Student-Directed Sustained Inquiry in a Grade 5 Community Featuring Opportunistic Collaboration

• In Event: 72.049 - Roundtable Session 34
  In Roundtable Session: 72.049-4 - Contemporary Scholarship in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

Abstract

This study investigates how a line of specialized inquiry was initiated and developed over time in a fifth-grade knowledge building community featuring opportunistic collaboration. The students conducted inquiry about the human body systems over a school year with the support of Knowledge Forum. Through detailed analysis of video/audio-recordings, field notes, students’ notebooks, online posts, and interviews, this study traced core inquirers’ cognitive progress on four sub-topics of “how do we see” and tracked the social participation related to the inquiry within this opportunistic group and with the whole community.

Authors

• Yan Tian, University at Albany - SUNY

• Jianwei Zhang, University at Albany - SUNY