A Knowledge Community and Inquiry Curriculum With Immersive Simulations: Co-Designing Structured Collaborative Activities Around a Shared Knowledge Base

• In Event: 15.015 - The Knowledge Community and Inquiry Model: Synthesizing a Decade's Research for a Widening Audience

Abstract

Theoretical Framework
Central to the Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) model are collaborative knowledge construction activities where students explore and investigate their own ideas as a community of learners and create artifacts that are aggregated into a knowledge base. To ensure that activities meet curriculum expectations, KCI specifies a co-design process with classroom teachers (Penuel, Roschelle, & Shechtman, 2007). While we can draw upon existing literature for examples and design patterns for collaborative inquiry activities (Bell & Linn, 2000; Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Linn & Eylon, 2006), there is limited guidance on how to co-design activities for engaging learners as a knowledge community in K-12 classrooms.

Objective
This poster examines the co-design process and effectiveness of activities that are centered around a shared knowledge base within EvoRoom, a multi-week KCI curriculum with immersive simulations (Authors withheld, 2013) that addresses evolution and biodiversity topics in a Grade 11 Biology course.

Method & Data Sources
Using a design-based methodology (Brown, 1992; Bannan-Ritland, 2003), we enacted three iterations of EvoRoom with 109 secondary students. To examine the design (e.g., scaffolds provided, intended effect, how the shared knowledge base was used), we analyzed: 1) design documents and meeting notes organized in an internal website created to facilitate the design, and 2) co-design meeting transcripts, which were coded inductively. To examine the effectiveness of each activity, the artifacts created by students were collected as measures of student performance, coded into quantitative data (Chi, 1997) and statistically analyzed.

Results
From 75 documented teacher-researcher meetings, each lasting 1-2.5 hours long, we sampled six transcripts for analysis (at the beginning and end of each enactment). We iteratively defined, refined, and combined individual utterances into themes. We discussed our designs within a set of broader contextual issues (e.g., research goals, previous enactments and related research). Discussions about our design were further coded as curricular content, scientific content, technological logistical, pedagogical issues, amongst others. The teacher was an active participant throughout, providing key insights with respect to logistical issues and in advocating students’ perspectives in particular.

The outcome of our design effort is an Observe-Reflect-Explain pattern, where individuals make observations shared to a central knowledge base, groups reflect on questions that review observations from a higher level, and explanations synthesize material from the activity, including aggregated content. The explanations also contribute to a shared knowledge base, which are used to guide summative discussions. This design pattern was implemented with two distinct activities within the curriculum. The poster will elaborate on how specific elements (e.g., scaffolds, representations of shared knowledge) of the pattern emerged over the co-design process, as well as their effectiveness in each iteration.

Significance
This research serves as a case study of how a sustained and deeply engaged co-design process, guided by the KCI model as a theoretical foundation, produced a novel collective inquiry activity pattern that may be extended for use with other simulations.

Author

• Michelle Lui, University of Toronto