Give student ideas a larger stage: support cross-community interaction for knowledge building
- PDF / 1,065,124 Bytes
- 22 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 78 Downloads / 195 Views
Give student ideas a larger stage: support cross-community interaction for knowledge building Jianwei Zhang 1
1
& Guangji Yuan & Maria Bogouslavsky
2
Received: 3 June 2020 / Accepted: 16 November 2020/ # International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc. 2020
Abstract
This study explores boundary-crossing interaction between two grade 5/6 science classrooms that operated as knowledge building communities. The two classrooms studied human body systems with the support of the Knowledge Forum over a ten-week period. The knowledge building practice integrated student-driven inquiry and discourse within each community and cross-community interaction mediated through “super notes” posted in a cross-community meta-space. Students co-authored super notes as epistemic boundary objects, each of which synthesized knowledge progress in an emergent line of inquiry for cross-community sharing. Qualitative analyses of classroom videos, online discourse, and interviews provide a rich description of how the students conceived, generated, and interacted with the super notes for knowledge building. The processes to transcend student ideas toward the higher social levels for sharing through boundary-crossing further served as a larger context for idea development toward higher epistemic levels. Incorporating cross-community interaction is important for scaling CSCL-based classroom practices in a way that fosters high-level epistemic engagement. Keywords Cross-community interaction . Epistemic boundary objects . Knowledge building communities . Learning across levels . Rise above
* Jianwei Zhang [email protected] Guangji Yuan [email protected] Maria Bogouslavsky [email protected]
1
Department of Educational Theory and Practice, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY, USA
2
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Zhang J. et al.
Introduction As a core contribution to the broader field of education, research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has produced deep insights about how productive learning occurs in learning communities through students’ joint inquiry and collaborative discourse, often with the support of collaborative technologies (Hod et al. 2018; Slotta et al. 2014). However, the existing research has focused on student collaboration in small groups and individual classrooms. It remains a largely unexplored opportunity to extend student collaboration and interaction to higher social levels, such as across different classrooms. This study tested a new approach to supporting cross-classroom interaction in two upper elementary science classrooms. The findings inform opportunities to extend collaborative knowledge building to a larger social context in which students’ productive ideas can spread and interact across boundaries, leveraging high-level knowledge building.
Collaborative interaction for knowledge building CSCL programs engage students in collaborative discourse and interaction to solve problems, construct shared knowledge and deepen personal understandings. Among the
Data Loading...
