Having
finally completed a literature review into how knowledge building communities might enhance engagement and self-efficacy, I have been wrestling with some emerging questions about the
community aspect of knowledge building communities. Establishing a culture of collaboration is fundamental. The problem is, how can trust and connections between community members be developed?
How can an authentic community be developed in the online environment?
I would love to hear from teachers who have been tinkering with knowledge building communities. What makes a difference in establishing a culture of knowledge sharing?
Also in general, NZ teachers what does whanaungatanga look like in your class?
Hi Philippa,
ReplyDeleteI have been experimenting with developing capacity for collaborative problem solving between diverse people, in different contexts. For example, I have designed projects / discussions /etc. where drawing on diversity is critical for success. I supplement this with explicit strategies for navigating the disagreements, the silences, social conflicts, etc. The aim is that this would begin creating the conditions for knowledge building, in particular the principles of “symmetric knowledge advancement” and “idea diversity” (Scardamalia and Bereiter). I see strong links between the principles of knowledge building, and those of collaboration, as both require people to work with each others’ ideas. Hence, I hope that I am contributing in developing the capacity to work with each others’ ideas, drawing on diversity as an essential resource (rather than a barrier). In summary, we are learning to work with others who have different expertise, experience and perspective than yourself, since this appears critical for creative and complex problem solving.
I recently wrote a blog post about how I have been attempting some of this. (You will see a fair bit of influence of the knowledge building ideas that sit in there).
http://missdtheteacher.blogspot.co.nz/2017/09/a-few-lessons-learnt-about-collaboration.html
Happy to talk more if you are interested :)
Kia ora Danielle,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful, in-depth response. And thanks for sharing your professional blog. I totally see the connections to knowledge building communities. Have you dabbled with KBC? You have a really good understanding of the key principle ... I've been knowledge building since 2015, and am still getting to grips with knowledge building (principles and practice). Authentic collaboration is incredibly tricky to navigate. In knowledge building we are looking to develop knowledge as a group, rather 'with' the group. For my level 3 art historians, this is incredibly challenging. The education model they've known is very individual and competitive. To hear that their ideas belong to the group is very confronting. It requires a different mindset. Less geared toward short term goals (like NCEA assessments), which again can be very confronting for our high achieving, highly driven students. Yet those who get to understand knowledge building principles like idea diversity and democratisation of knowledge, keep telling me that they are the richer for it. "It's great for extending ideas and since it enables us to combine with other students, I find it gives me new ideas and thinking", "easy to contribute to as our ideas all bounce off each other and we're encouraged to think in more abstract ways, not just gathering 'the right knowledge' and feeding it back to the teacher. It's a more creative learning environment".
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1htggRiK0qv0kyeZuHvcJ4-5GQEBoxxlyEOQfozY-1IQ/edit?usp=sharing - Here's a link to my knowledge building story in 2016
http://thelearningexchange.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Knowledge-Building-12-Principles11.pdf - I love the way that this page makes the principles really accessible.