The student as knowledge engineer: A constructivist model for science education

Abstract

THE KNOWLEDGE ENGINEERING PROCESS, whereby a knowledge engineer works closely with a domain expert to build an expert system, is known to improve both the knowledge engineer’s and the expert’s understanding of the domain. Moreover, building an expert system is a lot like constructing a scientific theory: both activities result in the creation of an explanatory or problem-solving model of some particular domain. Mindful of this, an attempt was made to exploit the pedagogical potential of the knowledge engineering process by using it as a means of “teaching” a group of junior high school students how to do botanical classification. Serving as knowledge engineers, the students developed an expert advisory system capable of identifying tree specimens from descriptions of their gross morphology. Our observations indicated that the students not only mastered the target knowledge, but also enjoyed the opportunity to take a somewhat different approach to this standard junior high school subject. The apparent success of this experiment supports the claim that the knowledge engineering process can serve as an innovative model for science education. The model encourages a more creative, constructivist approach to teaching certain science concepts and skills, while at the same time fostering the improvement of logic, communication and independent learning skills.