Theme 1: Knowledge building for a Knowledge Society
Knowledge Building: A Trajectory
Discourse
characteristics in a Knowledge Forum classroom:
A case study of knowledge building philosophy in practice
Ashifa Jiwani, Jim Hewitt, Richard Messina, & Marlene Scardamalia
OISE/University of Toronto, ON, Canada
A case study of knowledge building philosophy in practice
Ashifa Jiwani, Jim Hewitt, Richard Messina, & Marlene Scardamalia
OISE/University of Toronto, ON, Canada
This poster analyzes some of the face-to-face discourse processes that took place in a fourth grade classroom during a Knowledge Forum investigation into Light. The goal of this analysis was to examine the characteristics of student-student and teacher-student conversations in a classroom that is widely regarded as an exemplary Knowledge Building Community. We discovered that the students' face-to-face conversations mirror, in many respects, the kinds of knowledge advancing discussions that typically take place on Knowledge Forum. Specifically, we found that student face-to-face conversations were characterized by: i) a focus on problems of understanding rather than on task-completion; ii) a sharing of theories and a tendency to challenge each other's theories using facts gathered from experiments, texts and personal experiences; and iii) an effort to work collaboratively to deepen their understanding. It is hypothesized that fostering these kinds of face-to-face processes is a critical part of building a classroom-based Knowledge Building Community.
Summer Institute Theme
The research described by our poster tackles problems relating to Theme 1 (Knowledge Building for a Knowledge Society), and in particular, Theme 1's goals of making "theoretical and practical advances in knowledge creation" and "overcoming barriers to knowledge building". Although Knowledge Forum (KF) researchers have studied knowledge building in elementary classrooms for over 15 years, they have yet to examine in depth the discourse that takes place off computers -- that is, the face-to-face discussions that students have with one another, and the kinds of interactions that transpire between students and teacher. By analyzing these processes, we hope to deepen our theoretical understanding of how effective KF teachers establish and reinforce a culture of knowledge building in their classrooms. The research should also be useful for instructor practitioners. Historically, one of the more serious Knowledge Forum problems has been the uneven rate of success of new KF teachers. Some manage to reinvent their classrooms as Knowledge Building Communities, but many fail in their attempt to do so. It is our belief that new KF instructors will benefit greatly from research that describes, in detail, the kind of face-to-face interaction that takes place in an exemplary Knowledge Forum classroom.