Creating shared understanding through chats in a community of inquiry

This study investigated the process by which shared understanding develops in a chat learning space. It used a practical inquiry model to assess the development of cognitive presence. The study also explored how the pattern of conversation in synchronous discussion supports cognitive presence and how cognitive presence changes over time. Results show that there is a pattern among group members that involves reacquainting themselves through social presence and orienting themselves to the cognitive task through teaching presence. Individual meaning contributed by each member of the group through triggering events and exploratory statements is transformed as members see the text on the screen and respond to it through questioning and collective exploration. This group exploration enables the transition to shared understanding.     

Designing and building an on-line community: The struggle to support sociability in the inquiry learning forum

In this paper we describe the sociotechnical structures of the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF), a Web-based professional development tool designed to support a community of inservice and preservice mathematics and science teachers creating, sharing, and improving inquiry-based pedagogical practices. Founded in our previous research and consistent with our pedagogical commitment, the technical structures of the ILF have been designed around a “visiting-the-classroom” metaphor. This decision was based on our belief that teachers need to be full participants in, and owners of, their virtual space for meaningful interaction to occur. The hallmark of this environment is that teachers with a broad range of experience and expertise can come together in an on-line environment to observe, discuss, and reflect on pedagogical theory and practice anchored to actual teaching vignettes. The goal of this paper is to share how we instantiated our pedagogical commitments and to describe the challenges we faced during the design, development, implementation, and analysis of the ILF. Toward this end, we walk the reader through our design and implementation process, highlighting our change in focus from usability to sociability issues, and movement from conceiving the ILF as an electronic structure to a sociotechnical interaction network. The ILF Design Team consists of Brian Beatty, Tom Duffy, Geraldine Haas, Chris Keslin, Sun-Myung Lee, Justin Marquis, and Kirk Sluder     

论虚拟学习社区中的知识建构

本文着眼于建构主义的知识观,从个人知识建构和社会知识建构这两个维度,阐明知识建构过程及其特点,并详述了虚拟学习社区对知识建构的支持功能,提出虚拟学习社区的知识建构的评价标准。本文认为,从知识的“浅层建构”走向“深层建构”,应采用协作知识建构,把概念性的知识和丰富的问题情境联系起来。正是在虚拟学习社区这种丰富的情境中,不同的知识得到频繁的使用和反复的建构,学习者的知识的质量逐渐从底层向高层螺旋上升,学习者逐步成为专家型的学习者。     

Reading for idea advancement in a Grade 4 knowledge building community

This study looks into the reading practice in a Grade 4 knowledge building community that involved 22 students and a veteran teacher. The students investigated light over a three-month period supported by Knowledge Forum, a networked collaborative knowledge-building environment. The classroom designs encouraged the students to take on high-level responsibility for advancing the community’s knowledge, as represented in their online discourse in Knowledge Forum. The tracing of student conversations in Knowledge Forum and content analysis of their portfolio notes demonstrate productive advancement of scientific understanding. Qualitative analyses of classroom videos, online discourse, and the teacher’s reflection journal characterize student reading practice along four themes: reading for the purpose of advancing community knowledge; as progressive problem solving; embedded in sustained knowledge-building discourse; and as dialogues between local understanding and knowledge in the larger world. These results contribute to elaborating the possibility and processes of integrating reading with creative knowledge work in content areas. Classroom strategies are identified and discussed in relation to the role of collaborative online technologies.     

Collective reflective assessment for shared epistemic agency by undergraduates in knowledge building

We examined the facilitation of shared epistemic agency through a knowledge-building (KB) design that included analytics-supported collective reflective assessment (AsCRA). Forty undergraduate students taking a Liberal Studies course at a university in central China used the promising ideas tool and the knowledge building discourse explorer to self-analyze the online discourse they had created in Knowledge Forum® (KF), an online discourse environment; 34 students in a comparison section of the same course used KF but did not use the additional tools. Both classes were taught by the same teacher and studied the same inquiry topics. Multifaceted analysis of students' interaction in and the quality of discourse on KF, an educational online platform, indicated that analytics-supported reflective assessment helped them to develop high-level shared epistemic agency in the KB process. Qualitative analysis showed that AsCRA helped students to focus on high-level goals (idea negotiation, synthesis of ideas and rise above thinking) in KB, and to engage in continuous assessment, reflection, and action planning to regulate and improve their discourse. The findings have important implications for the design of technology-rich environments to support learners, and may help teachers identify the potential uses of such environments to encourage learners to engage in productive collaborative inquiry and develop metacognition and agency.     

注重科学探究体现知识的生成过程--"阿基米德原理"一节教学设计

人教版初中物理“浮力”一章中的“阿基米德原理”，是初中物理抽象难懂的典型演示实验内容，传统的教法是利用实验室中现有的仪器给学生做演示实验、得结论，从而节省出大量时间进行公式应用的强化训练。这样，学生不是亲自动手，实验基本流于形式，学生不能真正明白结论，只是停留在死记原理内容，生搬硬用公式的水平。采用“探究式”教学模式，能注重知识的生成过程，现将科学探究阿基米德原理的教学过程总结如下。     

Developing a case-based reasoning knowledge repository to support a learning community—An example from the technology integration community

People have long relied on storytelling for communicating ideas, transferring knowledge, and consequently making decisions. This paper describes the design and development of a case-based reasoning (CBR) knowledge repository including its case library and the search engine to support the technology integration community. CBR assumes that community knowledge can be captured in the form of stories (cases) so that the community members learn and solve problems by applying the lessons preserved in the stories to the current situation. The process and results of formative evaluation following the concept of participatory design are reported to set the context for further research and development.     

An inquiry approach to interdisciplinary seventh grade science

The author develops a rationale for teaching ?structure and process”? to early adolescents. Will it junction generally? Action research may provide the answer.     

国外社区教育对我国学习型社区建设的启示

社区教育是建设学习型社区的主要途径。文章深入分析了国外社区教育的成功经验,提出我国建设学习型社区应采取加强立法、拓宽资金渠道、建立人才保障制度、充分利用社区公共资源、加强社区学院建设等来推动社区教育的策略。     

Interactional structures during a grade 4–5 open-design engineering unit

In an increasingly complex sociotechnical world, collective practices are more and more important for accomplishing the work that needs to be done. Small-group interactions are key sites for building communities in which knowledge is a collective goal. This study investigated the nature of small group interactions among Grade 4–5 students and between these students and their teachers. From an extensive data source which includes videotaped lessons, formal and informal interviews with students and teachers, ethnographic observations, and children-produced artifacts, two case studies were constructed to illustrate general patterns representative for the interactional structures in this classroom. The study provides evidence for the interactive flexibility of students, the construction of culture, power, and norms in each interaction, and the distributed nature of students' artifacts which exceeds social construction. Traditional resources for data interpretation such as power or attention deficit disorder were not useful to predict student interactions and work. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 273–302, 1997.     

Influence of a shared leadership model in creating a school culture of inquiry and collegiality

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a Local Systemic Change (LSC) initiative (N = 216) at Year 2 in a 5‐year plan. Key questions were: What is the extent of school and teacher involvement?; What is the impact on teacher preparedness, attitudes, and beliefs?; and What is the extent of institutionalization? The model of professional development used shared leadership (Lead Teachers & Study Groups) along with workshops in inquiry, content, and assessment. All teachers averaged 81 hours of participation by the end of Year 2; LTs averaged 161 hours. Longitudinal and episodic data were collected using multiple instruments, including Horizon Research Teacher Survey (Baseline and Year 2), SG and Lead Teacher surveys (Year 1 and Year 2), Context Beliefs About Teaching Science and Classroom Observation Protocol (Year 2). Gains in teachers' practices, beliefs, and professional culture (collegiality and department chair support) were measured at significance levels of .05. The results indicate that sustained and intensive professional development influences individuals and school culture. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 3–24, 2005     

How learning to become a teacher-researcher prepared an educator to do science inquiry with elementary grade students

This autobiographical case study describes the development of the practices and perspectives of one elementary school teacher as she engaged in teacher-as-researcher methodology in both urban and suburban settings. Re-visiting a collection of teacher journals, transcribed audiotapes, student work samples, parent communications, and artifacts in teacher and student portfolios identifies multiple outcomes of this reflective and reflexive professional stance. The case study documents how teacher-as-researcher engagements provided the framework for an elementary teacher to begin to explore science inquiry within an elementary school setting. This autobiographical tale documents how teacher-as-researcher practices enabled students, parents, and educators to become co-learners, co-teachers, and co-researchers in science education and the science of education.     

Negotiating authority through cultivating a classroom community of inquiry

This qualitative study examines how authority was negotiated in an undergraduate teacher education course. As the teacher of the course, I involved students in on-going processes of collaborative dialogue and deliberation about issues of importance to those involved through cultivating a classroom community of inquiry. The findings suggest that constructing relations of mutual interdependence, deriving legitimacy from mutually recognized sources, and communicating about the problem rather than the people present potential frameworks for negotiating authority in teacher education. Such knowledge is important for informing efforts to foster democratic teacher education practices and prepare future teachers to teach reflectively.