The resistance of students’ naive scientific conceptions to ordinary instruction has encouraged the belief that these conceptions are deeply held and that extraordinary measures are required to change them. The present study analyzed Grade 4 students’ discourses about optics in order to uncover students’ level of consciousness of their naive conceptions, their level of commitment to their misconceptions, and their peers’ collective cognitive responsibility to improve those conceptions. The results of this study not only show that students are able to recognize a gap/conflict in their knowledge, but also provide evidence that students willingly seek information to improve their naive conceptions. The study also provides promising evidence that peers may facilitate the process of conceptual change by providing support in various ways.
This study represents an attempt to uncover user profiles for productive engagement in knowledge building environments. In line with the Knowledge Building goal of re-creating schools as knowledge creating organizations, we reviewed literature on productive forms of engagement in knowledge work in out-of-school contexts, and applied a Team Management Profile (TMP) model to the work of students engaged in knowledge building. Preliminary results show alignment of TMP roles for team success and student contributions in knowledge building environments.
This study is focused on students’ theory development and collective responsibility, and their impact on the nature of student questions. The preliminary results of the study demonstrate that the theory improvement perspective encouraged students to mainly focus on searching explanatory scientific information to construct their own explanations. However, in response to the inquiries, peers main type of contributions was theorizing in which they developed theories in order to deepen their shared understanding and advance knowledge.
The 22 joiner kindergarteners (JK) have been studying butterflies for the last two months. The Knowledge Building sessions usually take place in half groups (11 students in each group) on a weekly basis. To best understand the students’ authentic questions and theories, they were interviewed for what they notice about different life stages of butterflies, what they think, and what they wonder about.Their responses inform further Knowledge Building sessions. A Knowledge Building session usually starts with the teacher and student discourse on questions around butterflies such as, “Do you know why this person said that there are butterflies in Mexico?” Authoritative sources such as books, videos, and pictures are usually used to inspire students’ initial ideas, discussions, and to help them re-think their theories. The discourse is followed by hands-on activities in which the students can apply what they have learned to draw or model different life stages of the butterfly or their body parts such as wings. The students have developed a rich understanding of various types of butterflies, butterfly migrations, and the life cycle of the butterfly. They have zoomed in on the caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. Most recently, the children have explored how being able to camouflage is a matter of survival for many butterflies.
Starting the January, the Grade 1 class has been following students’ authentic questions and deepening their explanations of issues related to whether all water is connected, how life on earth came to be, and the water cycle. During Knowledge Building circles we took minutes to record students’ ideas for continual improvement and to help us reflect on the speaking turns of the students, how deep they went, and promising next steps that popped up from the students. The students took responsibility to introduce new ideas/questions to the community and contributed diverse and improved explanations of the ideas. They were able to connect knowledge learned from elsewhere such as the library, YouTube videos, and television shows, to their study. Idea improvement is salient in their discourse. The teacher listens to see if the students are still on task when many simultaneously being to talk to classmates sitting nearby during a discussion. The students are also asked to summarize their learning when there are visitors to the classroom.
Multiple Sources to Support Knowledge Building on Salmon by Grade 2 Students
Nazeem, R., Zhu, G., & Ma, L. (2019, April). Multiple sources to support Knowledge Building on salmon by Grade 2 students. Poster presented at the American Education Research Association (AERA) conference. Toronto, Ontario.
The grade 2s at JICS have been studying salmon for the last few months to understand the growth and change of animals. After exploring some diagrams, the students started wondering about the salmon life cycle, which animals are connected to salmon, and how humans and the environment impact salmon. The salmon tank in the classroom provided opportunities for students to both observe and discuss the life cycle and ideal habitat of Atlantic salmon. Over the months of inquiry, the students engaged in a rich variety of learning experiences, including: discussing their ideas, new learning and changes to their thinking in Knowledge Building circles; sharing new information from related storybooks and information texts; writing and building onto ideas in Knowledge Forum (KF); reflecting on visits from experts through KF or in small groups; and showing their thinking about habitats and human impact through drawing on KF and building with various materials. Early in their exploration, the students found a diagram that did not reflect all the stages of the Atlantic Salmon’s life cycle. The children decided to create a new diagram that reflected all the stages, as well as other important information they had learned about Atlantic Salmon. With support from their Art teacher, the children began to brainstorm ideas of how to display their learning and organize their thinking. In addition to this art extension, the students’ literacy program focused on developing research skills as the students researched predators of Atlantic Salmon. Social studies conversations focused on how Indigenous peoples used Atlantic Salmon and human impact on the salmon’s habitat (focusing on water contamination and waste management). This poster shows how idea improvement, meta-discourse, and students’ excitement and empathy is salient in the class.
The Butterfly Effect: Knowledge Building in Kindergarten. Instilling Practices to set up Life Long Knowledge Building Learning
Costa, S., Zhu, G., & Osorio, D. (2019 June). The butterfly effect: Knowledge Building in Kindergarten. Instilling practices to set up life long Knowledge Building learning. Poster presentation at the 2019 Knowledge Building Summer Institute -Around the World: “Knowledge Building Practices and Technology for Global Hubs of Innovation”, June 17-20, Lyon, France.
This exploratory Pilot study examines 22 Junior Kindergarten Students scientific discourse from Hub of Innovation site, over eight weeks of a Knowledge Building intervention, while examining a unit on Butterfly Life cycles. The authors chose to examine this issue as it is a strong demonstration of how Knowledge Building is with young students without the usage of Knowledge Forum technology. The purpose of this poster is to demonstrate Junior Kindergarten’s scientific inquiry on the life cycle of butterflies, and how Knowledge Building Principles are incorporated into a Junior Kindergarten class, and this poster will demonstrate some analytics of results of the discourse from student’s learning and the Knowledge Building principles they incorporated. Knowledge building started in the earlier years have student comfortable with sharing their ideas, and exploring discourse and concepts while children can be coinvestigators (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1983 )
Many educational specialists newly introduced to Knowledge Building believe that Knowledge Forum execution is in tandem to(the online software which utilizes Knowledge Building Pedagogy). This assumption would lead out very young students who are grasping reading and writing skills and building foundational, and that very young students actually cannot do Knowledge Building as they cannot use Knowledge Forum. By incorporating Knowledge Building in Junior Kindergarten, learning is transformed into a frontier to identify and transform a student’s schema. Students can have theories as young as the age of four in trying to decipher and understand their world from a social, scientific, historical, and environmental perspective. The research question is: how can young students incorporate Knowledge Building as easily adaptable principles as a part of their learning trajectories to build a base block in order to continue knowledge building in higher years?
