Theme 2: Innovations Aimed at Higher Learning Outcomes
Literacy
Building
a forum of ideas in the English classroom
Ken Klonsky, T.D.S.B. Vaughan Road Academy, ON, Canada
Ken Klonsky, T.D.S.B. Vaughan Road Academy, ON, Canada
For the past three years I have been privileged to work with grade 9 students with Knowledge Forum®. It took me a considerable amount of time to use this tool effectively as part of an English classroom, and I think this past year bore to some extent the fruits of these labours.
The 2002-3 school year, my final year as a teacher, was the first time the students at Vaughan Road Academy were part of a research study with a control group. Two English classes on the same level were given identical assignments; one class utilized Knowledge Forum and the other did not. They were also given identical reading tests at the beginning and the end of the course. However, the standard of judgment that I used as to the efficaciousness of KF was 1) completion of work, 2) the mutually supportive tone of the class, and 3) the final results of the students (who passed the course and who did not). The knowledge that these three aspects are completely inter-related was part of the overall process of discovery.
I had learned over the past two years that KF provided no particular advantage for some assignments such as journal writing or conventional question and answer work from texts. Hence, the assignments I chose had a certain “track record” of success. The assignments could be divided into five separate types: 1) creative writing, 2) research, 3) idea diversity and epistemic agency 4) personal essay, and 5) a collaboration, brief as it was because of the SARS epidemic, with a classroom from Hong Kong.
What this class experienced was an unprecedented level of cooperation and support and a knowledge of each other and the world which transcended the usual limitations of grade 9 students. The current data base is in and of itself a testimony to the art of the possible with fourteen year old students. The poster I am proposing for the Summer Institute involves both an examination of particular areas, especially number 3, idea diversity and epistemic agency, and an opportunity for participants to speak with a couple of articulate and capable young people who were present for the entire school year and could detail the benefits and possible drawbacks of working with Knowledge Forum. The emphasis on ideas is important for me because I believe that KF was created in part as a way to sharpen and explore the processes of thought.