scholarly journals Knowledge Building and Mathematics: Shifting the Responsibility for Knowledge Advancement and Engagement

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Moss ◽  
Ruth Beatty
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Solutions ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Early Algebra ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Knowledge Forum ◽  
Low Achieving Students ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Building Culture ◽  
And Mathematics

Three classrooms of Grade 4 students from different schools and diverse backgrounds collaborated in early algebra research to solve a series of linear and quadratic generalizing problems. Results revealed that high- and low-achieving students were able to solve problems of recognized difficulty. We discuss Knowledge Building principles and practices that fostered deep understanding and broad participation. Students used the online Knowledge Building environment Knowledge Forum® to conduct their work and we illustrate how Knowledge Forum supported a Knowledge Building culture for mathematical learning and problem solving. Analyses of participation patterns and note content revealed practices consistent with Knowledge Building principles, specifically democratization of knowledge, with students at all achievement levels participating, and epistemic agency, with students providing evidence and justification for conjectures and generating multiple solutions to challenging problems.

scholarly journals Knowledge Building in Online Mode: Insights and Reflections

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 425
Author(s):  
Dina Soliman ◽  
Stacy Costa ◽  
Marlene Scardamalia
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Graduate Courses ◽  
Knowledge Forum ◽  
Online Mode ◽  
Advanced Knowledge ◽  
Individual Achievement

It seems certain that blended learning will be on the rise in higher education, with in-person meetings increasingly precious time, and online synchronous and asynchronous sessions used to complement them. This paper examines Knowledge Building in two graduate courses conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were no in-person sessions; rather, synchronous Zoom sessions were combined with asynchronous work in a knowledge building environment–Knowledge Forum. Knowledge Forum is designed to make transparent and accessible means by which deep understanding and sustained creative work proceed. Accordingly, for example, rise-above notes and view rearrangement support synthesis and explanatory coherence, epistemic markers support knowledge-advancing discourse, and analytics support self-and group-monitoring of progress as work proceeds. In this report, we focus on these aspects of Knowledge Building, using a subset of analytics to enhance understanding of key concepts and design of principles-based practices to advance education for knowledge creation. Overall, we aimed to have students take collective responsibility for advancing community knowledge, rather than focus exclusively on individual achievement. As we reflect on our experiences and challenges, we attempt to answer the following questions: Do courses that introduce Knowledge Building in higher education need an in-person or synchronous component? In what ways can we leverage in-class time and Knowledge Forum work to engage students in more advanced knowledge creation? We conclude that synchronous and asynchronous Knowledge Building can be combined in powerful new ways to provide students with more design time and deeper engagement with content and peers.

scholarly journals Developing Deep Understanding and Literacy while Addressing a Gender-Based Literacy Gap

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanqing Sun ◽  
Jianwei Zhang ◽  
Marlene Scardamalia
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Classroom Discourse ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Literacy Gap ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Vocabulary Growth ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Better Than

Online discourse from a class of 22 students (11 boys and 11 girls) was analysed to assess advances in conceptual understanding and literacy. The students worked over a two-year period (Grades 3-4), during which they contributed notes to an online Knowledge Building environment—Knowledge Forum®. Contributions revealed that both boys and girls produced a substantial amount of text and graphics, and that their written texts incorporated an increasing proportion of less-frequent, advanced words, including academic vocabulary and domain-specific words from grade levels higher than their own. Brief accounts of classroom discourse indicate how deep understanding and vocabulary growth mutually support each other in online and offline exchanges. The gender differences that were observed show boys doing slightly better than girls, suggesting that Knowledge Building has the potential to help boys overcome weaknesses in literacy.

scholarly journals Breaking Down Silos Working Meeting: An Approach to Fostering Cross-Disciplinary STEM–DBER Collaborations through Working Meetings

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. mr3
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Reinholz ◽  
Tessa C. Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Education Research ◽  
Stem Education ◽  
Research Priorities ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Stem Fields ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
And Mathematics

There has been a recent push for greater collaboration across the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in discipline-based education research (DBER). The DBER fields are unique in that they require a deep understanding of both disciplinary content and educational research. DBER scholars are generally trained and hold professional positions in discipline-specific departments. The professional societies with which DBER scholars are most closely aligned are also often discipline specific. This frequently results in DBER researchers working in silos. At the same time, there are many cross-cutting issues across DBER research in higher education, and DBER researchers across disciplines can benefit greatly from cross-disciplinary collaborations. This report describes the Breaking Down Silos working meeting, which was a short, focused meeting intentionally designed to foster such collaborations. The focus of Breaking Down Silos was institutional transformation in STEM education, but we describe the ways the overall meeting design and structure could be a useful model for fostering cross-­disciplinary collaborations around other research priorities of the DBER community. We describe our approach to meeting recruitment, premeeting work, and inclusive meeting design. We also highlight early outcomes from our perspective and the perspectives of the meeting participants.

Innovations for Online Collaborative Learning in Mathematics

2005 ◽  
pp. 1529-1534
Author(s):  
Rodney Nason ◽  
Eearl Woodruff
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning ◽  
Knowledge Forum ◽  
Online Collaborative Learning ◽  
Intractable Problem ◽  
Knowledge Building Communities

The field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has been growing in a number of areas and across a number of subjects (Koschmann, 1996; Koschmann, Hall, & Miyake, 2002; Wasson, Baggetun, Hoppe, & Ludvigsen, 2003). One of the most promising pedagogical advances, however, for online collaborative learning that has emerged in recent years is Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1996) notion of knowledge-building communities. Unfortunately, establishing and maintaining knowledge-building communities in CSCL environments such as Knowledge Forum® in the domain of mathematics has been found to be a rather intractable problem (Bereiter, 2002b; Nason, Brett, & Woodruff, 1996). In this chapter, we begin by identifying two major reasons why computer-supported knowledge-building communities in mathematics have been difficult to establish and maintain.

Supporting Online Collaborative Learning in Mathematics

2011 ◽  
pp. 1725-1731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Nason ◽  
Eearl Woodruff
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning ◽  
Knowledge Forum ◽  
Online Collaborative Learning ◽  
Intractable Problem ◽  
Knowledge Building Communities

One of the most promising pedagogical advances for online collaborative learning that has emerged in recent years is Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1996) notion of knowledge-building communities. Unfortunately, establishing and maintaining knowledge-building communities in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments such as Knowledge Forum® (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1998) in the domain of mathematics has been found to be a rather intractable problem (Bereiter, 2002a; Nason, Brett, & Woodruff, 1996).

scholarly journals Analytics for Knowledge Creation: Towards Epistemic Agency and Design-Mode Thinking

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bodong Chen ◽  
Jianwei Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Static State ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Demand For Education ◽  
High Level

Innovation and knowledge creation call for high-level epistemic agency and design-mode thinking, two competencies beyond the traditional scopes of schooling. In this paper, we discuss the need for learning analytics to support these two competencies, and more broadly, the demand for education for innovation. We ground these arguments on a distinctive Knowledge Building pedagogy that treats education as a knowledge-creation enterprise. By critiquing current learning analytics for their focus on static-state knowledge and skills, we argue for agency-driven, choice-based analytics more attuned to higher order competencies in innovation. We further describe ongoing learning analytics initiatives that attend to these elements of design. Prospects and challenges are discussed, as well as broader issues regarding analytics for higher order competencies.

scholarly journals Beyond Learning Management Systems: Designing for Interprofessional Knowledge Building in the Health Sciences

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leila Lax ◽  
Marlene Scardamalia ◽  
Judy Watt-Watson ◽  
Judith Hunter ◽  
Carl Bereiter
Keyword(s):  
Management System ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Learning Management System ◽  
Collaborative Work ◽  
Learning Management Systems ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Health Science ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Knowledge Forum ◽  
Learning Management

This paper examines theoretical, pedagogical, and technological differences between two technologies that have been used in undergraduate interprofessional health sciences at the University of Toronto. One, a learning management system, WebCT 2.0, supports online coursework. The other, a Knowledge Building environment, Knowledge Forum 2.0, supports the collaborative work of knowledge-creating communities. Seventy students from six health science programs (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Pharmacy and Physical Therapy) participated online in a 5-day initiative to advance understanding of core principles and professional roles in pain assessment and management. Knowledge Forum functioned well as a learning management system but to preserve comparability between the two technologies its full resources were not brought into play. In this paper we examine three distinctive affordances of Knowledge Forum that have implications for health sciences education: (1) supports for Knowledge Building discourse as distinct from standard threaded discourse; (2) integration of sociocognitive functions as distinct from an assortment of separate tools; and (3) resources for multidimensional social and cognitive assessment that go beyond common participation indicators and instructor-designed quizzes and analyses. We argue that these design characteristics have the potential to open educational pathways that traditional learning management systems leave closed.

scholarly journals Young Children's Knowledge Building and Literacy Development Through Knowledge Forum®

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Pelletier ◽  
Richard Reeve ◽  
Cindy Halewood
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Development ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Knowledge Forum

scholarly journals Did Students Learn Less During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Reading and Mathematics Competencies Before and After the First Pandemic Wave

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Schult ◽  
Nicole Mahler ◽  
Benjamin Fauth ◽  
Marlit Annalena Lindner
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Learning Loss ◽  
School Closures ◽  
Large Scale Assessment ◽  
Low Achieving Students ◽  
Before And After ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Future Education ◽  
Regular Classes ◽  
Reading And Mathematics

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted regular classes in spring 2020. Temporary school closures supposedly led to a considerable learning loss, particularly for low-achieving students. Schools in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, were closed for two months. Although distance learning was implemented, students spent less time learning. Additionally, teachers were faced with organizational and technological challenges of remote learning environments. The present study investigates the competencies of fifth-graders, using large-scale assessment results in reading and mathematics from annual mandatory tests in September (each n > 80,000). In line with studies from other countries, competence scores were slightly lower in 2020 compared with the three previous years (–0.07 standard deviations for reading comprehension, –0.09 for operations, and –0.03 for numbers). Low-achieving readers managed to attain pre-pandemic competence levels. On the other hand, low-achieving students seem to have a learning backlog regarding mathematics competencies (such as operations) that deserves attention in future education.

Thinking about critical thinking: An industry perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Owen Pearl ◽  
Gerry M. Rayner ◽  
Ian Larson ◽  
Laurence Orlando
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Multiple Solutions ◽  
Skills Development ◽  
Pharmaceutical Sciences ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Business Context ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Generalizable Skills ◽  
Development Of Students

There has been a drive towards enhancing the critical thinking (CT) skills development of students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, both in Australia and internationally. One debate among CT theorists centres on whether CT comprises a set of generalizable skills or is content- and context-dependent. While previous studies have considered CT skills development and its assessment in pharmacy courses, there appears to have been limited scholarly research within the pharmaceutical sciences discipline. In seeking to address this, it is vital to understand how companies conceptualize CT and its use by Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences graduates. This research identifies five major categories used to conceptualize CT in the companies interviewed: being systematic, having strong business sense, considering multiple solutions, considering implications and identifying problems and potential solutions. The study finds that, while these skills are dependent on the business context, they may be generalizable across a range of industries.

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