{"id":2475,"date":"2020-12-10T17:24:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T17:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ikit.org\/kbi\/?p=2475"},"modified":"2020-12-11T17:34:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T17:34:26","slug":"knowledge-building-design-studio-2020-saving-planet-saving-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ikit.org\/kbi\/index.php\/2020\/12\/10\/knowledge-building-design-studio-2020-saving-planet-saving-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge Building Design Studio 2020: Saving Planet, Saving Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Knowledge Building (KB) Design Studio, themed \u2018Saving Planet, Saving Lives\u2019, was\u00a0held on the\u00a023rd<\/sup>\u00a0to 25th<\/sup>\u00a0of November. The aim of\u00a0the\u00a0KB Design Studio was to\u00a0foster a KB community among\u00a0students, teachers,\u00a0leaning\u00a0sciences\u00a0researchers and\u00a0experts\u00a0in various fields, and to engage participants in creative work with ideas related to the event’s central themes. The KB Design Studio was a tremendous success for everyone that took part in the experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learnt how to communicate and share my ideas with people.\u201d <\/em>– Student <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you for making it so meaningful and the learning so rich for all the children.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>– Teacher\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this year\u2019s KB Design Studio,\u00a057\u00a0students between 10-16 years old, and from across schools, demonstrated their capabilities in conducting research, improving ideas, and developing and designing ideas and\/or prototypes\u00a0that\u00a0tackled real-life problems related to wildlife and human welfare.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This year, our overseas experts come from the Institute of Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT) at OISE\u00a0and The\u00a0Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (KITE), both\u00a0situated\u00a0in Canada. Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s KB Design Studio was completely online. Students, teachers and experts connected virtually using Zoom, and worked collectively to share ideas related to the theme and\u00a0to\u00a0advance community knowledge using Knowledge Forum (KF),\u00a0KF Learning Analytics, and a whole suite of creative productive tools.\u00a0Students successfully leveraged the\u00a0KF online\u00a0environment\u00a0and the available tools\u00a0to engage\u00a0in deep discourse with one another\u00a0in this\u00a0fully virtual\u00a0experience.\u00a0 Knowledge Building\u00a0principles and pedagogies were key\u00a0in\u00a0shaping the activities, interactions and flow of the event.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students sharing ideas on how to improve the design of the crutches. By conducting some research and making use of authoritative sources, the students were able to constructively build on to their peer\u2019s ideas. The team suggested an exo-skeletal gadget to reduce the discomfort under the arms when moving and a sensor to alert the medical team if an accident occurs. <\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Students building on each other\u2019s ideas. In this example, the student had built on her classmate\u2019s idea of why we need to conserve all species by giving actionable steps. The student then built onto this by connecting her ideas on the topic of protecting animals to extinction, which was also taken up and elaborated on by another student. Thus, students were able to advance their collective understanding and see connections between different aspects of wildlife.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Throughout the course of the three days, students were encouraged to work hard on their ideas\u00a0related to\u00a0wildlife and welfare,\u00a0which was facilitated through expert’s\u00a0sharing information and ideas about\u00a0medical simulations, wildlife and biodiversity. Through this conversation and experts’ engagement with students\u2019 queries,\u00a0students\u2019 interest in the topics\u00a0peaked,\u00a0making the issues and challenges they discussed real and authentic\u00a0to\u00a0them.\u00a0Moreover, because the experts stayed actively involved in the students\u2019 group discussions throughout the sessions,\u00a0they continued to probe students to think deeper about the topic and encouraged them to build-on each other\u2019s diverse ideas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Students were also motivated to\u00a0improve on\u00a0their ideas from the previous days through the data analytics that were presented to them every morning during the KB Design Studio. A research team from the University of Toronto shared with students the frequent words that they used (Word Cloud) as well as the common words used between groups on the KF. Thus, the students were able to identify\u00a0similar patterns within and between the groups that led to deeper inquiry about what they still need to know. Without much prompting, students were able to move to higher levels of inquiry whereby they showed more KF activity. Furthermore, students reflected on the analytics and saw them as a trigger to generate new ideas or even\u00a0improve on\u00a0their current ideas without much prompting from the facilitators or experts. Therefore, students were actively incorporating new ideas to work on their own ideas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students observed the connections between the words used across groups to generate and improve on their group ideas.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The students in the KB Design Studio also demonstrated high levels of epistemic agency, including choosing what they deemed to be a promising problem that they wanted to tackle and pursue. Throughout the three days, students identified problems, conducted research, and consolidated and integrated the diverse ideas that they had generated across the themes to get to “rise above” ideas.\u00a0 By collaborating on Knowledge Forum, students were able to share their experiences and knowledge about real world problems within and across their small groups, from improving the design of crutches to make them more user-friendly, to addressing the concerns of biodiversity and wildlife conservation in Singapore. Students were active contributors\u00a0in\u00a0growing their knowledge by researching information and building onto their peer\u2019s notes on the online platform, and improving on their ideas to advance community knowledge. When visiting students\u2019 groups, experts brought forth questions for students to gain deeper insight\u00a0and also\u00a0develop a critical mindset towards the experts\u2019 sharing. Furthermore, the movement of nominated student representatives from each group gave students opportunities to exchange their diverse ideas across the community.\u00a0Their hard work was finally presented at the end of the KB Design Studio to the whole community in the interest of supporting symmetrical knowledge advancement.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Students sharing of their knowledge advancement to democratise knowledge to the greater Knowledge Building Community.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The teachers who participated in the KB Design Studio were also involved in a\u00a0parallel\u00a0professional development (PD)\u00a0strand\u00a0helmed by a Specialist from Ed Tech Division in MOE,\u00a0and\u00a0an\u00a0NIE lecturer.\u00a0The teachers\u00a0discussed how to build knowledge\u00a0building\u00a0cultures in schools, the attributes and competencies of students as knowledge builders, and the teachers\u2019 own KB practice\u00a0as they observed student’s participation and contribution in the\u00a0KB Design\u00a0Studio.\u00a0The teachers were very surprised, right from the start, with the questions raised by their students to the experts.\u00a0They commented that\u00a0was something they did not expect from the students\u00a0and had reflected on\u00a0what they had learnt based on their observations during the KB Design Studio\u00a0that can be implemented back in their classroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teachers reflection on the Knowledge Forum based on their learnings over the course of the Design Studio.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The teachers also shared their use of KB in their classrooms across a wide range of subjects, including Social Studies, Geography and History. Furthermore, they built on each other’s posts to share suggestions and ideas to facilitate and develop a KB culture back in their own schools and, as a by-product, enhance their existing KB practice as well.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teachers\u2019 intense discussion that showcases the pervasiveness of Knowledge Building across a wide range of subjects.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the students and teachers all greatly enjoyed this year’s KB Design Studio. They provided\u00a0encouraging and highly positive responses about\u00a0their experiences of\u00a0the sharing\u00a0from their fellow peers and experts. The students also\u00a0reflected on their\u00a0experiences\u00a0interacting\u00a0with others from different schools and ages, and on working through disagreements and diverse ideas to improve each other\u2019s ideas. Both teachers and students felt that they benefitted greatly during this\u00a0year’s\u00a0KB Design Studio event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy group was really fun and we worked well together as we constantly tried to improve each other\u2019s ideas.\u201d<\/em> – Student  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI cannot imagine how much work you guys put in – this is what schools need now.\u201d<\/em> – Teacher <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the students even started expanding this year\u2019s theme for next year\u2019s KB Design Studio; he titled it \u201cSave Earth, Wear Passion,\u201d and provided concrete ideas about\u00a0the\u00a0flow\u00a0that he hoped to see at the\u00a0next\u00a0KB Design Studio.\u00a0The pervasiveness of students\u2019 inquiry and interest, extending past their experience with this year’s event, shows how the KB Design Studio\u00a0is not just a one-off event but rather the start of a deeper inquiry for both students and teachers alike!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction  This year\u2019s Knowledge Building (KB) Design Studio, themed \u2018Saving Planet, Saving Lives\u2019, was\u00a0held on the\u00a023rd\u00a0to 25th\u00a0of November. The aim of\u00a0the\u00a0KB Design Studio was to\u00a0foster a KB community among\u00a0students, teachers,\u00a0leaning\u00a0sciences\u00a0researchers and\u00a0experts\u00a0in various fields, and to engage participants in creative work with ideas related to the event’s central themes. The KB Design Studio was a tremendous … <\/p>\n

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