Th, Feb 24, 2005

Blogging and Knowledge Building 2

Continuing with Scardamalia and Bereiter:- the three time-honoured answers to effective knowledge building are laid out below.  It seems clear that use of blogs in classrooms can help further the aims they set out. What do you think? Let us know. by hitting the discuss or feedback buttons. The challenge, then, will be to get students on to that trajectory. But what is the nature of this trajectory and of movement along it? There are three time-honored answers that provide partial solutions at best. One approach emphasizes foundational knowledge: First master what is already known. In practice this means that knowledge creation does not enter the picture until graduate school or adult work, by which time the vast majority of people are unprepared for the challenge. A second approach focuses on subskills: Master component skills such as critical thinking, scientific method, and collaboration; later, assemble these into competent original research, design, and so forth. Again, the assembly—if it occurs at all—typically occurs only at advanced levels that are reached by only a few. Additionally, the core motivation—advancing the frontiers of knowledge—is missing, with the result that the component skills are pursued as ends in themselves, lacking in authentic purpose. Subskill approaches remain popular (now often under the banner of “twenty-first century skills”) because they lend themselves to parsing the curriculum into specific objectives. A third approach is associated with such labels as “learning communities,” “project-based learning,” and “guided discovery.” Knowledge is socially constructed, and best supported through collaborations designed so that participants share knowledge and tackle projects that incorporate features of adult teamwork, real-world content, and use of varied information sources. This is the most widely supported approach at present, especially with regard to the use of information technology. The main drawback is that it too easily declines toward what is discussed below as shallow constructivism. Posted by Robin Brooke-Smith on 24/2/05; 11:44:38 AM from the Education dept.   #  Discuss  Comment [0]   Trackback [0]