Upload
vanessa-l-peters
View
1.676
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Citation preview
Co-Designing a Collaborative Curriculum for Secondary School Biology
EARLI 2009 - Amsterdam
Vanessa L. Peters and James D. SlottaOntario Institute for Studies in EducationUniversity of Toronto, Canada
Knowledge Communities in the Classroom
Reflection
ResearchShare
InformationConsequential
Task
Deep Disciplinary Content
Progressive Inquiry (Hakkarainen, 2003)
Knowledge Building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003)
Fostering a Community of Learners (Brown & Campione, 1996)
High level of student agency
Distributed expertise
Community knowledge base
Technology scaffolds
Research Question
Can secondary science teachers adopt a knowledge community approach in their classrooms while still addressing the mandated curriculum?
High content volume
Targeted learning outcomes
Significant changes in teachers’ practices
Time commitment
Conventional assessments
Knowledge Community
Access to technology
Previous studies of FCL in secondary classrooms
Biology classroom: Teachers tended to revert back to traditional teaching teaching modes; loss of emphasis on big ideas of curriculum (Rico & Shulman, 2004).
Mathematics classroom: Implementation requires a reconceptualization of mathematics instruction, as well as some rethinking of the essential features of FCL (Sherin, Mendez, & Louis, 2004).
Social studies classroom: Pragmatic nature of social studies compatible with FCL; teachers embraced jigsaw activity, but still “defaulted” to familiar methods (Mintrop, 2004).
Assessable Learning Outcomes
Community Knowledge Base
Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) Model(Slotta, 2007; Slotta & Peters, 2008)
Content Expectations & Learning Goals
Emergent Themes & Community Voice
Scaffolded Inquiry
Activities
Collaborative Knowledge
Construction
Two Iterations of KCI
Co-Design: Researchers and teachers work together in defined roles to design and develop an educational innovation (Roschelle, Penuel, & Shechtman, 2006).
Human Physiology
๏ 1 week (spring 2006)
๏CKC activity (2 class periods):
• Human system diseases
๏ Inquiry activity: • Challenge Cases
๏ 102 students, 2 teachers
Canadian Biodiversity
๏ 8 weeks (fall 2006/winter 2007)
• Ecozones and biomes
๏CKC activity (6 class periods):
• Biodiversity issues๏ Inquiry activity:
• Research proposal
๏ 114 students, 3 teachers
Scaffolded wiki environment
Supports collaborative authoring
Easy to use, fast start-up
All document revisions are archived
Customized templates
Community Knowledge Base
Collaborative Knowledge
Construction
Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) Model(Slotta, 2007; Slotta & Peters, 2008)
Lesson on Internal Systems (respiratory, circulatory, digestive)
Students used web to create wiki pages using “Disease Page” script
Iteration 1: Human Physiology
Embedded instructional prompts to target curriculum expectations
All 102 students contributed to the same community resource
KCI: Collaborative Knowledge Construction
Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) Model(Slotta, 2007; Slotta & Peters, 2008)
Community Knowledge Base
Content Expectations & Learning Goals
Emergent Themes & Community Voice
Scaffolded Inquiry
Activities
Collaborative Knowledge
Construction
“Challenge Case”: Fictitious medical case study about patient and physician
Created and solved cases in different internal systems
KCI: Scaffolded Inquiry
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Disease Pages (23)
Knowledge Resource Base
Mean SD
Revisions 23.05 10.27
Word Count 1212.9 404.77
Authors Page Revisions
Assessable Learning
Outcomes
Scaffolded Inquiry
Activities
Community Knowledge Base
Collaborative Knowledge
Construction
Content Expectations & Learning Goals
Emergent Themes & Community Voice
Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) Model(Slotta, 2007; Slotta & Peters, 2008)
Physiology Score Rest of Exam
Physiology scores significantly higher with new curriculum F(2, 96) = 7.236, p = .001)
Same teacher all 3 years
Similar open-ended questions
Student achievement on final exam
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007
Academic Year
82.42 83.35
91.60
67.3866.6068.18
Students used the community knowledge base when solving challenge cases, but did not engage deeply with their peer’s work.
Lack of any real connection between the scaffolded inquiry activities and the community knowledge base.
Students were dissatisfied that their wiki disease pages were not formally graded.
Iteration 1 Design Challenges
8-week unit on Canada’s biodiversity (ecozones, biomes, sustainability issues)
Students used customized “Ecozone Page” script when creating Knowledge Resource Base
Iteration 2: Biodiversity
KCI: Collaborative Knowledge Construction
Components Criteria Value
Completion & Accuracy • Page includes all categories specified in template
30%
Quality & Relevancy • Logical organization; clear navigation; relevant pictures/diagrams
20%
Organization • Logical organization; clear navigation; includes pictures/diagrams
10%
Sources Cited • All sources cited; consistent use of MLA or APA
10%
Contribution to the page • Identify individual contributions; equitable participation
10%
Value of contribution • Explain how edits contributed to development of wiki page
10%
Written Communication • Scientific terminology; concise and on-topic
8%
Links • Reduce redundancy 2%
Ecozone page assessment criteria
0102030405060708090
100
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Ecoz
one
Page
Sco
re
Biodiversity Exam Score
= Individual Score
Relationship between ecozone pages and final exam scores
Significant correlation r(49) = .38, p = .0056
Biodiversity scores significantly higher with new curriculum F(2, 113) = 7.133, p = .001)
One teacher taught all 3 years
Similar open-ended questions
Student achievement on final exam
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007
Academic Year
Biology Score Rest of Exam
92.92
84.2485.56
83.4681.54 79.68
Ecozone page peer assessment comments
!
Comment Type Example
1. Requests for additional content 28% “Maybe add a section on Bacteria? I’m pretty sure there must be lots of bacteria in this ecozone.”
2. Asking a question 2% “Does anyone know how to centre a pic without affecting the text?”
3. Reporting one’s own contribution 37% “Anyhoo, I was a primary contributor to the short
summary the part on root rot and pine beetles”
4. Positive feedback 9% “Overall it was excellent and informative, we enjoyed reading it!”
5. Conversational 24% “That was me, the internet logged me off without me knowing!”
Peer Review Comments
Biodiversity scores significantly higher with new curriculum F(2, 113) = 7.133, p = .001)
One teacher taught all 3 years
Similar open-ended questions
Student achievement on final exam
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007
Academic Year
Biology Score Rest of Exam
92.92
84.2485.56
83.4681.54 79.68
“I was the person with the foot in the classroom - knowing the curriculum well enough to know what’s going to meet the needs, or if we’ll have enough time, or hey, cool idea how can we implement that?”
“It’s kind of funny because this year I was setting up a wiki for two other teachers. It’s as if you and I totally switched roles… I don’t know what happened but all of a sudden I was comfortable with it, comfortable enough to make mistakes in front of the kids. And that to me is a real level of comfort, because I know I can fix it up or say, okay, how can I fix this?”
- Kathy (Science teacher)
Teacher’s Comment:
“I thought this was a more interactive, more fun way to do [the unit] instead of just getting the notes. Because that’s what we usually do for pretty much every unit. We have the projector up and it’s just notes we copy down.
- Jennifer (biology student)
“I don’t think the wiki was a one-time thing where you’re like, “oh, I’m finished and I can stop working on it.” Like, for me, I’d have to go back and edit it once in a while because I’d come across some new piece of information.”
- Robert (biology student)
Student Comments:
Students were overwhelmed with the amount of wiki editing that was required. Teachers still uncertain how to assess knowledge base.
Need more explicit scaffolding between knowledge base inquiry activities.
Co-design meetings were more difficult to coordinate with three teachers, not all teachers participated equitably.
Iteration 2 Design Challenges
Next Steps
Tracking knowledge flow: during collaborative knowledge construction, and during inquiry activities (students’ access of knowledge resources).
Analyzing resource base for individual and group contributions, connections to ideas and growth of knowledge.
Determining the extent to which the curriculum addressed the curriculum content expectations.
Knowledge “transactions”
Visualizing knowledge construction with Swimlanes