Consistently inconsistent: An examination of the variability in the identification of emotional disturbance

The federal definition of emotional disturbance (ED) has been heavily criticized as vaguely defined and poorly operationalized yet there has not been a formal analysis of the reliability of the ED criteria. This study examined the reliability of the federal criteria for a special education designation of ED. A total of 179 school psychologists reviewed a mock special education report, made an eligibility determination, and provided information about their eligibility decision. In all, 56 participants found the student met ED eligibility criteria using 16 different combinations of the five criteria. Krippendorff’s α, a statistic preferred for content analysis, was calculated as a measure of criterion reliability. Results indicated extremely poor reliability (α = 0.2011). These findings demonstrate the importance of redefining the existing criteria.     

知识建构共同体及其支撑环境

面对知识社会的挑战,我们需要将学校改造成为知识建构共同体。知识建构共同体是以思想的形成和持续改进为关注点的团体,其成员通过建构性的互动过程发展对于共同体有价值的思想。为了支持和促进知识建构共同体,本课题组研制了CSILE/知识论坛系统。本文对上述理论观点、技术系统以及有关的实验研究结果做了简要介绍。     

Design Principles for Distributed Knowledge Building Processes

In this paper we explore various interpretations of the term distributed cognition, then turn our attention to communities grounded in the practice of collaborative knowledge building. We discuss CSILE (Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments), a technology designed to support contributions to a communal database. Shared responsibility for this community resource extends to aspects of school practice typically handled exclusively by teachers, and engagement in improving and connecting the contents of the database makes the process of knowledge building self-sustaining. We discuss knowledge building communities involving students and teachers, and end with discussion of design principles for distributed knowledge building processes.     

Discourse About Ideas: Monitoring and Regulation in Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Environments*

A novel Web-based Accountability Model (WAM) for assessment and learning in a Teacher Education Program was implemented. The objective is to explain the rationale for the WAM model, how it was implemented as the web-based Education Accountability System (EAS), and the impacts on the organization and the individual. Standards were followed in the system design and implementation to facilitate interoperability. EAS consists of an electronic portfolio subsystem, an online performance assessment subsystem, and an accountability center subsystem. Each subsystem was developed based on work practices of the department that the department carefully elaborated before implementation. In a department of education annually graduating approximately 450 students and involving over 200 faculty and staff, the EAS was successfully established and used. The EAS improved candidate performance, program quality, and operations and is now being disseminated to other universities. However, successful usage required refinements to the model and modifications to the content of the system. Lessons learned could assist other institutions to implement a similar system.     

Collaborative learning processes associated with high and low conceptual progress

Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE) is a database system in which learners collaboratively construct the knowledge represented in the database. This study examined how students in a grade 5–6 classroom built their classroom database on a science topic, electricity, and differences in activities between high-and low-conceptual-progress students. This categorization of students was based on the amount of progress in understanding exhibited over the course of work on the electricity unit, and was not significantly related to standardized achievement test performance. As an analytic tool, Activity Theory, as explicated by Leontiev (1981) was used to describe students' activities mediated by the computer system. Two different levels of student activities were examined: (1) cognitive actions, in which students intentionally pursued cognitive goals; and (2) computer operations, used to attain these goals. In addition, two different psychological planes of collaborative work were considered: the solo pane, in which students mainly focus on their own inquiries, and the joint plane, in which they focus on improvement of the classroom knowledge as a whole. Comparisons of activities between high-and low-conceptual-progress students showed: (1) that high-conceptual-progress students were more concerned with constructing their knowledge centered around problems, whereas low-conceptual-progress students were more involved in accumulating referent-based knowledge; (2) that high-conceptual-progress students were significantly more likely to construct their knowledge by involving in interactive information flow between problem-based and referent-based knowledge; and (3) that high-conceptual-progress students more frequently used the graphics medium in the database to represent problem-based knowledge.     

Socio-cognitive dynamics of knowledge building in the work of 9- and 10-year-olds

This study examines four months of online discourse of 22 Grade 4 students engaged in efforts to advance their understanding of optics. Their work is part of a school-wide knowledge building initiative, the essence of which is giving students collective responsibility for idea improvement. This goal is supported by software—Knowledge Forum—designed to provide a public and collaborative space for continual improvement of ideas. A new analytic tool—inquiry threads—was developed to analyze the discourse used by these students as they worked in this environment. Data analyses focus on four knowledge building principles: idea improvement; real ideas, authentic problems (involving concrete/empirical and abstract/conceptual artifacts); community knowledge (knowledge constructed for the benefit of the community as a whole); and constructive use of authoritative sources. Results indicate that these young students generated theories and explanation-seeking questions, designed experiments to produce real-world empirical data to support their theories, located and introduced expert resources, revised ideas, and responded to problems and ideas that emerged as community knowledge evolved. Advances were reflected in progress in refining ideas and evidence of growth of knowledge for the community as a whole. Design strategies and challenges for collective idea improvement are discussed.

Designs for Collective Cognitive Responsibility in Knowledge-Building Communities

This article reports a design experiment conducted over three successive school years, with the teacher's goal of having his Grade 4 students assume increasing levels of collective responsibility for advancing their knowledge of optics. Classroom practices conducive to sustained knowledge building were co-constructed by the teacher and students, with Knowledge Forum software supporting the production and refinement of the community's knowledge. Social network analysis and qualitative analyses were used to assess online participatory patterns and knowledge advances, focusing on indicators of collective cognitive responsibility. Data indicate increasingly effective procedures, mirrored in students' knowledge advances, corresponding to the following organizations: (a) Year 1—fixed small-groups; (b) Year 2—interacting small-groups with substantial cross-group knowledge sharing; and (c) Year 3—opportunistic collaboration, with small teams forming and disbanding under the volition of community members, based on emergent goals. The third-year model maps most directly onto organic and distributed social structures in real-world knowledge-creating organizations and resulted in the highest level of collective cognitive responsibility, knowledge advancement, and dynamic diffusion of information. Pedagogical and technological innovations to enculturate youth into a knowledge-creating culture, with classroom practices to encourage distributed and opportunistic collaboration, are discussed.     

Sustaining Knowledge Building as a Principle-Based Innovation at an Elementary School

This study explores Knowledge Building as a principle-based innovation at an elementary school and makes a case for a principle- versus procedure-based approach to educational innovation, supported by new knowledge media. Thirty-nine Knowledge Building initiatives, each focused on a curriculum theme and facilitated by nine teachers over eight years, were analyzed using measures of student discourse in a Knowledge Building environment–Knowledge Forum. Results were analyzed from the perspective of student, teacher, and principal engagement to identify conditions for Knowledge Building as a school-wide innovation. Analyses of student discourse showed interactive and complementary contributions to a community knowledge space, conceptual content of growing scope and depth, and collective responsibility for knowledge advancement. Analyses of teacher and principal engagement showed supportive conditions such as shared vision and trust in student competencies to the point of enabling transfer of agency for knowledge advancement to students; ever-deepening understanding of Knowledge Building principles; knowledge emergent through collective responsibility; a coherent systems perspective; teacher professional Knowledge Building communities; and leadership supportive of innovation at all levels. More substantial advances for students were related to years of teachers' experience in this progressive knowledge-advancing enterprise.