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

Abstract

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; 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.

Individual Innovation Competence: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

“…This study contributes to the educational aim to prepare students to collaborate in solving future problems and producing innovations in areas that presently do not exist (Sawyer, 2006(Sawyer, , 2012(Sawyer, , 2014Zang, Hong, Scardamalia, Teo, & Morley, 2011). By understanding competency outcomes, innovation processes can be harnessed in educational purposes to foster learning.…”

“…High expectations is being placed on the cooperation and networking between individual people, employees, entrepreneurs and even students as sources of innovation (Høyrup, Bonnafous-Boucher, Hasse, Lotz, & Moller, 2012;Kesting & Ulhøi, 2010;Hasu, Honkaniemi, Saari, Mattelmä ki, & Koponen, 2014;Miettinen, 2013;Hippel, 2005). Young people are expected to be prepared to collaborate in solving future problems and producing innovations in areas that presently do not exist (Sawyer, 2006(Sawyer, , 2012(Sawyer, , 2014Zang, Hong, Scardamalia, Teo, & Morley, 2011). It is the task of education to equip people with suitable competences.…”

Bridging research and practice: Implementing and sustaining knowledge building in Hong Kong classrooms

“…Following the analyses employed in the study of knowledge-building teachers, the participation patterns of their students were examined to identify any changes. Three quantitative indices, derived from the Applet tools, were included: (a) the students' contribution to the community, based on the number of notes written; (b) their awareness of the contribution of others, based on the density of notereading; and (c) their connectedness with others' notes, based on the density of linked and build-on notes (Zhang et al 2011). The density of a network is determined by the number of lines between nodes divided by the maximum number of all possible lines, the value being between 0 and 1.…”

Dialogic Literacy: contexts, competences and dispositions

“…They focus instead on the epistemology, pedagogy and technology for the shared production of knowledge, with the goal of bringing the idea of advancing communal knowledge to the classroom setting. Bereiter and Scardamalia have developed a 'Knowledge Building' approach (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991, 2006and 2014henceforth, KB) that currently informs educational intervention from elementary school (e.g., Zhang et al, 2011) to university (e.g., Cacciamani et al, 2012;Hong, Chen & Chai, 2016).…”

“…However, longitudinal analyses of sustained KB practice in STEM disciplines show how participants tend to adopt vocabulary and argumentation patterns modeled on scientific discourse (Zhang, Hong, Scardamalia, Teo & Morley, 2011;Chen, Matsuzawa & Scardamalia, 2015). Indeed, the natural sciences build on a common body of knowledge about the means ('scientific enquiry') and goals ('scientific ex-planations') of science.…”