Fostering knowledge and building communities (KBC) through Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)
Ching Sing Chai National Institute of Education, Singapore
[email protected] Seng Chee Tan National Institute of Education, Singapore
[email protected] David Hung National Institute of Education, Singapore
[email protected]
Abstract: In this paper we highlight an innovative instructional approach, the Knowledge Building Community (KBC), supported by Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technology for in-service teacher training at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Six teachers attending an in-service course entitled ‘Visualising students’ thinking using IT tools’ participated in this study. The teachers viewed the incorporation of KBC and CSCL technology as opportunities for students to learn beyond the classroom and the curriculum, and for providing a means for them to monitor their students’ progress. They also perceived KBC to be a means for promoting student inquiry. However, the teachers thought that they might not have sufficient time to implement the KBC approach. They also seemed to regard KBC as being more suitable for high-ability students. From the results, we discuss some issues with regard to the fostering of KBC for professional development, with specific reference to teacher training. Keywords: computer-supported collaborative learning; knowledge building community; teacher training.
Introduction In this paper we document a case study of the use of an online Knowledge Building Community (KBC) approach in a developmental course for in-service teachers offered by the National Institute of Education (Singapore). The online KBC approach was implemented with Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) software known as Knowledge Forum (KF). Since the course was meant for teacher development, the impact of the instructional approach will be reflected in how the participants transfer the skills learnt to their work environment, that is, how they perceive the use of KBC in their own classrooms. In this preliminary study, we focussed on the participants’ perceptions of benefits and limitations of both incorporating the CSCL technology and implementing the KBC in schools. The central pedagogical concept in this study is the ‘Knowledge Building Community’ (KBC), which refers to a group of learners working collaboratively to advance their collective
knowledge of the community. It is modelled after research teams in intellectual communities who work together to advance the knowledge of a domain (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1992, 1996). A KBC has the following characteristics: (a) a sustained, in-depth study of topics; (b) problem-centred investigation; (c) inquiry driven by students’ questions; (c) explanation as the major challenge; (e) focus on collective goals of understanding and judgement; (f) groupbased; (g) discourse is taken seriously; (h) varied sources of information; and (i) teacher as facilitator (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1993, cited in Hewitt, 1996). Bereiter (2002) argues that KBC engages students in creating and transforming knowledge directly, thereby helping to cultivate essential skills and dispositions that are necessary for survival in the knowledge society. To foster a KBC, a CSCL platform known as Knowledge Forum was developed by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1996). The software is designed as a platform for communication that helps direct classroom discourse towards progressive inquiry, and which, at the same time, keeps records of collective knowledge in a communal database. The database is available to all participants, and that gives them a sense of speaking and being responsible to a broader audience. It encourages intentional learning through metacognitive prompts. KF supports learning by exploiting the potential of the distributed nature of intelligence in a collaborative situation (Pea, 1993). The learning environment created using KF distributes the responsibilities for solving difficult and complex learning tasks among learners with different expertise. This avoids cognitive overloading of individual members (Roth, 1999). The learning environment also enables the decentralisation of discourse by allowing free flow of information among learners. It eliminates turn-taking, allows more time for reflection since one does not have to respond instantly. Given the affordances of the software and its underlying principles, employing KF in classroom learning helps to promote active learning among the students. However, to effectively implement educational innovations, one of the key dimensions is the change in mindsets of teachers (Fullan, 2001). Teachers’ mindsets play a significant role in guiding future decisions and professional developments (Kagan, 1992; Richardson, 1996). As such, it is important to research the subjective experience of teachers who are implementing new technology and are thus affected by the change. There are sporadic studies on teachers’ beliefs about technology (Cummings, 1998; Margerum-Leys & Marx, 1999), but such studies are lacking in the Singapore context, particularly studies of teachers’ perceptions about KBC and CSCL. This study attempts to bridge this gap by answering the research question: How do teachers perceive fostering KBC through CSCL? From the findings, we generate some principles that will facilitate the future implementation of this emerging pedagogy. Methods Six teachers who were attending an in-service course entitled ‘Visualising students’ thinking using IT tools’ participated in this study. Five were elementary school teachers and one was a secondary school teacher. All participants had more than four years teaching experience. Of the six participants, three were heads/subject heads of the IT department in their schools and two were IT coordinators. They were competent users of educational technology. However, the KBC and CSCL technology was new to them. The module introduced them to CSCL technology as a means of externalising students’ thought processes. To support the implementation of the technology and its underlying pedagogical principles, two full-day workshops were conducted. The participants were introduced to the various ways of representing thinking processes graphically (Beyer, 1997; Clarke, 1990), the various types
of graphic organiser and the notion of KBC (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1996). They were given a descriptive research report (Caswell & Lamon, 1998) as an example of the KBC in a classroom setting. After deciding on the topic that they wanted their students to investigate, they were taught the technical skills of using KF. The workshop ended with some hands-on activities for the participants to construct their initial KF environments. The participants were given about three weeks to complete their proposals and construct the KF environments for their students. They shared their proposals on the KF environment and performed peer critique. They also shared their reflections, critiqued each other’s classroom practices and accessed each other’s KF environments. This allowed the participants to experience the KBC approach before and during the time that they are implementing the approach for their students. Figure 1 shows part of the screen captured of their work.
Figure 1: Screen capture of the participants’ work
The participants implemented their proposals from early July to mid August 2002 and were able to guide their students to the completion of the learning activities. Table 1 below summarises the background information of the participants and their proposals. Fictitious names are used in order to maintain confidentiality.
Table 1: Background information about participants and their proposed projects
Teacher
Designation
Bill
IT Head
Implementation Approach Project-based
Carol
Teacher
Problem-based
Dorothy
IT coordinator
Fiona Hanson & Ivy
IT coordinator IT head and IT subject Head
Knowledge Building Approach Project-based Problem-based Learning
Proposed Project Theme Designing brochure for places of interest Designing new Chocolate How does a cut heal?
Targeted Levels Primary 4
Sandwich Competition Birthday Dinner
Primary 4 Primary 4
Secondary 1 Primary 5
The participants were interviewed one week after the end of the module. Four of them were interviewed individually and two of them were interviewed together as they were from the same school and they worked in pairs. Each interview lasted about 45 minutes. Semistructured interview was employed to allow the participants to voice their opinions freely. The interview questions asked were: 1. What are the benefits of employing Knowledge Forum in your classroom? 2. How do you feel about your learning experience in this module? (Specifically, the workshop, participating in the CSCL environment, implementing and reflecting on your experience) 3. Do you think it is possible to create knowledge-building community in our local classrooms? Why? 4. Do you think it is worthwhile to create knowledge-building community in our local classrooms? Why? 5. How important is creating a KBC in your classroom? 6. What are the barriers that you can foresee in implementing the CSCL technology? Findings Assertion 1: The teachers recognised the advantages of CSCL technology in teaching.
The advantages mentioned by the teachers included extending learning beyond classroom and curriculum time, ease of monitoring student progress, having a shared database, and promoting collaboration and independent learning among the students. For Fiona, the perceived advantages included learning beyond the classroom, sharing of information through the communal database, and ease of checking students’ progress. Fiona said: Because this year P4 they have a lot of IT-based lessons, and the time frame is very short, so we are saying that if we have this, we can actually give the topic much earlier to the students so that they can go and look it up. Whereas before that, let’s say if we don’t have this, you ask the children go and research. Number one, you can’t check whether they have actually done the research or not. Number two, they can’t share information with each other …in oral discussion, no matter how often the teacher walks, you can’t catch that person and you can’t hear his opinion… It works as a portfolio where everything is captured.
Carol also considered KF to be a good tool for complementing face-to-face instruction: This is very good because students can work from home... especially during holiday when they don’t need to come and they don’t need to give me excuses like my parents don’t allow me to come…this is good for holiday project. For Bill, the first perceived advantage of the technology was that it encouraged collaboration among the students. In his words: From what I see and experience, they (the students) are able to come together shared ideas…um… debate on a certain idea… question each other…there is a lot of collaborative thinking and inquiry thinking also. Bill also perceived the technology to be helpful in promoting independent learning among learners. Bill commented: It is interesting to see how the students learn, how the students progress. Frankly, this travel brochure which we are supposed to do, I have very little input. I told them this is what you are going to do, I give the project set up, you know the seven questions that we have, and I explain to them how they went about it. They were basically on their own…I am pretty happy…better than what I expected. I mean given the minimal skeletal structure, they are able to piece up something. To sum up, the teachers experienced some advantages of CSCL technologies. Beside the affordances of technology, the teachers also valued the pedagogy of KBC. Assertion 2: The teachers viewed knowledge-building approach towards learning as a useful approach in terms of encouraging research and going beyond textbook.
This perspective was revealed when the teachers were asked to look at the ‘model’ database that was created by one of the teachers. Dorothy created the database for her primary 5 high ability students in East Top School. They are referred to as EM 1 students in Singapore. They are the top 10-20 percent of students in the primary schools. The following quotes are the teachers’ comments when they viewed the database: I think it’s a lot of pluses here…a lot of positive things you can actually gather from this approach. Pupil actually explore, research and they gather more information. Like from something which is very abstract to …(inaudible) it actually develops the knowledge because through selfdiscovery and some sort of inquiry learning, they actually develop their knowledge. They want to know more. (Bill) Hers is good…Hers is like the children works, is a lot of research, maybe on the Internet and then cut and paste. It actually exposes the pupil, I guess. The children are only limited by their creativity…and their curiosity... they will want to learn more, they will want to know more. (Ivy) They can branch out to so many things, that’s the beauty of it. (Carol)
Assertion 3: The teachers perceived student ability to be a pre-requisite for adopting the KBC approach.
Although the teachers recognised the benefits of the KBC approach, they were not sure about its applicability to average or low-ability students. They tended to think that this approach was more appropriate for high ability students. They had strikingly similar reactions when they viewed Dorothy’s database. They seemed to be impressed by the students’ work but they attributed the success to students’ ability, which was evident from the following transactions between the researcher and the interviewees. Bill questioned the interviewer in the midst of viewing the East Top database (B- Bill, R – interviewer): B: This is by… what level is this? R: Primary 5. B: But East Top, possible. You see, this is East Top standard. You get my school students, they can’t write like that. I’m telling you. R: This is primary 5. B: I think she does a EM 1 class…ah, I think she did mention hers is a EM 1 class. You get a normal…uh…average class huh, they can’t write like that. Fiona responded in a similar manner when she saw the first posting by a student (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: A student’s posting in the Knowledge Forum
The following quotes were the interactions between Fiona (F) and the interviewer (R):
F: This is whose explanation? R: The children. F: What level is this? R: P5. F: Must be a very good class. R: Yeah, EM 1. F: How fortunate. So I said a lot of things is depending on the children, how much the children want to find out. R: Do you think that um… F: I think the calibre and the children… (Inaudible) a lot. Because if you are a good pupil, you want to learn more. You can ask more … what do you call that… in-depth questions. When you ask in-depth questions, you will want to find out more. But for the children who are in the weaker group, they don’t even know what kind of question to ask. Carol and Ivy also seemed to believe that KBC approach would require high ability students. Probably she has very good students in that sense. Probably if I want to do something like that, the upper level will be good… higher ability students but then I don’t have that high ability. (Carol) Ours is like almost EM 3 (bottom 10% of the student cohort) class, they can -not…they can -not speak that well. If you look at ours, it’s like…broken English and short sentences. (Ivy) Despite the fact that the teachers generally believed that a KBC approach is more appropriate for high ability students, they were willing to try the approach with their students. In fact, two teachers have begun to try the KBC approach to replace holiday assignments. Assertion 4: The teachers perceived time constraints as the main barrier for implementation of a KBC approach.
Dorothy was most explicit about this, “I am alright with it (the KBC approach) but where is the time to do all this?” Other teachers held similar views and they cited the syllabus to be covered as a reason for the time constraints: I would say that given the time, I would like to have more of this kind of activities. But I think in a normal classroom situation, it is quite difficult…considering the syllabus that you have to undergo…you have to complete. But I would say if you have the time, the luxury of time, yes, I think this is a very fantastic way to learn. (Bill) I am feeling that we might not have the luxury of the American kid, I mean the time factor to actually go and probe… we have our curriculum and all. (Ivy)
Children are not given that kind of time under the current curriculum. (Hanson) Discussion From the above findings, the teachers appeared to welcome the incorporation of the CSCL technology into their classrooms. They were also convinced of the potential benefits of the KBC approach. However, they seemed to believe that time and curriculum factors constrained the implementation of KBC. Moreover, the teachers believed that such environments would be more plausible among higher-achievers. This study was a good learning experience for the researchers in terms of implementing KBC approach. Based on this study a number of suggestions may be made for teaching about KBC. First, use experiential learning, that is, learn KBC through KBC. In this study, the teachers were exposed to some elements of the KBC approach, as they were required to share their proposals in a communal database and perform peer critique. During informal interactions with the researchers, the participants commented that this experience helped them to anticipate the problems that their students might encounter. A few participants remarked that if they could have access to real databases, they would be able to understand the approach better. Their remarks have prompted us to believe that the value of the experience could be further enhanced if we incorporated more elements of the KBC approach. For example, we could arrange for access to databases and challenge the teachers to build their knowledge about the KBC in a KBC. Teachers could also participate in more KBC forums and discussions, for instance, the yearly Summer Institute organised by the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT). Being members of such communities would enculturate teachers into the beliefs and dispositions necessary for such learning. This could lead to better appreciation of the underlying pedagogy. Currently, the peer critique did not lead to substantial revision of the proposals, which may indicate that progressive discourse and deepening understanding was lacking. Second, emphasise that KBC is suitable for students of different learning abilities. The purpose in learning using the KBC is to prepare the learners to be functional members in the knowledge society (Bereiter, 2002). In a knowledge society, most workers are knowledge workers who have to be competent in improving knowledge. It is therefore crucial to find ways to address this issue. It is unfortunate that in this research, the only class that employed the KBC approach was not from a typical school in Singapore. We suggest that providing examples of low achievers making good progress is one way to address this problem. Third, address the concern of time constraints. The issue of time constraints is one of the common problems cited in literature for the integration of technology (e.g.,, Earle, 2002; Pelgrum, 2001). Given that the elementary and secondary classrooms in Singapore are usually packed with about 40 students, this problem is even more acute. We should emphasise the values of in-depth learning and help the teachers realise that more time is needed in the initial phase of adoption of a new technology. In other words, the teachers have to realise that transition between the way of teaching with which they are acquainted and the new approach takes time. During the transition, more time is spent in planning. However, once the skills are mastered, the problems would diminish. Fourth, to develop the necessary skills in implementing KBC, ongoing coaching is an essential component. Modelling the thinking processes behind knowledge building is an important step towards acquiring such a disposition. Instructors should spend time in
identifying issues and structuring responses that afford opportunities for the participants to be engaged in progressive discourse. Examples of skilfully structured responses that embed the domain-specific thinking processes, such as those provided by Wells (1999), allow the participants to appropriate the ‘ways of seeing’ for the domain. Finally, we believe that the KBC approach is a worthy pedagogy for developing professionals in a community of practice setting. It has the potential for promoting multiple perspectives that may lead to professional development. In our case, at least three teachers have expressed dissatisfaction after comparing the interactions of their students with those of Dorothy’s students. Carol, Ivy and Hanson began to question the ways they crafted inquiry and structured their learning environment. They have indicated that they would like to try more open-ended inquiry with fewer scaffolds that are directed towards procedural facilitation. Fiona, on the other hand, has initiated another inquiry that challenges her students to explain the decay processes of strawberries. She encouraged her students to formulate ‘naïve’ theory and gave them time to refine the theories through social negotiation, experimentation and reading from other sources. As teacher educators, we view such moves as progressing towards a more constructive orientation in teaching. This move has been made possible because the teachers could view one another’s works that are publicly displayed in a communal database. Future Directions The skills of twenty-first-century knowledge workers can be fostered in learners in KBC. The essence of innovation, creativity, collaboration, distributed expertise, learning organisations, and technology literacy seem to be embedded within the concept of KBC. Singapore students have done well in many international assessments; we believe it is time to focus on in-depth knowledge-centred learning that is encouraged in KBC. Our next step would be to conduct intervention studies in local classrooms. Our efforts would be to encourage our teachers to strike a balance between examination-oriented learning and knowledge-centred learning. References Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and mind in the knowledge age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Beyer, B. K. (1997). Improving student thinking: a comprehensive approach. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Caswell, B. & Lamon, M. (1998). Development of scientific literacy: The evolution of ideas in grade four knowledge-building classroom. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the America Educational Research Association, San Diego,CA. Clarke, J. H. (1990). Patterns of thinking: Integrating learning skills in content teaching. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Cummings, C. A. (1998). Teacher attitudes and effective computer integration. ERIC Document, ED 419512. Earle, R. S. (2002). The integration of instructional technology into public education: Promises and challenges. Educational Technology, 42 (1), 5-13. Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change. (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Hewitt, J. (1996). Progress toward a knowledge-building community. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, 1996). (Umi No. AAT NN11743) Kagan, D. M. (1992). Professional growth among preservice and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 62 (2), 129-169. Margerum-Leys, J. & Marx, R. W. (1999). Preservice teachers’ beliefs about technology. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, Montreal, April 19-23. Pea R. D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs of education. In G. Salomon (Ed.). Distributed cognition: Psychology and educational considerations (pp.47-88), Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Pelgrum, W. J. (2001). Obstacles to the integration of ICT in education: Results from a worldwide educational assessment. Computer & Education, 37, 163-178.
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