through the collaborative enquiry process.

In this model, the teacher can guide students through appropriate facilitation so that they can progress from phase 1 which focuses essentially on learning, to phase 2 which is a transition phase to phase 3 where the focus will be on knowledge building.

Questions About Surface Features

Questions About Deep features

Preliminary Research Program

Validation of Knowledge Advances

Phase 1: Developing a Knowledge Base

Phase 2: Transition

Phase 3: Knowledge Building

Learning Program

Conjectures

Consolidated Research Program

Theorizing & Library Work

Model-Building

Experiments or Design Activities

The Learning to Knowledge Building Model (van Aalst, 1999)

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Subjects and setting

The Centre of Information Technology for Teacher Education Centre (CITE) of the University of Hong Kong organized the Peer Tutoring Project (PTP).

The PTP lasted from July 2002 to September 2002.

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Subjects of the study One of the participating secondary schools of the project. 3 classes of Secondary 4 students (they were promoted to

Secondary 5 in September of the year) in the school participated in PTP.

Each class was divided into 7 groups to discuss on Chemistry topics.

3 groups, one from each class, worked on the same topic “Fertilizers” was chosen for the study.

Each group had 3-4 students with a total of 13 students.

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Teachers’ engagement was limited to providing some start-off topics/leading questions and encouraging students’ participation.

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Four start up discussion topics were provided by the teachers:

1. What are fertilizers?

2. Why are fertilizers produced?

3. What are the positive and negative aspects of using fertilizers?

4. Comparison of (organic and inorganic) fertilizers?

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Data analysis

Quantitative analysis Analytic Toolkit (ATK): the number of notes created,

notes read, build-on notes, keyword used, revision, rise-above notes and scaffold used.

Qualitative analysis a content analysis of each of the notes was carried out

so as to examine the nature of the discourse and to explore whether knowledge building was taking place during the collaborative learning process.

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Students’ discourse was coded by a coding scheme developed from the discourse database.

The discourse characteristics generated due to the affordances of the Knowledge Forum technology for presenting, communicating, relating and organizing of the discourse were investigated.

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Coding scheme

The coding scheme used to code students’ discourse consisted of 5 major categories: treating ideas as discrete items, relating and interacting with ideas, evaluating ideas, task oriented discourse and off task content.

Ideas

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The discourse on ideas can be categorized into three groups, representing three different levels of interaction with ideas.

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Discourse on ideas Level 1 - The lowest level of interaction with

ideas were found in notes that dealt with ideas as discrete items, and comprised 6 types of notes: presenting information, contributing a new idea, repeating ideas, introducing technical terms, summarizing information and providing definition.

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Level 2 - The next level of idea interaction are found in notes that relate different ideas, and included the following 5 types of notes: relating to another group’s notes, raising content related query, relating different concepts, elaborating own ideas and extending other’s ideas.

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Level 3 - The highest level of idea interaction observed were found in notes that evaluated ideas, which may be posing challenges to ideas contributed by

others, admitting one’s own idea to be wrong, or confirming one’s own or other’s ideas as

correct.

Code Meaning

Treating ideas as discrete items

INF Presenting information. The information source includes Internet, textbooks or magazine, no matter it is mentioned or not.

NID A new idea or problem is presented. This contribution may or may not be followed by an illustration.

RPT Repeating same or similar ideas of others without drawing conclusions or interpreting that information.

TEC Introducing technical terms relevant to the topic of discussion.

SUM Summarizing the information contributed by the student himself or from other classmates without evaluating or synthesizing the information.

DEF Giving a definition of a term or concept.

Relating and interacting with ideas

REL Relating to other group’s work.

QRY Raising content-related query. It could either be a fact-seeking question or an explanation-seeking question.

RCT Relating different concepts.

EID Elaborating student’s own idea.

XID Extending other’s idea.

Evaluating ideas

CHL Challenging (does or does not agree) the opinion or idea contributed by another student.

ADW Admitting own idea as wrong.

CFM Confirming correct, either own or other’s idea, with sufficient reasons provided.

Task oriented activities

PLN Planning – presenting or asking for an approach to complete the task.

MON Monitoring the original planning or time schedule.

CLR Clarifying procedures of discussion.

Off-task activities

NTC Non-task content.

A summary of the coding scheme

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Data Analysis and Findings

1. Discourse Characteristics

2. Interaction Pattern on Each Discussion Topic- In this presentation, the following 2 discussion topics are chosen for illustration purpose:

“What are fertilizers?”

“What are the positive and negative aspects of using fertilizers?”

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Data Analysis and Findings

1. Discourse Characteristics

Overview of discourse characteristics

Treating ideas as discrete items Relating and interacting with ideas

Evaluating ideas Task oriented Off-task

MeanChem. Scores

Gp. INF NID RID TEC SUM DEF REL QRY RCT EID XID CHL ADW CFM PLN MON CLR NTC Mark

A 13 13 1 0 4 2 0 13 2 5 2 6 1 2 5 1 0 5 60

B 10 5 7 2 3 3 1 6 2 4 2 1 0 0 1 2 2 4 61

C 19 1 1 1 0 0 0 8 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 53

Total 42 19 9 3 7 5 1 27 6 9 4 7 1 2 6 4 2 9 --

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Notes were mainly at level 1

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As knowledge building is characterized by working with ideas as conceptual artifacts to extend the frontiers of knowledge (Scardamalia, 2002), evidence for knowledge building can only be claimed if the discourse include notes other than dealing with ideas as discrete items.

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The level 2 notes (relating and interacting with ideas) is an indication that the discourse has the potential of moving towards a knowledge building trajectory.

On the other hand, the presence of level 3 notes (evaluating ideas) indicates that the students were able to engage in a knowledge building discourse.

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There are significant differences among the 3 groups in progressing to the third level, where knowledge building is taking place.

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The total number of level 3 notes generated by all groups

Group A 9

Group B 1

Group C 0

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Why? Working on the same topic (“fertilizers”)

with the same leading discussion questions. Same grade level (S.4) in the same school. No special help from teachers for all

groups.

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One possible difference across the groups was their academic achievement.

Average Chemistry test scores of Group A and Group B had no essential difference but Group C had a relatively lower attainment level.

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Data Analysis and Findings

2. Interaction pattern on each discussion topic

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Interaction pattern for each discussion topic

“What are fertilizers?”

“ What are the positive and negative aspects of using fertilizers?”

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Discussion topic: “What are fertilizers?”

Treating ideas as discrete items Relating and interacting with ideas

Evaluating ideas Task oriented Off-task

Gp INF NID RID TEC SUM DEF REL QRY RCT EID XID CHL ADW CFM PLN MON CLR NTC

A 1 2 0 0 1 2 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0

B 3 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3

C 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Quantitative measures of discourse characteristics on “What are fertilizers”

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Discussion topic: “What are fertilizers?”

This is basically a fact-seeking question. Students proposed definitions, presented

information and proposed new ideas. Students did not debate over the topic as it

was perceived as providing a definition which was quite “definite”.

Root note

(10) B2 INF

(5) B2 DEF

(1) B4 DEF

(7) B2 NTC

(6) B1 NTC

(2) B2 NTC

(11) B3 INF

(8) B5 RCT

(3) B1 EID

(12) B1 CHL EID

(9) B1 INF QRY

(4) B2 REL

Interaction pattern of Group B on “What are fertilizers”

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Discussion topic: “What are fertilizers?”

What are the significance of these two instances?

Some students could raise meaningful questions that could have the potential to discuss further for deepening understanding.

However, they did not grasp these valuable insights as opportunities for learning and consolidating of ideas.

If a teacher could provide support as a facilitator, students may have a deeper discussion for knowledge construction around these issues.

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Discussion topic: “What are the positive and negative aspects of using fertilizers?”

Treating ideas as discrete items Relating and interacting with ideas

Evaluating ideas Task oriented Off-task

Gp INF NID RID TEC SUM DEF REL QRY RCT EID XID CHL ADW CFM PLN MON CLR NTC

A 5 7 0 0 1 0 0 6 0 2 1 6 1 1 0 0 0 0

B 4 2 5 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

C 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Quantitative measures of discourse characteristics on “What are the positive and negative aspects of using fertilizers”

Root note

(17) A2 SUM

(14) A4 NID

(7) A3 NID

(1) A2 NID

(2) A3 CHL

(3) A2 ADW NID INF

(15) A2 INF

(8) A1 XID

(4) A4 CHL

(5) A1 CHL QRY

(6) A3 NID EID

INF CFM

(16) A1 QRY NID

QRY QRY

(9) A3 CHL NID

(10) A1 CHL

(11) A3 CHL QRY

(12) A1 INF EID QRY

(13) A2 INF

Interaction pattern of Group A on “Positive and negative aspects of fertilizers”

Root Note

(1) B1INF

(2) B5INF

(3) B5RID

(4) B5RIDNID

(5) B3INF

(8) B4RID

(9) B4RID

(6) B2QRY

(10) B2NID

(7) B3EID

(11) B2TEC

(14) B1SUM

(12) B2RID

(13) B1TECINF

Interaction pattern of Group B on “Positive and negative aspects of fertilizers”

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Conclusion

1. The 3 groups of students progressed differently in the knowledge building process.

2. Students engaged in in-depth discussion and thus knowledge building for open-ended task.

3. Students could not provide mutual scaffold support in dealing with complex scientific concepts that were beyond their zone of proximal development.

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Conclusion

4. Knowledge building activities were characterized by that students raised a lot of queries and made challenges to other student’s ideas.

5. Students, in particular academically less able ones, showed difficulties in advancement of knowledge without teacher’s support.

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Conclusion

6. Without the teacher’s support as a facilitator, some students can hardly progress further to knowledge building. In a computer supported collaborative learning, the role of the teacher should be changed from an information deliverer to a facilitator and co-learner.

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Conclusion

7. As a facilitator, a teacher should facilitate collaboration between students, encourage students to monitor their understanding but not directly give them information, communicate with them and carefully examine knowledge produced by the students.

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Conclusion

8. Teacher needs to be involved in an inquiry process: as a co-inquirer with the students in the topics

that they have chosen to investigate, and as a leader and organizer of the community’s

activities (Wells, 2000) in scaffolding students’ learning (Duffy and Orrill (in press)).

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Implications Curriculum reform agenda has set clear directions

and targets for preparing our students to attain the ability of “learning to learn”.

Therefore, students have to acquire the individual and the group learning skills for use in this learning society.

They need to acquire the skills that enable them to cope with an abundance of information in order to build knowledge and thus learn from the knowledge acquired.

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Implications

Collaborative learning is emphasizing communication among students, and a focus on the processes not the products of learning (Crook, 1998).

With the integration of technology and learning, resources and content for learning could be redefined.

However, do computers change classroom dynamic?

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Implications

By only adding computers to classrooms and providing students with internet access is unlikely to make any difference unless teachers start to believe that students can and should take the initiative for their own learning, and the teacher support them as a facilitator.

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Implications Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994) propose that

scientific thinking can be facilitated by organizing a classroom to function as a scientific research community and guiding students to participate in practices of progressive scientific discourses.

This study indicates that analogous to scientific discovery and theory formation, learning can be a process of working toward more thorough and complete understanding and an engagement in extended processes of question-driven inquiry.

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Implications The study also calls for a change in the role of students in

a way that they are more actively involved in gaining and building knowledge, it is important that they learn how to learn.

They have to practice how to be responsible for their own learning (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). When students are more responsible for the learning process, they should be allowed to decide for themselves how to arrange their learning process.

The students first have to become aware of how they actually learn, such as the use of the thinking types scaffolds in Knowledge Forum in this study.

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Suggestions for further study It would be interesting to analyze participation,

interaction, use of scaffolds and knowledge construction process in a normal classroom practice.

Focus on students’ experiences would be interesting. It would be interesting to know how students assess the use of computer supported learning environment, whether they see the environment as an added value to their education and whether they are motivated to learn by the environment.

The relation between students’ academic ability and the way they learn in the environment could also be an interesting area of exploration.

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Thank you.