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 threemonth 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

Developing and Comparing Indices to Evaluate Community Knowledge Building in an Educational Research Course

This paper implements a novel approach to analyzing the degree of Collective Cognitive Responsibility (CCR) in a Knowledge Building community, based on socioeconomic and scientometric measures. After engaging in Knowledge Forum (KF) discussions for one semester, 36 students identified impactful ideas in their portfolios, which were then used to develop their impact scores. These scores were then transformed and plotted along the Lorenz Curve and the Gini coefficient to visualize the degree of equidistribution of recognition in the community and, by extension, the degree of collective responsibility shared by members of the community. Additionally, students were classified into member roles based on the impact of their contributions, and we explored the flow of member roles across several discussion topics, based on Price’s model of scientific production. Our results show convergence between peers’ and teachers’ ratings of impactful contributions, which both point to medium levels of collective responsibility in the community. In short, on the one hand, this procedure shows its sensitivity to detect communities that could not comply with the CCR principle. On the other hand, we discuss the necessity of reflective evaluation to address the pedagogical challenge of fostering collective responsibility for knowledge advancement and empowering novel students to take charge of their knowledge work at the highest levels.Ministry of Science and Innovation-State Research Agency PID 2020-116872-RA-10

Developing and Comparing Indices to Evaluate Community Knowledge Building in an Educational Research Course

This paper implements a novel approach to analyzing the degree of Collective Cognitive Responsibility (CCR) in a Knowledge Building community, based on socioeconomic and scientometric measures. After engaging in Knowledge Forum (KF) discussions for one semester, 36 students identified impactful ideas in their portfolios, which were then used to develop their impact scores. These scores were then transformed and plotted along the Lorenz Curve and the Gini coefficient to visualize the degree of equidistribution of recognition in the community and, by extension, the degree of collective responsibility shared by members of the community. Additionally, students were classified into member roles based on the impact of their contributions, and we explored the flow of member roles across several discussion topics, based on Price's model of scientific production. Our results show convergence between peers' and teachers' ratings of impactful contributions, which both point to medium levels of collective responsibility in the community. In short, on the one hand, this procedure shows its sensitivity to detect communities that could not comply with the CCR principle. On the other hand, we discuss the necessity of reflective evaluation to address the pedagogical challenge of fostering collective responsibility for knowledge advancement and empowering novel students to take charge of their knowledge work at the highest levels

E-Learning in Geography: new perspectives in post-pandemic

Recent developments in low-cost information technology, fast internet, intelligent terminals, apps that can manage the most varied activities in a professional but simple way, have allowed their diffusion in sectors traditionally reluctant to rapid change. The pandemic crisis caused by Covid-19 and the consequent provisions of social distancing to curb its spread, have also forced the world of education to deal with this modality. Terms such as Distance Learning and Smart Working have forcefully entered the vocabulary and daily life of millions of people. The persistence of the pandemic due to the variants of the virus is convincing even the most reluctant to change that the new "normal" will have to rely on information technology to a greater extent than in the past. In much of the Western world, where culture has long been a thriving economic sector, much has been invested for decades to strengthen and disseminate distance learning activities recognized as economically and socially beneficial. The European institutions have moved in this direction more recently. The author’s experience in the last two years in emergency remote education in geography at university level has not always been positive. He therefore felt the urgency to consider adopting existing standards and best practices in order to improve outcomes and achieve effective online geography learning. The evident advantages of adopting good quality e-learning for an extended community would facilitate understanding and acceptance even in the Italian school and academic environment, usually conservative and conformist. In this environment, up to now, many have in fact feared that it could lead to the endorsement of distance learning, viewed with contempt if not really with aversion as it is considered to be of poor quality

Preschool Children’s Cooperative Problem Solving during Play in Everyday Classroom Contexts: China and the US

There is value in studying young children’s cooperative problem solving (CPS) during play in different cultures since children in our society will continue to face problems that are not unique to a particular culture, but also relevant to people from other countries. Cognitive development theory and sociocultural theory contend that play contexts can support children in the construction of their knowledge through explorations with different play materials and engagement in social interactions with peers during CPS experiences. However, there is a lack of research studying children’s CPS during play in their everyday preschool classrooms, and particularly, cross-culturally. Therefore, this dissertation, that includes three manuscripts, was designed to investigate (a) preschool children’s different patterns of engagement in play and CPS in Chinese and US preschool classrooms and (b) their teachers’ beliefs about their roles and pedagogical decisions for supporting children’s CPS in particular settings in these two cultures. In the first manuscript, a systematic literature review was conducted framed by PRISR, and it was found that there is a lack of cross-cultural studies that have investigated (a) preschool children’s CPS during play in their everyday classroom contexts and (b) teachers’ roles in children’s development of CPS. These research gaps were addressed in the second and third manuscripts by conducting (a) a 10-month, ethnographic informed observational study in a Chinese kindergarten and a US preschool center that included (b) semi-structured, teacher interviews with the integration of the visual stimulated recall approach. The data and findings are presented, based on over 960 minutes of (a) 16, four- and five-year-old children’s video recordings, (b) six classroom teachers’ interview transcriptions from two early care and education centers, and (c) the researcher’s field notes and journal entries. Findings support that there were cultural and gender differences in children’s engagement in their types of play (constructive play, fantasy play, and rough-and-tumble play) and CPS (debating and mentoring). Further, teachers in both cultures showed similarities and differences, within and across the cultural contexts, in their beliefs and pedagogy regarding their image of the child, their role as teachers, and their arrangements of classroom environments

Coaching: An Apprenticeship Approach for the 21st Century

Coaching, an apprentice -based approach to support professional and personal development towards achieving set goals, is a well-established practice in the fields of sports training and management and one of the fastest growing professional development methods in the education field. How the coaching partnership fosters leadership and improves practices that directly impact on the social/emotional development of students and their academic achievement is of interest to educators, policy makers and school communities alike. Recent findings have started to define the type of leadership that results from a coaching partnership, the lasting benefits on teaching quality and the positive impact on student performance. By reviewing and reflecting on the current literature on this apprenticeship approach, this article explores strengths and strategies that could further contribute to the organization of schools around high learning outcomes for all students while fostering leadership and accountability at the management, classroom and student levels