Co-Organizing the Collective Journey of Inquiry With Idea Thread Mapper

Abstract

This research integrates theory building, technology design, and design-based research to address a central challenge pertaining to collective inquiry and knowledge building: how can studentdriven, ever-deepening inquiry processes become socially organized and pedagogically supported in a community? Different from supporting inquiry using pre-designed structures, we propose reflective structuration as a social and temporal mechanism by which members of a community co-construct/re-construct shared inquiry structures to shape and guide their ongoing knowledge building processes. Idea Thread Mapper (ITM) was designed to help students and their teacher monitor emergent directions and co-organize the unfolding inquiry processes over time. A study was conducted in two upper primary school classrooms that investigated electricity with the support of ITM. Qualitative analyses of classroom videos and observational data documented the formation and elaboration of shared inquiry structures. Content analysis of the online discourse and student reflective summaries showed that in the classroom with reflective structuration, students made more active and connected contributions to their online discourse, leading to deeper and more coherent scientific understandings.3

Dynamics of Reflective Assessment and Knowledge Building for Academically Low-Achieving Students

“…We designed key phases and different tasks/scaffolds to enact the principles (see Table 2), but these tasks can vary depending on contextual situations. Principle-based design, rather than highly scripted instruction (Zhang et al, 2018) is important in KB pedagogy (Scardamalia, 2002) and most useful for adaptation to the emergent needs of academic low achievers. We also conjecture how the design as a system will support student reflection including (1) Reflective inquiry and social metacognition help scaffold students to reflect on different inquiry tasks; ideas are made public that help them see theirs and others' points of views in collective work.…”

Learning with computers: Generating insights into the development of cognitive tools using cultural historical activity theory

“…A tertiary contradiction happens when a new object (e.g., a culturally more advanced form of the central activity) is introduced into the system (Engeström, 1987). For example, when introduced to a new tool like Idea Thread Mapper (Zhang et al, 2018), the teacher and students may experience this contradiction of what to work on (object) in order to enhance the knowledge building process. A quaternary contradiction is one that occurs between the central activity and its neighbouring activities that run concurrently and could impact any one component of the activity system.…”

Designing for Networked Collaborative Discourse: An UnLMS Approach

“…Using log data from Hypothes.is and Slack, I envision a suite of discourse analytics to assist the instructor and students in keeping track of their collaborative discourse and making informed decisions on when and how to contribute. Finally, as the course is to be offered again, I plan to maintain and reuse these digital spaces to explore cross-community interactions (Zhang et al 2018). This effort is motivated by the current cohort's expressed desire to maintain the community and to re-engage with the course content.…”