Collaborative Inquiry in a Knowledge Community Context: Designing Technological and Pedagogical Scaffold

• In Event: Investigations of Wikis for Collaboration and Knowledge Building

Abstract

We conducted a two-iteration design-based study to investigate the viability of developing knowledge communities in secondary school science classrooms following the Knowledge Community and Inquiry model. We co-designed a grade-10 Climate Change unit enriched with pedagogical and technological scaffolds to support cross and within class collaborative inquiry. We examined emergence of collective cognitive responsibility, knowledge co-construction processes during collaborative inquiry, and students’ depth of understanding of climate change science. Content analysis of wiki-pages from iteration1 revealed that some students were more active in developing and editing content during collaborative activities. Scientific sophistication of pages suffered as students provided facts rather than explanations. Thus, we redesigned scaffolds for iteration2. Preliminary analysis of content co-constructed in iteration2 shows higher rates of explanation.

Authors

• Hedieh Najafi, University of Michigan

• James D. Slotta, University of Toronto