Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2001
Collaborative Knowledge Building to Promote In-service Teacher Training in Environmental Education MAURI ÅHLBERG & ARJA KAASINEN University of Joensuu, Finland TAINA KAIVOLA & LEA HOUTSONEN University of Helsinki, Finland
ABSTRACT Environmental education (EE) is a problematic field in teacher education for many reasons. First, there is no consensus about its central concepts. Second, environmental education emerged as a response to environmental problems. Environmental educators do not agree on what are real environmental problems and what are exaggerated fears. For many educators, global warming is a serious environmental problem, but for those who view it in a geological perspective of long-term climatic change, it is not such a problem. When teachers are provided with the possibility of sharing problems of EE and building knowledge collaboratively with university experts, what do they do? What kind of problems do teachers regard as important? What kinds of problems do the university experts regard as important? These questions were investigated through the use of a database program called Knowledge Forum®. Knowledge Forum® is a shared virtual environment for collaborative knowledge building. This article analyses the use of the database in the 1st year (September 2000-September 2001) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development Environment and School Initiatives project on the theme of ‘Learnscapes, Ecoschools and Teacher Education’. The results are discussed in the context of international research and development in collaborative knowledge building for promoting European environmental education in teacher education.
Introduction There is no widespread consensus about what should be included in environmental education (EE) and what should not. EE may include at least learning about the environment, in or through the environment, and for the environment. But EE was created as a response to emerging environmental
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problems, mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. The question of what constitutes a real environmental problem is a contested one. Many educators think that global warming is a serious environmental problem. Jickling (2001) claims: ‘Climate change is arguably the most important environmental issue of our time’ (p. 5). For those who think from a geological perspective, climatic change is a complex problem not entirely linked with human agency (e.g. Adams, 2001; Fotner, 2001; Lake, 2001; Pruneau & al, 2001). On the other hand, environmental pollution (in particular through poisonous substances) is always a serious environmental problem but the complexity of this issue is not always explored in school curricula or in teacher education programs. The research described in this article arises from the Finnish part of the fourth phase of the international Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development Environment and School Initiatives (OECD/ENSI) project (2000-03). The OECD/ENSI project started in 1986. It concerns educational innovations in EE and schools in general. Environmental problems are complex and alleviating them and solving them requires many kinds of expertise and cooperation. Knowledge and creating knowledge are essential processes. Nowadays there are many ways to promote collaborative knowledge building. Information and communication technologies (ICT) offer some possibilities. Knowledge Forum® is a leadingedge computer program. It was selected as a tool for use in the fourth phase of the OECD/ENSI/Finland project. The Finnish project is the first OECD/ENSI project to experiment with collaborative knowledge building using the Internet and Knowledge Forum® in in-service teacher education. In the ‘knowledge age’, it is important to learn how to construct knowledge collaboratively to solve problems, including environmental problems (Thurow, 1999; Bereiter, 2002; Muller & Subotzky, 2001; Åhlberg & Ahoranta, 1999; Åhlberg & Houtsonen, 2000; Åhlberg & Houtsonen, 2001; Houtsonen & Åhlberg, 2001). The Finnish OECD/ENSI project is a design experiment (Scardamalia et al, 1989; Brown, 1992). A digital environment is created to facilitate both individual knowledge construction and collaborative knowledge building. When a member of a knowledge building community creates an idea, all participants are able to test it and to develop it further. Knowledge Forum® as a Design Experiment and a Shared Virtual Learning Environment Nowadays, the special knowledge and skills of different professionals can easily be integrated asynchronously using the Internet and computer programs which allow participants to contribute notes and comment on those contributed by others. The basic elements of Knowledge Forum® are views and notes. The database can be divided into views. The user may create as many of them as s/he needs. In each view s/he may create as many notes as s/he needs. The user can build on other notes. S/he may 228
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quote them, annotate them and ‘rise above’ them (integrate them with an overview) to develop or exemplify theory or practice. An English translation of a view is presented in Figure 1. An opened note is presented in Figure 2.
Figure 1. An adapted English translation of the opening view. The arrows (in the icons boxes) on the left are view links. Selecting a view link opens it. The small squares on the right are icons of notes. Clicking twice on a note opens it.
Figure 2. An opened note in the biodiversity window. Note scaffolds on the left, the possibility of naming a problem or problems on the top, and the possibility of adding keywords. You may search the database by using e.g. problems and keywords. On the bottom of the note there is a hot button called Build On. By selecting it a new note opens and you may comment on the earlier note.
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Design Experiment One way of promoting a higher quality of learning in in-service teacher education is to design and test new and better environments for learning. Brown (1992) was one of the early pioneers who introduced the term ‘design experiment’ to classroom education. Scardamalia & Bereiter (1994) presented a useful overview of how schools could be transformed into knowledge building communities. They used the Computer Supported Integrated Learning Environment database program, a predecessor of Knowledge Forum®. In this project we apply these ideas to in-service teacher education. The core of an educational design experiment is to design a better learning environment. The main aspects of a design experiment are: o to use and improve the best available learning theory; o to develop the environment for teachers who are taking part in the project; o practical feasibility. Each country has its own OECD/ENSI project, which shares important principles of the general ENSI project, e.g. transforming whole school organisations to ecoschools, promoting collaboration between schools and society, dynamic qualities, e.g. creativity, problem solving, learning how to learn etc., and use of action research. The idea of using cooperative learning environments and collaborative knowledge building to promote EE in the fourth phase of the ENSI project was presented by Åhlberg & Ahoranta (1999) in the international OECD/ENSI strategy workshop in Norway. The main themes in the fourth phase of the project (1999-2003) are: 1. ecoschools, 2. learnscapes and 3. teacher education (Benedict, 1999; Åhlberg & Houtsonen, 2000). The project was financed by the Finnish Ministry of Education. The research and development coordination was undertaken by Professor Mauri Åhlberg (University of Joensuu) and Counsellor of Education, Docent Lea Houtsonen (National Board of Education, University of Helsinki). Doctoral student Arja Kaasinen had earlier worked as a classroom teacher. University lecturer Taina Kaivola was one of the four university experts in the project. Data and Their Analysis Fourteen schools from different parts of Finland were accepted to take part in the project; 12 participated. The project involved schoolteachers, graduate students and the authors as university experts, 24 people in total. There were four main face-to-face meetings for discussion and training in September 2000, December 2000, March 2001 and November 2001. In these meetings there were lectures about EE, collaborative knowledge building, training to use Knowledge Forum® and discussion about problems and future plans. 230
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In the first meeting of the project the school representatives were introduced to Knowledge Forum® as a tool to promote collaborative knowledge building. In the first and second workshops, time was provided for individual working with Knowledge Forum® and help, advice and consultation were provided. In the third workshop there was no time for working with Knowledge Forum® and as a result very few (Knowledge Forum®) notes emerged after that meeting. From 8 September 2000 to 7 September 2001, 375 notes were contributed to the OECD/ENSI database. Most of them (350) were created before the March 2001 workshop. A practice area (the ‘sandbox’ view) was created to explore the possibilities of the program. Ninety notes were practice notes. Åhlberg and Kaasinen read the remaining 285 ‘proper’ notes and made a preliminary interpretation and content analysis of all notes. A Knowledge Forum® database can be analysed quantitatively by a special program called Analytic Toolkit. Table I shows the 12 most active members of the knowledge building community, how many notes they constructed and who read whose notes during the 1st academic year.
Mauri Arja Vuokko Riitta Seppo Lea Taina Virpi 2 Antti Jukka Virpi 1 Ulla
Mauri Riitta Lea
Arja
Vuokko
Taina
112 100 87 81 80 67 62 42 42 33 23 18
27 27 25 23 23 21 20 6 8 12 5 2
15 11 15 11 10 8 14 6 3 7 5 5
13 4 11 9 9 4 13 6 4 5 3 0
35 34 34 35 26 25 20 8 14 16 11 5
29 29 26 27 24 29 17 6 19 8 3 4
Virpi 1 11 11 11 9 11 10 4 10 5 6 11 3
Ulla Virpi 2 9 7 9 7 9 7 5 3 9 7 8 3 7 4 5 7 4 5 8 6 5 3 9 3
Antti
Seppo
5 5 5 4 5 5 4 1 5 2 0 0
4 3 3 2 4 1 2 2 1 1 2 1
Table I. The most active members of our knowledge building community during the 1st year (8 September 2000 to 7 September 2001). The table shows how many notes the user on the left has read, written by the user at the top.
When Teachers were Provided with a Possibility to Share Problems of Environmental Education and to Build Knowledge Collaboratively with University Experts, What Did They Do? After reading all the 375 notes, our impression is that teachers select mainly very practical issues for discussion, e.g. how to define an ecoschool: ‘How do I know whether my school is an ecoschool or not?’ From the viewpoint of a university expert, the answer depends on what kind of theory of EE is used, and what the school claims to be important and essential to promote EE. Accordingly, the teachers were not provided with any list of criteria, but 231
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were asked to collaboratively construct theories of the subject. After the university experts (Åhlberg, Houtsonen and Kaivola) had stressed the importance of theory construction, teachers asked questions and explored details in the notes, e.g. where could one find more information about the EE model of Hungerford and Volk? In their own notes the teachers described what they had done with their pupils in EE. These were mainly descriptions of outdoor education activities. Teachers also wrote notes about how ideas of sustainable development are included in school curricula and at the municipal level. Some good examples of municipal and school level agendas for sustainable development were presented and commented on. University experts introduced all new theoretical aspects and information about new books and articles. Most of the practical issues came from schoolteachers. Both schoolteachers and university experts discussed practical issues. What Kind of Problems did Teachers Present as Important? For teachers the important problems were mostly practical in nature: how can we improve our old schoolyard? From where do we get advice about improving the schoolyard? How can a teacher encourage parents to become more involved in planning the renovation of it? How can we establish what pupils have learnt in outdoor EE? What do we do in a city school with over 30 not so well-behaved pupils, and should we take them outdoors anyway? A part of the discussion concerning schoolyards is presented in Figure 3. Two university experts (Taina and Antti) started to discuss what is really important in environmental education. The first one did not mention global warming as an environmental problem, but the second one did. The discussion then continued when the third university expert (Mauri) did not agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. In Figure 3 a part of the discussion is presented, starting with Mauri’s note at the top. After that two of the schoolteachers discussed whether or not global warming is a really serious environmental problem. They supported strongly the prevailing orthodoxy that it is one of the main environmental problems. One of the university experts presented a compelling argument to demonstrate that global warming is not one of the main environmental problems.
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Figure 3. An example of knowledge building concerning mostly practical issues. Notes are opened and the ‘build on’ connections are presented. An adapted translation of the original Finnish notes.
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Figure 4. An example of knowledge building concerning mostly theoretical issues and understanding of environmental problems. Notes are opened and ‘build on’ links are presented. An adapted translation of the original Finnish notes.
The other teacher understood the geological viewpoint, according to which global climate and regional temperatures have changed continually over millions of years. Temperature has been higher, carbon dioxide levels have
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been higher, plants have been able to use more carbon dioxide and in this way grow more prolifically, etc. As with most environmental problems, this one is also very complex. The Knowledge Forum® discussion around this matter is presented in Figure 4, and Houtsonen & Åhlberg (2001) present an overview of the issue. What Kind and How Much of the Practical Versus Theoretical Knowledge Building Concerns Themes of Learnscapes, Ecoschools, and Teacher Education? In the international OECD/ENSI project the main themes are ecoschools, learnscapes and teacher education. What follows is a preliminary analysis of how many practical versus theoretical notes have connections with these themes: Ecoschools Many notes (48/285) have explicit connections to ecoschools. Many of them concern daily practices, e.g. composting, recycling of paper, saving energy, etc. Some of them contain many pages of text about curricula and school agendas for sustainable development. There were five theoretical notes in which books and articles promoting ecoschools were named. Learnscapes Learnscapes are essentially schoolyards improved for the purposes of EE. Elsewhere in Europe they are called school environmental areas. In the database 19 of the 285 notes concerned learnscapes. Figure 2 shows part of a knowledge building activity, or rather discourse, around this theme. Teacher Education Only one note concerned teacher education directly. The explanation is simple: the Ministry of Education has not provided any money for the teacher education aspect of the OECD/ENSI/Finland project. Accordingly, none of the Departments of Teacher Education in Finland has been interested in taking part in the program. The schools and teachers who are taking part are not involved in pre-service teacher education, but wanted to become participants in this informal and small-scale in-service teacher education design experiment.
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When University Experts Were Provided with the Opportunity to Share Problems of Environmental Education and to Build Knowledge Collaboratively with Schoolteachers, What Did They Do? The four university experts discussed mainly general knowledge construction in EE. Of 109 notes discussing subjects of a practical nature, 42 concerned general knowledge construction concerning EE. They included questions about sources of claims, where one could loan a book or an article, questions about biodiversity education, lack of recognition and identifying plant species, etc. The university experts presented many new sources of EE. There were 19 notes of a theoretical nature, concerning general theoretical knowledge construction of EE, e.g. presenting new books, articles and intellectual tools which would probably be useful in developing EE. One of the books was Ympäristö ja Geofysiikka (Environment and Geophysics) (Kakkuri & Helt, 2000). The authors are professors of geophysics. According to them and the scientific articles to which they refer, during the last 800 000 years there have been eight 100 000-year cycles of cold glacial periods and warm interglacial periods. Glacial periods have been about 90 000 years each, and interglacial periods about 10 000 years each. This gives a totally different perspective on climate change to the way it is viewed as a contemporary environmental problem. Discussion There is a need to experiment with tools for knowledge building if the notion of a knowledge society is to have any practical relevance. The use of Knowledge Forum® in the field of EE is innovative. Early experiences are mixed. As university researchers we would have hoped for much more indepth knowledge building. There are advanced special features of Knowledge Forum®, such as a tool (rise above notes) to rise above earlier notes, that is, to integrate them with an overview, which the coordinator taught and used himself, but which nobody else used. Certainly, for some issues and for relatively short periods of time (about 3 months), there was real knowledge building with some of the issues directly relevant to teachers’ professional lives. In follow-up interviews, 10 of the teachers thought the idea excellent, but felt they had not had enough time to use the program. They told us that they benefited from using Knowledge Forum® and thought that it had potential in all kinds of education if the costs of using it could be lowered, especially when working from home when the costs of connection have to be met by the user. The pattern of use of Knowledge Forum® in the OECD/ENSI/Finland project has been similar to that of any other innovation: some people are really excited and use it a lot, others are slow to follow. From this viewpoint we can be optimistic about the future. Our 236
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approach has theoretically sound underpinnings. It may take years before these types of program are widely used. However, where collaborative knowledge building is needed and where it is appreciated, Knowledge Forum® is an excellent choice. There are real environmental problems to solve and European nations have agreed to use education, including teacher education, to facilitate the solving of these problems. We have diverse expertise in different university departments and colleges of teacher education. We suggest that those who are interested in collaborative knowledge building in EE ought to create a joint international research and development project for promoting European environmental education in teacher education. Technologically the project would be feasible. Those who are interested in taking part in such a project should contact Professor Mauri Åhlberg at
[email protected]. Correspondence Professor Mauri Åhlberg, University of Savonlinna at Joensuu, PO Box 55, 57101 Savonlinna, Finland (
[email protected]). References Adams, S. (2001) Views of Uncertainties of Climate Change: a comparison of high school students and specialists, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 6, pp. 58-76. Åhlberg, M. & Ahoranta, V. (1999) Good Practice in EE Needs Good Theories and Good Tools – systemic research and a success story in Finland. Manuscript in OECD/ENSI strategy workshop From the Pilot to the Mainstream: generalization of good practice in international environmental education, Hadeland, Norway, 9-12 December. Åhlberg, M. & Houtsonen, L. (2000) OECD/ENSI/Finland 2000-project Uses Knowledge Forum® for Collaborative Knowledge Building. Poster in the Summer Institute of Knowledge Forum®, University of Toronto, Canada, 9-12 August. Åhlberg, M. & Houtsonen, L. (2001) What the Finnish OECD/ENSI-project has to Offer for the International OECD/ENSI and PEB-projects? A handout in the OECD/ENSI workshop Learnscapes across the Globe, Payerbach-Reichenau, Austria, 6-9 October. Benedict, F. (Ed.) (1999) From the Pilot … to the Mainstreaming. Generalisation of Good Practice in Environmental Education. An OECD/ENSI Strategy Workshop, 9-12 December, Hadeland, Norway. Oslo: Ministry of Education, Research and Church Affairs. Bereiter, C. (2002) Education and the Mind in the Knowledge Age. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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Brown, A. (1992) Design Experiments: theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2, pp. 141-178. Fotner, R. (2001) Climate Change in School: where does it fit and how ready are we?, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 6, pp. 18-31. Houtsonen, L. & Åhlberg, M. (2001) Collaborative Learning for Teachers in the ENSI Environmental Education Project: case study climate change – use of Knowledge Forum group work software to amplify the inherent risks, in L. Houtsonen & M. Tammilehto (Eds) Innovative Practices in Geographical Education. Proceedings of the Helsinki Symposium. IGU. Commission on Geographical Education, Helsinki, 6-10 August, pp. 140-144. Helsinki: Department of Geography, University of Helsinki. Jickling, B. (2001) Climate Change, Global Heating, and Education with Uncertainties, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 6, pp. 5-17. Kakkuri, J. & Helt, S.- E. (2000) Ympäristö ja Geofysiikka (Environment and Geophysics). Helsinki: Ursa. Lake, D. (2001) Waging the War of the Worlds: global warming or heating, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 6, pp. 52-57. Muller, J. & Subotzky, G. (2001) What Knowledge is Needed in the New Millennium?, Organization, 8, pp. 163-182. Pruneau, D., Liboiron, L., Vrain, E., Gravel, H., Bourque, V. & Langis, J. (2001) People’s Ideas About Climate Change: a source of inspiration for the creation of educational programs, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 6, pp. 121-137. Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1994) Computer Support for Knowledge-building Communities, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3, pp. 265-284. Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., McLean, R., Swallow, J. & Woodruff, E. (1989) Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments, Journal of Educational Computing Research, 5, pp. 51-68. Thurow, L. (1999) Creating Wealth: the new rules for individuals, companies and countries in a knowledge-based economy. London: Nicholas Brealey.
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