Promoting Mental Health and Positive Well-Being in Early Childhood: Delineating the Critical Role of the School

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Knowledge building and vocabulary growth over two years, Grades 3 and 4

High-level literacy and productive knowledge work are central to educational reforms. In the research reported in this article, students were engaged in sustained, collaborative knowledge building in science and social studies. The vocabulary growth of 22 students over Grades 3 and 4 was traced, based on their entries to Knowledge Forum—a knowledge building environment used as an integral part of classroom work. It is the communal space where ideas, reference material, results of experiments, and other inquiry work are entered and continually improved. Analysis of lexical frequency profiles indicated significant growth in productive written vocabulary, including academic words. In a Grade 4 inquiry, students incorporated almost all the domain-specific terms at and below their current grade level, and most of those expected for upper grade levels (5-8) based on the curriculum guidelines. Domain-specific and academic words were correlated with depth of understanding. High correlations between student engagement in knowledge building and vocabulary growth suggest that productive vocabulary can be developed through sustained knowledge building in subject areas

Developing Deep Understanding and Literacy while Addressing a Gender-Based Literacy Gap

Online discourse from a class of 22 students (11 boys and 11 girls) was analysed to assess advances in conceptual understanding and literacy. The students worked over a two-­‐year period (Grades 3-­‐4), during which they contributed notes to an online Knowledge Building environment—Knowledge Forum®. Contributions revealed that both boys and girls produced a substantial amount of text and graphics, and that their written texts incorporated an increasing proportion of less-­‐frequent, advanced words, including academic vocabulary and domain-­‐specific words from grade levels higher than their own. Brief accounts of classroom discourse indicate how deep understanding and vocabulary growth mutually support each other in online and offline exchanges. The gender differences that were observed show boys doing slightly better than girls, suggesting that Knowledge Building has the potential to help boys overcome weaknesses in literacy

Knowledge Society Network: Toward a dynamic, sustained network for building knowledge

The Knowledge Society Network (KSN) “takes advantage of new knowledge media to maximize and democratize society’s knowledge-­‐creating capacity” (www.ikit.org/KSN). This article synthesizes the principles and designs of this network which were initiated over 15 years ago, and presents an exploratory study of interactions in the KSN over four years, elaborating different network structures and the potential of each for knowledge advancement. Four major sub-­‐network structures for participant and idea interaction are described, as reflected in social network analysis of discourse in the KSN. Strengths and weaknesses of work within each sub-­‐network were identified with suggestions for creating a more dynamic, sustained network for knowledge advancement

Early Development of Graphical Literacy through Knowledge Building

This study examined growth in graphical literacy for students contributing to an online, multimedia, communal environment as they advanced their understanding of biology, history and optics. Their science and history studies started early in Grade 3 and continued to the end of Grade 4; students did not receive instruction in graphics production, nor were they required to produce graphics. Results show that students spontaneously produced graphics that advanced along seven dimensions, including effective representation of complex ideas, use of source information and captions, and aesthetic quality. On average, the scores for the seven dimensions were higher for Grade 4 students with two years of experience with Knowledge Building pedagogy and technology (Knowledge Forum®) than for Grade 6 students with one year of experience. The overall pattern of results suggests reciprocal enhancement of graphical, textual, digital, and scientific literacy, with students exceeding expectations by available norms, and performance enhanced through extended Knowledge Building experience

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; 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

Fostering collaborative knowledge construction with visualization tools

This study investigates to what extent collaborative knowledge construction can be fostered by providing students with visualization tools as structural support. Thirty-two students of Educational Psychology took part in the study. The students were subdivided into dyads and asked to solve a case problem of their learning domain under one of two conditions: 1) with content-specific visualization 2) with content-unspecific visualization. Results show that by being provided with a content-specific visualization tool, both the process and the outcome of the cooperative effort improved. More specifically, dyads under that condition referred to more adequate concepts, risked more conflicts, and were more successful in integrating prior knowledge into the collaborative solution. Moreover, those learning partners had a more similar individual learning outcome

Emerging and scripted roles in computer-supported collaborative learning

Emerging and scripted roles pose an intriguing approach to analysing and facilitating CSCL. The concept of emerging roles provides a perspective on how learners structure and self-regulate their CSCL processes. Emerging roles appear to be dynamic over longer periods of time in relation to learners’ advancing knowledge, but are often unequally distributed in ad hoc CSCL settings, e.g. a learner being the ‘typist’ and another being the ‘thinker’. Empirical findings show that learners benefit from structuring or scripting CSCL. Scripts can specify roles and facilitate role rotation for learners to equally engage in relevant learning roles and activities. Scripted roles can, however, collide with emerging roles and therefore need to be carefully attuned to the advancing capabilities of the learners