Learning Community Projects (LCP)
Collaborative Knowledge Building
Traditionally, schools are dominated by the teacher-led chalk-and-talk approach. Most of the time, there may not be enough time for students to discuss in class because of the tight teaching schedule and arrangement. In this circumstance, Knowledge Forum (KF) can provide a room for students to have discussion and to develop their independent and critical thinking. Through the discussion and mutual learning process, students are actually forming a knowledge-building community. And in this community, students have to produce, share and advance the knowledge of the collective. In this case, the roles of students have changed from that of clients to that of participants and workers in the community. Hence, there is a shift from teacher-directed approach to a more student-centred learning. It helps trace out students’ own paths of constructing knowledge collaboratively with teacher’s guidance and monitoring.
The collaborative knowledge-building approach is very important to students not only in the sense that it can help develop better thinking, analytical, enquiry and problem-solving skills, but it also paves the way for student to develop their life-long learning abilities and attitudes. This works in line with the recent curriculum reform advocated by the Education Commission report on life-long learning towards 21st century in Hong Kong, which emphasizes the importance of learning how to learn.
Project-based teamwork is valued as students are required to work together for knowledge sharing, knowledge building and problem-solving, and thus provide them with opportunities to be acculturated as members of a knowledge community. Over the last couple of years, it has also become extremely popular in Hong Kong schools to assign group projects to students. This was often justified on the grounds that project work promotes the information retrieval and self-directed learning abilities of students. Projects can bring students real world contexts that involve issues and topics which help to situate and promote authentic learning as well as improve transfer.
Furthermore, because of its scale and complexity, project work is often organized on a group collaborative basis. In this circumstance, it not only helps develop the ability of students to manage tasks and activities and improves students’ academic achievement, but it also enhances member’s ability to work with other people, their leadership skills and understanding of the research topic. It is why project-based learning is viewed as a good adjutant educational tool to the teacher-centred delivery.
Research Projects in Secondary Schools
Knowledge Forum® is a question-based collaborative knowledge medium that operates in the computer network. In KF, students and their teachers can create text and graphic notes, read and build onto each others’ notes, and create views to represent different aspects of their collaborative work. With the special feature ‘scaffold support’ in KF, it helps students to identify different components in a thinking process, and to structure and organize his ideas. It also makes students to compare and contrast their ideas with those of others and look for potential for further development between their ideas and those of others. In this situation, the use of scaffolding will bring a very significant improvement in thinking skills, as it empowers their metacognitive strength. Students can monitor their own and other conceptual progress and take charge of their own growth in understanding.
There are two modes of activities in the project, and school can choose to start in either of the two modes. First, to support collaborative exploration and building of knowledge in conjunction with the subject-based teaching in schools. In this case, KF can be used as an adjutant teaching and learning tool in class, providing a useful ground for students to discuss, synthesize and analyze information, and to further their explanation and understanding of specific topics in the school curriculum. The second mode is to support collaborative learning through project-based work, KF facilitates students to operate in knowledge-building teams and to promote the development of collaborative enquiry abilities.
Diocesan Girls School (Integrated Sciences, Form 1) in LCP-Sciences.kdb
KF is currently facilitating discussions in the whole form 1 Integrated Sciences class in DGS. The main discussion theme in the first stage was ‘Habitants on Earth’. Students were divided into groups, and there are altogether five groups in each class. Each of the group specializes its discussion in one of the following topics: Desert, Fresh water pond, Grassland, Ocean, and Seashore. Discussion was kicked off during formal classes and continued in Cyber world without constraints of time and location.
In the second stage of KF usage in DGS, which will be kick off this March, form six students will be involved to provide regular comments and guidance to form 1 students on voluntary basis. Subject will still be Integrated Sciences but the topics will move onto matters. This is a project that groups of students need to drill on a problem in sciences with the help of KF as an online discussion tool.
Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School (Computer Studies, Form 4) in LCP-Sciences.kdb
In BLMCSS they are currently using KF to facilitate the discussion and to also monitor the progress of students working on projects in Computer Studies in form 4. Groups of students discuss their projects in their own view, and in different stages. They work collaboratively to meet the sub-goals set up by the teacher at different stages in order to complete the project at the end.
In this application, KF helps the teacher to monitor the progress of students in the course of project work. It is often a very demanding task for teachers to monitor the progress of students in long projects. Sometimes teachers cannot tell how much efforts were devoted to the final product. Also, it is very difficult for teacher to grade the performance of each student in such long projects. With KF, teacher can monitor the students whenever time is available and also, the progress of the students can be closely monitored to have an accurate estimation of the students’ performance in this project work.
St. Catherine’s School for Girls (Liberal Studies, Form 7) in LCP-LiberalStudies.kdb
Application of KF lands on Liberal Studies, a humanity subject, in SCSG. Liberal studies is a subject that requires students to widen their horizon, acquire broader range of opinions and comments, in order to reach an unique view on current issues in our society. Therefore opinion interflow is very important among teacher and students. However, very often, this cannot be achieved due to limited lecture sessions and duration. Students need a platform to conduct discussion without the constraint of time and space. Therefore KF is the perfect choice.
Features in KF also assist students to engage in discussions. Customizable scaffolds help students to frame their arguments and responses. “Knowledge tree” like representation of notes helps students to conceptualize overall discussion. Future usage of KF in SCSG will be at form 6 level, in which helping liberal studies students to formalize their project topics.
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QEF Project at 6 EMI Primary Schools
At Primary Level, an innovative QEF project entitled: “Building Learning Communities in Primary Schools through Project works and Knowledge Construction” has been launched in 6 EMI primary schools to integrate KF into project-based science curriculum from 1 July 2001 to 31 Dec. 2002. CITE provides professional support for proceeding the whole project, formulating research directions, organizing training workshops and carries out an overall evaluation of the project. In the short run, it is an innovative approach to reform the current science curriculum by fostering collaborative learning communities within and across schools and stimulating their students to have ceaseless knowledge-building collaboratively on science, under knowledge-based economy in Hong Kong. In the long run, it is expected that participating teachers and students will change their prior conceptions of project works and develop better problem-solving skills.
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