Bereiter,
C., Laferriere, T., & Scardamalia, M. (2003, December). Beyond best
practice in knowledge building communities. Tutorial presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
The Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) is a
worldwide virtual institute designed to advance knowledge building
and the environments that support it. Our tutorial session will focus
on theoretical and practical advances in knowledge creation and its
development, and on the corresponding needs for lifelong innovativeness,
and pervasiveness of knowledge building throughout knowledge work.
In what O’Dell (1994) calls “out-of-the box benchmarking,”
organizations that look outside their own sectors learn from quite
dissimilar organizations. But this requires understanding processes
at an abstract enough level to detect remote analogies. This tutorial
aims to understand knowledge building in cross-sector, cross-age,
cross-culture and cross-disciplinary organizations. |
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Brett, C.,
& Moosabhoy, L. (2003, December). Engaging online: Idea integration
among preservice teachers supported through online knowledge building. Short
paper presented at the International Conference on Computers in Education,
Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
Among preservice students, results from a recent study (Brett 2002)
suggested that many psychological and cultural factors influenced
whether math-anxious preservice students actively engaged in the math-related
online component of their preservice program. Findings suggested that
the online context provided the most learning support for participants
who had already had successful social and subject-related experiences
in the program. Those with fewer successful face-to face experiences
and who expoused an ability-based notion of subjec-matter felt less
able to contribute substanttively and participated less online. Online
engagement was conceptualized as requiring both epistemic agency (Scardamalia,
2000) and identity within the community (Wenger, 1998). As adjunt
online components to courses become increasingly common, it is importnat
to understand how greater agency and identity within these online
activities may be encouraged. The current study examines the factors
that influenced online engagement among a cohort of 32 preservice
student teachers enrolled in a 10-month teacher education program
at OISE/UT. Specifically, this study analyses an online component
that integrated the teacher education courses, "Educational Psychology"
and "School and Society Foundations". Of interest are the
factors that student teachers reported to be important in facilitating
their integration of ideas between the courses and how this supported
the learning as demonstrated through the online data collected. The
presentation will detail the main challenges we are facing in getting
to depth of understanding and idea development and the interventions
used to advance this goal. |
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Chan, C.,
Lee, E., Russell, A., & Scardamalia, M. (2003, December). An introduction
to knowledge building communities. Tutorial presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
The Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) is a
worldwide virtual institute designed to advance knowledge building
and the environments that support it. This tutorial session will introduce
the concept of knowledge building, which connects knowledge creation
and knowledge work, as these are understood in the adult world with
essentially similar activity that can go on in schools. That is, the
same socio-cognitive processes that members of research teams engage
in to develop new ideas can also happen in K-12 education. What makes
knowledge building a realistic approach to education is the discovery
that children as early as grade one can engage in it. Thus there is
a clear developmental link running from childhood education to advanced
education and adult knowledge work, in which the same process is carried
out at increasingly high levels. The concept of knowledge building
originated in the work of the CSILE (computer supported intentional
learning environments) research team in Toronto in 1986. Since that
time we have developed software supporting collaborative knowledge
building CSILE/Knowledge Forum®, conducted research on how various
communities implement knowledge building, and further developed the
theory. |
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Chan, T.W.,
Kinshuk, Ko, H.W., Milrad, M., & Woodruff, E. (2003, December). Learning
and Knowledge Building with Mobile Learning Technologies, Interactive Event
in Nancy Law (chair). Presented at the International Conference on Computers
in Education, Hong Kong. More
info
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Laferriere,
T. (2003, December). Moving beyond the boundaries of the traditional classroom
with Knowledge Forum: Teacher Education and Professional development in
knowledge building. Poster presented at the International Conference on
Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
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Lamon, M.,
Melnick, B., Klonsky, K., & Scardamalia, M. (2003, December). Knowledge
Building: Fostering Reading Comprehension. Short paper presented at the
International Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong. Link
to presentation.
ABSTRACT:
At the secondary school level and beyond, reading comprehension skills
must become increasingly sophisticated to address the demands posed
by more challenging academic expectations; yet "reading for students
beyond the primary and lower elementary grades - gets relatively little
attention" (Graves, 1999). Although there are direct instructional
techniques for improving reading comprehension such as reciprocal
teaching (Brown & Campione, 1996) there are also indirect routes
to improve reading for understanding. In this paper, we address a
primary indirect route: Meaningful collaborative discourse. Grade
9 students in an inner city school engaged in the written discourse
medium of Knowledge Forum® in their literature class. Using qualitative
and quantitative data, this paper addresses the relationship between
knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2000) and reading comprehension. |
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Lin, C.B,
Young, SSC, Chan, T.W., & Chen, Y.H. (2003, December). Adaptive Web-based
Environment for Supporting Practical Teaching Models: A Case Study of "School
for All". Paper presented at the International Conference on Computers
in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
Web-based learning, unlimited by space, time, the size of classrooms
and computing platforms, offers many advantages over traditional learning
environments. This study addresses the design and development of new
approaches and network technologies to support teaching. The authors
propose and implement a Web-based learning environment called "School
for All" in the Web-based Educities. To adapt the computer software
to satisfy the needs of individual instructors, many adaptive Web-based
authring tools and methods of teaching have been proposed. They include
five modules - Adaptive Curriculum Setting, Adaptive Co-teaching and
Privileges Setting, Adaptive Reward Setting, Adaptive Assessment Setting
and Adaptive Information Sharing Setting. With these adjustable functions
and the ability automatically to support various teaching strategies,
these modules can support effeective online teaching. Moreover, a
learning community of people from all walks of life, all sharing the
desire to teach and learn online is developed. This study analyzes
30 representative courses for anlysis to determine the potential of
teaching online. |
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| Nirula, L.
(2003, December). Handhelds in a grade two classroom: Innovations to support
knowledge-building and epistemic agency. Short paper presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong. |
Ng, S.K.,
& Law, N. (2003, December). Knowledge Building in the Absence of Teacher
Facilitation”. Paper presented at the International Conference on
Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
While the teacher's role is generally recognized to be important in
supporting knowledge building, it is an undeniable fact that most
teachers do not have a deep understanding of what knowledge building
is, or even the experience of engaging in knowledge building. This
paper reports on a study of students' collaborative inquiry conducted
on Knowledge Forum® under a situation where the teachers were
generally supportive of the educational idea but did not have the
expertise or commitment to engage in sustained facilitation of the
learning process. The findings reveal that students will still occasionally
be able to engage in knowledge building discourses even without teachers'
facilitation. Students' ability to engage in meaningful exploration
of ideas depends very importantly on whether they can locate inquiry
questions that are within their zone of proximal development. This
facilitation role is even more important when the students involved
have relatively lower academic achievement. |
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Peng, T.,
& Woodruff, E. (2003, December). A Computer-Supported Environment for
EFL Argumentative Writing: A Design Experiment to Incorporate Knowledge-Building
Innovations in a Taiwanese Classroom. Short paper presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
This paper reports on an instructor-led design research experiment
to move a second-year university EFL class (N=19), over a two-semester
period, from a traditional pedagogy model to a knowledge-building
community model. We examine how the epistemology, curriculum, and
technology helped to shape the transition. Fruther, we analyze the
extent to which the classroom culture changed over this period and
idscuss how that change was fostered. Throughout, the pivotal problem
to be addressed is how a knowledge-building EFL writing environment
can be effectively created to promote students' motivation and contributions.
Quantitative and qualitative results suggest that students' motivation
and contribution rate increased and that essay writing quality improved.
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Reeve, R.,
Messina, R., & Morley, E. (2003, December). Moving Beyond Best Practice:
Knowledge Building in a Laboratory School Setting. Panel presentation at
the International Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
This panel presentation will share the innovative work of teachers
at the Institute of Child Study (ICS) Laboratory School at the University
of Toronto (CANADA) as they attempted to create knowledge building
communities in their classrooms as well as in their school community
in general. A key feature of this session will be a discussion of
the knowledge building processes that the staff engaged in to help
them move their classroom practices in the direction of the knowledge
building theory. In addition, there will be a brief presentation regarding
each of the barriers to knowledge building that they encountered and
dealt with over a four-year period of time (e.g. literacy challenges
and development constraints). Finally, there will be an extensive
discussion regarding how, as a school, the ICS Lab School has attempted
to mentor other schools interested in taking a knowledge building
approach to pedagogy. This final portion of the panel discussion will
examine the related issues of dissemination, outreach and the continuous
improvement of classroom practices in a Laboratory School setting.
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Roberts, A.G.,
& Nason, R. (2003, December). Team Role Balance, Engagement, and Knowledge-building
Activity within On-Line Learning Communities. Paper presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
This paper reports on the findings from a study that investigated
if engagement and knowledge building activity can be enhanced in tertiary
education CSCL environments through the use of groups balanced by
Team Role Preference (Margerison & McCann, 1995). The study found
that higher quality knowledge-building activity was more likely to
occur in balanced groups than in random groups. The analysis of data
revealed that a diversity of ideas was more likely to emerge from
within balanced groups than from within random groups particularly
when the random groups were heavily skewed towards one team role preference.
This provided a compelling reason fro explaining why balanced groups
may lead to better engagement and knowledge-building activity. |
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Russell, A.
(2003, December). Educational Innovations in Health Care. Poster presented
at the International Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong. Link
to poster.
ABSTRACT:
The goal of this poster is to highlight design strategies that foster
agency and responsibility among novice nurse practitioners using knowledge
building pedagogy and communal database technology. One novice nurse
practitioner entered a communal database of work-in-progress of an
interprofessional team of health care professionals (n=21) over a
3-month period. The learning goal of the novice nurse was to facilitate
the transition from academe to nursing practice through meaningful
participation in a community of practitioners. The most salient design
strategy that fostered expert like practice of the novice nurse was
that expectations of the entire community were that the novice would
contribute to ongoing knowledge intensive work in a substantive manner.
The novice nurse and the community of practitioners co-determined
work-in-progress by the team that needed improvement. The three practice
areas that were selected for the novice to contribute knowledge to
were: 1) telementorship model development; 2) ethical concerns in
therapeutic practice and 3) online case study analytic methods for
assessment of patients with chronic pain. The main result in this
case study was that a novice nurse not only advanced the knowledge
of the community of practitioners in which she entered, but she did
so almost entirely online. These knowledge advancement, or what Bereiter
(2003) refers to as conceptual artifacts, were used in future iterations
of problem solving in the database after the novice finished her practicum
experience. It is concluded that although novices may not have the
same knowledge, skills and abilities as expert practitioners, educational
innovations in health care need to consider how to foster expert-like
practice, even among novices. This poster considered how to foster
responsibility at the individual and communal levels. Future design
strategies will focus on production of conceptual artifacts as a central
design strategy in health care education. |
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Scardamalia,
M. (2003, December). Extending the Limits of the Possible in Education.
Keynote address at the International Conference on Computers in Education,
Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
How do we educate people for a Knowledge Society - a society that
depends on the continual creation of new knowledge? Education systems
everywhere are trying to answer this question. In most of North America,
the answer involves boosting standards and content requirements. In
several Asian countries, by contrast, it has meant reducing content
requirements in order to free up time for inquiry. The truth is, no
one really knows how to educate people to be knowledge producers,
but one approach is showing promise. It's called "knowledge building."
Knowledge building is simply producing knowledge of value to others
and working continually to improve it. It already goes on in knowledge-based
businesses, in research laboratories, and in the more progressive
professions. It is a novelty in education before graduate school level,
but we have seen impressive examples of knowledge building in children
as early as grade 1. Developing a capacity for sustained creative
work with ideas is a new challenge for education. To show what is
so challenging about it, we turn to evidence of the most spectacular
failures - the evidence on students' misconceptions. Students enter
school with naive ideas about how the world works, and many leave
school-even university-with those naive ideas intact. In knowledge
building the name of the game is idea improvement. Students collaborate
to produce new understandings, analyze and criticize, experiment and
consult authoritative sources. In the process they learn subject matter
and they improve their reading and quantitative skills; but above
all they learn to be active contributors to a Knowledge Society. |
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Tan, S.C.,
So, K.L., & Hung, D. (2003, December). Fostering Scientific Inquiry
in Schools through Science Research Course and Computer-Supported Collaborative
Learning (CSCL). Short paper presented at the International Conference on
Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
This study focused on fostering student's scientific inquiry skills
using Knowledge Forum, a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
tool, to support the process of collaborative investigative discussions.
Knowledge Forum was chosen for this study because of its strong research
backing. The participants were 71 trade 7 students who participated
in a scientific inquiry course. The students went through three science
investtigative activities, during which, Knowledg Forum was used to
support discussion prior to their final submission of their worksheets.
The Test for Integrated Process Skills II was administered before
and after the treatment so as to measure and compare the student's
scientific inquiry skills. Qualitative analysis of the student's discourse
will be conducted to investigate possible reasons and processes leading
to the observed outcomes. |
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Yuen, A.H.K.
(2003, December). Building Learning Communities through Knowledge Forum:
A Case Study of Six Primary Schools. Paper presented at the International
Conference on Computers in Education, Hong Kong.
ABSTRACT:
Given the advancement of information and communications technologies
(ICT), a number of ways of building learning communities in schools
have been developed in recent years. Realizing the impact of this
new learning approach, six primary schools in Hong Kong engaged in
building learning communities in science Curriculum. During the science
project works, students from different schools participated in knowledge
construction using Knowledge Forum, a computer mediated communications
(CMC) platform. This paper reports the results of the analysis of
students' discussion and interviews of students as well as teachers
to explore the processes of knowledge construction and the role of
ICT from the different ways that students and teachers experienced
in building learning communities through Knowledge Forum. Implications
for pedagogical change will also be discussed. |
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| Bereiter,
C. (2003, December). Becoming a Lifelong Thinker. Keynote Address at the
Award Presentation Ceremony, Learning Community Project, Promoting Higher-order
Thinking through Knowledge Building Scheme at The University of Hong Kong. |
| Bereiter,
C. (2003, December). From Thinking in School to Thinking on the Job. Presentation
at the University of Hong Kong. |
| IKIT Team.
(2003, December). Workshops with Hong Kong Teachers at the University of
Hong Kong.. |
| IKIT Team.
(2003, December). Beyond Best Practice: Future Developments, workshop at
the University of Hong Kong. |
| Laferriere,
T., & Chan, C. (2003, December). Advances in Teacher Education and Professional
Development: The Contribution of Knowledge Building and Knowledge Forum.
Lunchtime Seminar at the University of Hong Kong. |
| Morley, E.
(2003, December). Sharing of experience in leading the transformation of
a school into a Knowledge Building Organization. Presentation at the Award
Presentation Ceremony, Learning Community Project, Promoting Higher-order
Thinking through Knowledge Building Scheme at The University of Hong Kong.
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| Russell, A.,
& Wong, E. (2003, December). Introducing Knowledge Forum as a communal
learning and knowledge building environment. Workshop at the HKKUGA Primary
School, Hong Kong. |
| Scardamalia,
M. (2003, December). Technology and Literacies: From Text Literacy to Dialogic
Literacy. Onwell Fellow Presentation, at The University of Hong Kong. |
| Scardamalia,
M., & Bereiter, C. (2003, December). Design Experiments and Knowledge
Building: exploring our ways forward in breaking new barriers. Research
Meeting at the University of Hong Kong. |