Facilitate Knowledge Construction Research Articles

Engage Wider Audience or Facilitate Quality Answers? a Mixed-methods Analysis of Questioning Strategies for Research Sensemaking on a Community Q&A Site

Discussing research-sensemaking questions on Community Question and Answering (CQA) platforms has been an increasingly common practice for the public to participate in science communication. Nonetheless, how users strategically craft research-sensemaking questions to engage public participation and facilitate knowledge construction is a significant yet less understood problem. To fill this gap, we collected 837 science-related questions and 157,684 answers from Zhihu, and conducted a mixed-methods study to explore user-developed strategies in proposing research-sensemaking questions, and their potential effects on public engagement and knowledge construction. Through open coding, we captured a comprehensive taxonomy of question-crafting strategies, such as eyecatching narratives with counter-intuitive claims and rigorous descriptions with data use. Regression analysis indicated that these strategies correlated with user engagement and answer construction in different ways (e.g., emotional questions attracted more views and answers), yet there existed a general divergence between wide participation and quality knowledge establishment, when most questioning strategies could not ensure both. Based on log analysis, we further found that collaborative editing afforded unique values in refining research-sensemaking questions regarding accuracy, rigor, comprehensiveness and attractiveness. We propose design implications to facilitate accessible, accurate and engaging science communication on CQA platforms.

Facilitating knowledge construction in informal learning: A study of TikTok scientific, educational videos

Social media can facilitate informal learning, where individuals engage in phases of knowledge construction (sharing ideas, exploring dissonances, negotiating, synthesizing, and applying knowledge). The goal of this research is to identify key patterns of knowledge construction on TikTok, a social media platform for sharing short-form videos. We leverage machine learning classifiers to label knowledge construction phases in 259,508 comments on 114 videos under scientific, educational hashtags on TikTok. We further examine the association between knowledge construction phases and manually coded video characteristics. Overall, the classifiers suggest that comments predominantly serve social, non-knowledge-construction purposes, followed by sharing ideas, negotiating understanding, and exploring idea dissonance. Videos that focus on informational content, leverage original audio, and employ analytic language have higher proportions of comments that share and negotiate knowledge. We discuss considerations for science communicators, to develop content that encourages viewers to socially construct knowledge.

Beyond reading together: Facilitating knowledge construction through participation roles and social annotation in college classrooms

Social reading is a common practice in higher education to engage students in critical reading and classroom dialogues around course materials. This paper introduces a study that integrated a social annotation technology and a scaffolding framework to support social reading in undergraduate classrooms. The framework, grounded in the computer-supported collaborative learning literature, specifies three participation roles—namely, facilitator, synthesizer, and summarizer—that have distinct responsibilities in each week's social reading activities. Using Hypothesis, the social annotation technology, we piloted the framework in a fully online undergraduate course. To examine how the framework facilitated social interaction and knowledge construction, we applied social network analysis and content analysis to a rich dataset. Results revealed that the framework fostered active participation in class with students followed the assigned roles properly. This study has practical implications for online teaching and collaborative learning in higher education.

Application of VIPSTA experiment worksheet: an attempt to reduce students cognitive load in learning biology

This research aimed to analyse the decrease in students’ cognitive load while performing laboratory activity using “VIPSTA” experiment worksheet. The subjects of the research were 72 students in grade 11. The cognitive load was measured in three aspects; intrinsic cognitive load (ICL), extraneous cognitive load (ECL), and germane cognitive load (GCL). The data were analysed descriptively to show differences in the component of cognitive loads and tested for multivariate correlation-regression to show relations between the components of cognitive load. ICL and GCL were measured inversely proportional with score of students science process skill, due to well performed science process skill and knowledge construction skill are results from low ICL and GCL respectively. Whereas ECL was measured proportionally with students’ metal effort because students bear low mental effort in thinking when the ECL is low. After the implementation of VIPSTA experiment worksheet, students obtained increment for science processing skill and knowledge construction skill and decrease for mental effort which indicated low ICL, GCL, and ECL. Meaning that the use of VIPSTA experiment worksheet enables a decrease in students’ cognitive load. Furthermore, the data analysis showed that the decrease of GCL was heavily influenced by the decrease of ICL and ECL indicating that VIPSTA experiment worksheet was able provide meaningful laboratory activity by facilitating knowledge construction through lower load in processing information and performing procedure while conducting experiment.

Facilitating knowledge construction in mobile learning contexts: A bi‐directional peer‐assessment approach

AbstractWith the advancements in technology networks, mobile learning has been extensively applied in teaching contexts, enabling closer interaction between students and authentic environments. Previous studies have indicated that, when learning in real‐world contexts, students need to interact with real learning targets and peers as well as the digital learning content; thus, effective learning strategies or tools are generally required for helping them organize knowledge and for promoting peer interactions. As a result, the present study developed a bi‐directional peer‐assessment‐based concept mapping system, which not only engages students in assessing peers’ concept maps, but also encourages them to evaluate or respond to peers’ ratings and comments. To explore the effectiveness of this learning system, the study conducted an experiment in elementary science classes. A total of 101 fifth graders from four classes were recruited to participate in the study. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group and two to the control group. The experimental group adopted the bi‐directional peer‐assessment approach, while the control group adopted the conventional peer assessment approach for concept mapping. The results reveal that the bi‐directional peer‐assessment‐based concept mapping system can not only increase students’ learning achievement and the completeness of their concept mapping, but can also enhance their critical thinking tendency and the feedback quality of their peer assessment.

The Use of Moodle-based Learning Management System (LMS) on MATE (Media Ajar Teori Evolusi)

The goal of this research is to identify students’ responses and see the feasibility of MATE (Media Ajar Teori Evolusi). This research is Research and Development. The subjects of the research were students of the sixth semester of Biology Education Department in the academic year of 2019. The ADDIE model (analysis, design, development, implements, and evaluation) was used as the design of the research. The developed product is declared as feasible because of its efficiency, light-weight, and compatibility. The students can construct their ideas. The developed product facilitates knowledge construction through the interactive online instrument. This is the first developed Moodle-based learning management system (LMS) on MATE (Media Ajar Teori Evolusi). It can help the lecturers to be more structured in teaching to achieve the goals of learning. Based on the validation conduction by experts, the overall result is 85,5% and students response in the trial to get an 88% percent-rate average. Judging from the overall result, the learning media is declared as feasible and appropriate to be used.

Heuristic Evaluation of E-Learning

As Knowledge Management applications, E-learning platforms have been used in many organizations. Universities as knowledge management appliers and early adopters of Elearning platforms as knowledge-sharing channels, making education independent of time and location, created new opportunities for students to become active and collaborative participants of their learning. In this respect, learning management systems offered tools and modules to facilitate knowledge construction, knowledge gathering and sharing among its participants. This study examined the critical factors of usability evaluation of the learning management system Moodle as part of students’ blended learning in a computer literacy course at a funded University in Turkey. The model based on Nielsen’s 10 heuristics and was tested with data from 236 students. Descriptive statistics showed that students generally agreed with the system and did not face problems when working with it. The study used structural equation modeling (SEM) for data analysis and found eight factors to be significant in the research model after an exploratory factor analysis.

Ph.D. Researchers in a Changing World: A Self-Critical Reflection of the CES Conference 2017

The theme of this year’s Centre for Education Studies Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference, now in its fifth year, is 'Education in a Changing World'. I attended the conference as a paper presenter and a conference attendee. My personal goals were to develop confidence as an oral presenter, seek professional development opportunities, and engage critically and reflectively with my work and the work of others. My relativist epistemological beliefs define knowledge as uncertain, context-bound, fallible, defeasible and therefore changeable, and are compatible with my personal goals. Both the goals and beliefs led to the adoption of knowledge co-constructor, communicator, and analyst roles. Beliefs, goals and adopted roles led to the identification of points of fallibility in my own knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon of interest. Therefore, I formed a perspective of conferences as enabling and facilitating knowledge construction between presenter and audience. Being reflective, critical, adaptable, creative, intuitive, flexible, and open minded are key attitudinal attributes of postgraduates, leading to positive conference experiences and increased self-awareness of own emerging identity as a social scientist. Increasing self-awareness of own identity is important for graduates, as on a broader scale this assists in keeping pace with an ever-changing world.

Student Teachers’ Perspectives on Chemistry Education in South Africa and Finland

ABSTRACTGlobalization, in the case of science education, leads not only to an increase in homogeneity but also to an increase in cultural encounters. In this study, researchers from 2 distinct cultures, South Africa and Finland, used a qualitative approach to probe student teachers’ perspectives on chemistry education. Participants were 1st-year chemistry student teachers (n = 80) from South Africa and student teachers (n = 87) from Finland who were in varying stages of their studies. Student teachers’ perceptions were categorized using the 5 thematic categories of the culturally responsive teaching model: content integration, facilitating knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, social justice, and academic development. Both the South African and the Finnish student teachers mainly indicated content integration. In addition, facilitating knowledge construction and prejudice reduction were expressed in relation to the need for communication with peers. Social justice was emphasized more in South Africa than in Finland. Academic development was also highlighted, given that understanding the nature of chemistry is necessary to ensuring quality teaching. Furthermore, respondents believed that the ability to apply various teaching and learning methods was essential for successful chemistry teachers.

Assigning the Appropriate Works for Review on Networked Peer Assessment

Peer assessment can expand the cognitive schemas of students, facilitate knowledge construction, and promote discussion and cooperative learning among students and their peers. In recent years, the application of the internet to conduct peer assessment activities has been widely implemented. The advantages of networked peer assessments over traditional paper assessments include greater anonymity, less paper consumption, and greater convenience for teachers in terms of monitoring student progress. However, students must possess adequate assessment professionalism in order to provide their peers with meaningful and constructive feedback. This study therefore introduced a mechanism to assign works to peers based on assessment professionalism. Under this mechanism, students review the work of their peers within the range of their assessment capabilities. This maintains students’ motivation to learn as they assess and observe the works of their peers and improves their learning effectiveness.

Peer-facilitated discussions to enhance OER-based e-learning

Purpose The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented a fully online professional development course on open educational resources-based e-learning (OEReL), which adopted a scenario-based learning (SBL) design within the constructivist pedagogy. It was designed to facilitate knowledge construction in a collaborative manner with the support of open educational resource (OER), mainly through peer-facilitated discussion forum activities. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study on how peer-facilitated discussions affected the OEReL process, what factors supported and hindered peer-facilitated discussions, and what challenges were faced during the process. Design/methodology/approach The OEReL course consisted of five modules with 14 discussion forum activities. Content analysis of the threaded forum discussions was the key data collection and analysis strategy based on the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007). It was supplemented with participants’ reflections and focus group discussions. Findings The three elements of CoI – cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence played a major role in knowledge construction in the OEReL process. A complementary relationship between cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence was observed, where the three elements have interacted in supporting knowledge construction. Overall, the findings reaffirm the significant of role of instructors in cultivating the three presences within a peer-facilitated environment, by enabling learners to engage with the content in a meaningful manner through appropriate course design, structure and leadership. Practical implications Forum discussions created an opportunity for participants to engage in meaning making through social negotiation, where facilitation became a shared responsibility among instructors and learners. Peer-facilitation was the key strength that promoted critical, analytical and reflective thinking, as well as self-regulated learning. The SBL design, learning tasks with OER integration, and instructor guidance were the most supportive factors, while time constraints due to the participants’ workload was challenging. Originality/value Through carefully orchestrated, well-structured and pedagogically sound OEReL environments, peer-facilitated forum discussions can be designed creatively and implemented in a meaningful manner to enhance knowledge construction.

A context-adaptive teacher training model in a ubiquitous learning environment

ABSTRACTIn view of the discrepancies in teacher training and teaching practice, this paper put forward a context-adaptive teacher training model in a ubiquitous learning (u-learning) environment. The innovative model provides teachers of different subjects with adaptive and personalized learning content in a u-learning environment, implements intra- and inter-group collaboration to facilitate knowledge construction and in-depth study, and promotes reflection with the help of the supervising teacher's review and summarization. To test the effect, the model was applied to a general teacher training. Participants were then given questionnaires and interviews were conducted to assess the effectiveness of the model and attitude. Results showed that the model promoted teachers’ learning effectively, achieved the combination of teacher training and teaching practice. Moreover, teachers held positive attitude toward the model.

Free Media as the Social Determinants of Health: The Case of Oromia Regional State in Ethiopia

Background: For over a hundred thirty years, consecutive Ethiopian regimes have denied the Oromo people the right to develop free media. In this paper I explore how this denial has affected the development of public health conditions in Oromia. Methods: Using the “upstream” public health metaphor as the framework of thinking, in this paper I explore how the denial of free media has hindered the development of better public health conditions. Finding: Although media and public health are distinct social organizations, many of their functions overlap, with the former significantly supporting the development of the latter. Media informs, educates, entertains, molds opinion, advocates, provides a framework of thinking, connects people and ideas, and records events. The foundation of public health rests on the study of risks to population health and identifying health promotion as well as disease prevention (primary, secondary and tertiary) tools. Media facilitates knowledge construction and its dissemination. It supports the efforts societies make in establishing and maintaining the social conditions that will ensure the best public health outcomes possible. Conclusion: Since media facilitates knowledge construction and knowledge dissemination, it can help produce knowledgeable and critical citizens who are equipped with problem-solving skills. Denying the Oromo people the right to develop their own free media is hindering them from having people with skills who are critically needed in transforming their society and developing better public health conditions.

Frustration Factor in Group Collaborative Learning Experiences

This study was carried out in the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, Kenya. It sought to find out students’ frustration level after group learning experiences, how often they went through these experiences, how frustration affected their Bachelor of Education Program, how BED with its group collaborative learning methodology met their expectations, if they were getting quality training and finally if they would take part in the future in another course requiring group collaborative learning. A larger percentage of students stated that they were frustrated as they went through collaborative learning. However, they did not feel that frustration as factor has any effect on their Bachelor of Education program. Collaborative learning as a set of instructional strategies, when used properly, can help learners to meet specific learning and social interaction objectives in structured groups. It can also promote social interaction to facilitate knowledge construction. Further, if students are well prepared to work in small groups and if the groups are well organized, students’ collaboration can increase students’ achievement more than traditional methods of learning. It is therefore recommended that in the course of the lesson, teachers set time for group work to motivate the learners, not only interacting with the content, but also with the group members.

The Inquiry, Communication, Construction and Expression (ICCE) Framework for Understanding Learning Experiences in Games

There is a paucity of research frameworks that focus on aiding game selection and use, analyzing the game as a holistic system, and studying learner experiences in games. There is a need for frameworks that provide a lens for understanding learning experiences afforded in digital games and facilitating knowledge construction and motivation to learn. Towards this goal, the purpose of this article is to introduce the inquiry, communication, construction, and expression (ICCE) framework. This qualitative study with interviews and observations examined the mathematics game Dimension M. It was analyzed using the ICCE framework. It reports the interpretive results of twenty 9th graders' motivation and achievement in a game-based learning course to learn mathematics using Dimension M. The ICCE framework may be a valuable tool for aiding teachers to assess the efficacy of games for learning and for students to benefit from the possible designed experiences within games.

The development of a model of culturally responsive science and mathematics teaching

This qualitative theoretical study was conducted in response to the current need for an inclusive and comprehensive model to guide the preparation and assessment of teacher candidates for culturally responsive teaching. The process of developing a model of culturally responsive teaching involved three steps: a comprehensive review of the literature; a synthesis of the literature into thematic categories to capture the dispositions and behaviors of culturally responsive teaching; and the piloting of these thematic categories with teacher candidates to validate the usefulness of the categories and to generate specific exemplars of behavior to represent each category. The model of culturally responsive teaching contains five thematic categories: (1) content integration, (2) facilitating knowledge construction, (3) prejudice reduction, (4) social justice, and (5) academic development. The current model is a promising tool for comprehensively defining culturally responsive teaching in the context of teacher education as well as to guide curriculum and assessment changes aimed to increase candidates’ culturally responsive knowledge and skills in science and mathematics teaching.

Collaborative drawing on a shared digital canvas in elementary science education: The effects of script and task awareness support

Creating shared representations can foster knowledge acquisition by elementary school students by promoting active integration and translation of new information. In this study, we investigate to what extent awareness support and scripting facilitate knowledge construction and discourse quality of elementary school students (n = 94) in a computer-supported collaborative drawing scenario. Students in the awareness condition received feedback prompts based on the characteristics of their drawing. The script foresaw a sequence of creating, comparing, discussing, and merging individual drawings to arrive at a shared representation of the subject matter, which was photosynthesis. Both forms of support, (awareness and scripting) facilitated the learning processes and outcomes. Discourse analysis revealed that awareness and scripting increased (the share of) integrative and conflict-oriented consensus-building activities as well as (the share of) off-task and coordination-related activities in comparison to the control group. Awareness and scripting facilitated deeper understanding of the processes and relations of domain concepts. The scripted students acquired significantly more conceptual knowledge than the unscripted students.

Inclusive, Interactive Classroom as Student-Learning Facilitator

Using principles underlying the social constructivist approach, we redesigned an undergraduate course on social problems, seeking to employ three learning activities (online assignments and small-group and class discussions) to facilitate knowledge construction by students and promote their intellectual capabilities and critical-thinking skills. We collected qualitative and quantitative data from students enrolled in the redesigned, hybrid course (it comprised class meetings on campus plus online work), two sections of which were taught. Students in both sections completed two feedback evaluation surveys about satisfaction and learning; this survey data comprised narrative comments completed across the fall and spring semesters of 2010–2011. We examined the data, seeking social processes linking the three learning activities to student satisfaction and to student learning. Results showed a link between student satisfaction and student learning generated from, notably, in-class small-group and class discussions. Some implications for pedagogy are outlined.

Web 2.0 collaboration tool to support student research in hydrology – an opinion

Abstract. A growing body of evidence suggests that it is unwise to make the a-priori assumption that university students are ready and eager to embrace modern online technologies employed to enhance the educational experience. We present our opinion on employing Wiki, a popular Web 2.0 technology, in small student groups, based on a case-study of using it customized to work as a personal learning environment (PLE1) (Fiedler and Väljataga, 2011) for supporting thesis research in hydrology. Since inception in 2006, the system presented has proven to facilitate knowledge construction and peer-communication within and across groups of students of different academic years and to stimulate learning. Being an open ended and egalitarian system, it was a minimal burden to maintain, as all students became content authors and shared responsibility. A number of unintended uses of the system were also observed, like using it as a backup medium and mobile storage. We attribute the success and sustainability of the proposed Web 2.0-based approach to the fact that the efforts were not limited to the application of the technology, but comprised the creation of a supporting environment with educational activities organized around it. We propose that Wiki-based PLEs are much more suitable than traditional learning management systems for supporting non-classroom education activities like thesis research in hydrology. 1Here we use the term PLE to refer to the conceptual framework to make the process of knowledge construction a personalized experience – rather than to refer to the technology (in this case Wiki) used to attempt implementing such a system.

Cognitive Competence as a Positive Youth Development Construct: A Conceptual Review

This paper focuses on discussing critical thinking and creative thinking as the core cognitive competence. It reviews and compares several theories of thinking, highlights the features of critical thinking and creative thinking, and delineates their interrelationships. It discusses cognitive competence as a positive youth development construct by linking its relationships with adolescent development and its contributions to adolescents' learning and wellbeing. Critical thinking and creative thinking are translated into self-regulated cognitive skills for adolescents to master and capitalize on, so as to facilitate knowledge construction, task completion, problem solving, and decision making. Ways of fostering these thinking skills, cognitive competence, and ultimately positive youth development are discussed.