Annales Universitatis Apulensis. Series Paedagogica-Psychologica
A LITERATURE REVIEW IN TEACHING SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
BY USING KNOWLEDGE BUILDING PEDAGOGIES
Dorian STOILESCU
Toronto University, Canada
Abstract. This paper reviews some important ways of improving students' achievement in
science education by using collaborative methods in classrooms. Using knowledge building
pedagogies as an example of collaborative methods employed in classrooms teaching.
Constructivism and cognitive general perspectives will be examined for offering insights
and strategies of improving in science education. Some examples of the benefits of using
collaborative techniques and technology in teaching and learning are presented. In
particular, aspects of collaborative theories related to knowledge building and the particular
ways of constructing shared knowledge are analyzed. Additionally, the roles and the uses of
technology in knowledge building pedagogy are discussed as an important way to improve
collaboration in science education.
1. Introduction
The challenges students face in learning science have been documented in
much of the existing literature. For example, Burbules and Linn (1991) reported
that students perceive science as a hard discipline. Nonetheless, constructivists
have challenge the content of science curriculum, the teaching approaches, and
students interactions in the process of learning science. For a long time and in spite
of all these efforts, minimum progress was noticed at a large scale. For instance in
1991, Burbules and Linn pointed out that after more than a decade, the majority of
the science education curriculum still remained behaviourist.
There has been ongoing debates on whether science education is going in
the right direction or not. As Wenger stated, students are “born of learning but they
can also learn not to learn” (Wenger, 2000, p. 230). Arguing against the ideas of
pupils being passive receptacles of acquiring knowledge for science, educational
researchers tried to affirm new identities for learners by emphasizing the students'
active participation in the construction of knowledge. For instance, Pope and
Gilbert (1983) considered students as autonomous researchers, while Burbules and
Linn (1991) mentioned the term practicing scientists as ways to underscore this
point. Gil-Perez et al. (2002) took a more moderate view, considering students as
novice researchers.
With all of these efforts and the strategies of trying to empower students to
engage in science as an authentic scientific community of researchers, the results
are still far from being considered successful. Some of the difficulties that teachers
encounter have been reported by Matthews (2002) who noted that teachers “try
their best to explain things clearly, to make the use of metaphors, to use
demonstrations and practical work to flesh out abstractions, to utilize projects and
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discussions for involving students in the subject matter and so on. However, they
realize that many, if not most, things in science are beyond the experience of
students and the capabilities of school laboratories to demonstrate” ( p. 130). Linn
(1997) also argued that previous assumptions that critical thinking and general
problem solving will make everyone able to solve everything, have failed. Instead,
she noticed that although the students were trained and involved in specific
strategies, contexts and problems, often students failed.
2. Causes of Failures in Science Education
Science education has often been accused of distorting the scientific process.
diSessa (2000) mentioned that teachers still are more interested in “what to teach”
than “how to teach”. Roth, McRobbie, Lucas, and Boutonné, (1997) tried to
explore causes of failing of high school students in science classrooms to
understand teachers' situations. Rothe et al. identified five main categories of
deficiencies: a) lack of theoretical background, (b) providing inadequate contexts
from other science courses, (c) interference from other demonstrations that had
only superficially similitudes with the required solutions, (d) inabilities to represent
a coherent representational framework (e) lack of favorable situation to test
descriptions and explanations.
From the main distortions founded in science education, Gil-Perez et al.
(2002) mentioned the “extreme inductivism”, meaning jumping to a conclusion
from few scientific facts and evidence, before appraising other relevant facts. In
other words, the authors considered that students often fail to construct an adequate
hypothesis and a well grounded and articulated theory. Teaching is also
problematic. It is noticed that a rigid view is present, positioning every scientific
situation as a linear sequence of steps that must be accomplished. Overall, the
scientific progress is oversimplified, being presented as obvious, thereby ignoring
previous challenges and efforts of restructuring. A fragmentate perspective is where
different problems and domains are treated separately without interdisciplinary
perspectives. In this context, science is presented as neutral, elitist and
individualistic. Great scientists are socially isolated and their scientific
contributions do not have any relationship with society, technology or economy.
Chinn and Malhotra (2001) studied textbook curricula for the purpose of
disseminating similarities and differences between science curriculum and
authentic scientific works. They evaluated differences in cognitive processes
registered in classrooms (simple observations, simple experiments, simple
illustrations) and scientific communities such as: generating research questions,
planning measures, controlling variables, finding flaws, indirect reasoning,
generalizations, reasoning, developing theory, coordinating results and studying
reasons. They noticed that usually students are told what questions to use, what
variables are measured, and how they are measured. The time allocated in research
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communities for experiments, building theory and finding flaws is consistent, a
very different situation encountering in science classrooms where these processes
and the time quotas are shortened. Chinn and Malhotra concluded that classroom
approaches in science education are far from authentic efforts developed in
scientific research communities. In their attention to build the theory, the science
classrooms especially miss the process of acquisition of data that are building the
theory. In their efforts for reconciliation of these two types of communities, Chinn
and Malhotra's conclusions were skeptical: “There is no way to condense authentic
scientific reasoning into a single 40-50 minutes science lesson. Learning authentic
scientific reasoning will require a commitment for teachers and schools to spend
the time needed to learn reasoning strategies that go beyond simple observation and
simple control variable”. (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002, pp. 213) The authors
concluded that school inquiry tasks have little in common with authentic science
reasoning.
For Perez et al. (2002) science laboratories are viewed as being different
from those in scientific community because scientists use data-collection and
analysis in real time. Also, the complexity of data involved in science education is
of great concern. How much data should students use in order not to oversimplify
the building of a theory but also not to let students be overwhelmed by it?
Therefore, building an interdisciplinary path in science is an important goal.
3. Constructivism Perspectives in Science Education
The constructivism has been reviewed as being the most major contributor
in the developing of educational theory in the last two decades (Matthews, 2002).
The main idea behind constructivism is that “understanding is in our interactions
with the environment...We cannot talk about what is learned separately from how is
learned” (Savery & Duffy, 1995). Matthews (2002) mentioned that “although
constructivism started as a theory of learning, it became a theory of teaching, a
theory of education, a theory of the origin of ideas, and a theory of both personal
knowledge and scientific knowledge” (Matthews, 2002, p.121). He also pointed out
the polyvalent domains, directions and values that constructivism had influenced
such as learning, teaching, education, cognition, knowledge, science, social,
ethical, political or even our worldview. Therefore, constructivism is a major
contributor to change the way students can learn and acquire new knowledge.
Piaget and Vygotsky are considered the main pioneers in developing the
constructivist theory, though they had wide different opinions about the role of
teaching, role of playing, and the role of errors (Pass, 2004). In Piaget's books
about child development, young children's ways of inquiry and acquiring
knowledge are presented as different radically from those of adults. Also, in the
process of teaching, for Piaget, the teacher is only a diagnostician, not an involved
person in instruction, while for Vygotsky the teacher might play such an an
important role. For Piaget, the interactions with peers are appreciated as producing
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better experiences than interactions between students and teacher. As to the role of
playing, for Piaget the role of playing was only acceptable at an early age while for
Vygotsky the role of playing was deemed to provide great experiences at different
age levels (Pass, 2004). Another important difference is taking in the role of errors.
None of them considered errors as an important role in developing learners’
knowledge. Piaget considers errors as part of learning outcome, establishing a clear
distinction from failures. Errors are treated only as intermediary steps, and are
considered acceptable. For Vygotsky, failures are happening when the social other
(e.g. the teacher) is not doing properly the job. While Piaget considers errors as
acceptable, for Vygotsky these are something damaging the educational process,
painful and highly recommended to be avoided.
Based on different emphasis, today there are many types of constructivism:
individual, social, radical, postmodernist, constructionist, critical, etc. Having so
different facets, inevitably triggered there are researchers who criticized the
constructivism from different grounds. Nola (1997) criticized the constructivism
for its confusions that are in place. Therefore, he asked to differentiate between the
epistemic and empirical aspects of constructivism, between pedagogical and
psychological aspects.
Staver (1998) defends constructivism by arguing for its consistency and
soundness but the learners should be aware that the truth presented in this theory
should not be rigidly required as coherence. Constructivism is a rejection of
solipsism and supports modern approaches from the modern neurophysiological
theory reviewing the brain as a parallel data processing organ in which meaning
making takes place in both individuals and communities. Therefore, the
constructivism is it still considered the major contributor in education:
“constructivism has become education's version of the 'grand unified theory' plus a
bit more” (Matthews, 2002, p. 121).
4. Contributions Made by Learners During Science Education Classrooms
Knowledge acquisition should make students negotiate content for being
citizens and future scientists. In the dynamics of acquisition, technology plays an
important role and have a good impact when the designers work with them but are
difficult for use by teachers, in general.“In studying the science learner, scientists
have shifted from a search for general laws to a focus on describing the process of
knowledge acquisition”(Linn, 1997, p. 413).
In their scientific community, people/scientists play two main roles:
constructors and critiques. Understanding scientific ideas requires not only facts
and constructing a theory but also how we critique the existing theories (Roth &
Lee, 2003). It is very important to consider how we criticize others and ourselves.
Furthermore, Linn (1997) encouraged teachers to help students to build selfcriticism by flexibly negotiating the authority inside classrooms: “Instructors help
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students view themselves as monitoring their own understanding and identifying
what they know and do not know by encouraging self-criticism” (p. 412). Science
courses are viewed as very difficult because of stereotypical norms that have
influenced the distribution of capacity to learn science in class.
Roth and Lee (2003) mentioned that students do not have to learn and
know the same set of basic concepts. More importantly, the emergence of basic
scientific literacy will come as a collective property. A lived science and
technology requires not only “hard” science but also collective expertize from
social sciences, humanities, political science and law.
Carey and Smith (1993) suggested a curricular plan that would emphasize
important skills in scientific practice such as: observation, classification,
measurement, conducing controlled experiments and constructing data tables and
graphs of experimental results. Theory-building approach in science together with a
reflection associated during this process. Linn (1997) mentioned that as complexity
increase, more fields are involved in the inter-disciplinary dialog, revealing that the
importance of the efficacy and the involvement of the partnerships have become
higher. In science education, the separation between laboratory and class often take
place. This could have some positive impacts by making experimentation more
accessible but the process of knowledge integration is put in difficulty. It is very
important for science classrooms to help students integrate observations with
theory, to help reconcile different and sometimes contradictory explanations and to
integrate them into coherent ones.
Turkle and Papert (1990) revealed that a top-down method or planning
approach is not always superior to other methods of thinking. They noticed that
sciences tend to appreciate more abstract thought at the detriment of concrete
thoughts. Turkle and Papert argued that, in contrast with Piaget where concrete
thinking is only associated with child or immature thinking, constructionism is
evaluating equally both abstract and concrete thoughts. Kafai (2006) considered
that objects are very important for science education. These are things-to-thinkwith.
For Linn (1997), the problem of attracting more students and enable them
to be actively involved in science education has to be viewed as a separate goal of
making instruction more effective. Carey and Smith (1993) considered that during
their formal school, people master only a small part from the scientific knowledge
required. Yet, they are asked later to adopt public position about more difficult
topics that they were able to master.
Smith, diSessa and Roschelle (1993) were interested to find how the
convergence of conceptual changes happened in spite of naive, or alternative
misconceptions. The tole played by flawed ideas was found to be complex:
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Different sources-internal, social, and physical-must generate feedback on
repeated efforts to act, control, and understand, and this feedback must be
evaluated. Functionality implies that misconceptions, at least those
reported to be widespread, carry with them some contexts of successful
use. Taking this principle seriously provides an excellent heuristic to
discover the origins of novice conceptions.' The constructivist position that
one learns from trying what one currently knows casts functionality as
underlying and framing continuity. But functionality is also constrained by
continuity:Judgments of the success of any conception depend on the
learner's existing knowledge and criteria of sense making. (p.148)
5. Knowledge Building Pedagogy in Science education
This section describes main concepts of knowledge building theory. The
contributions of knowledge building theory in science education are also presented.
Following these discussions, I will provide some insights into how technology can
be used to assist knowledge building classrooms in science education.
The Knowledge Building Theory
A great number of educators have taken new approaches on reforming the
educational system, by having a “knowledge of knowledge” approach. This
advancement of knowledge has a great emphasis on collaborative inquiry rather
than an individual inquiry and reviews the production of knowledge as essential for
society. One of the major contributors was the knowledge building theory, initially
started by the research of Bereiter and Scardamalia at the end of eighties.
Knowledge building theory strongly emphasizes ways of encouraging
students to cooperate and take personal responsibilities in the learning process. It is
concerned with enhancing the complexity of approaches, the increase of the
existing level of knowledge, and epistemic agency level. This evolution is made
through specific discourse oriented to improve the existing ideas, and to diversify
and democratize the personal contributions. “Knowledge building evolve as
curriculum evolve” (Lamon, Reeve & Scardamalia, 2001). Bereiter and
Scardamalia (1993) introduced the progressive problem solving approach concept
as a way of progressively developing the interactions and the discourse by the
reinvesting of mental resources. Technology is considered an important ally in
helping students to collaborate, interact, communicate and coordinate their efforts
to work as a group in the classroom.
There are differences between knowledge building as it develops in a
classroom and a professional research community. First, it is about the focus area.
A research community focuses in a specific area, while a knowledge building
classroom is interested in improving the knowledge of the entire community, and
the knowledge area becomes the whole world. The second difference is that the
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research community is expected to produce new knowledge while the knowledge
building classrooms communities produce results and knowledge that are new only
for participants’ themselves. This theory “involves students not only developing
knowledge-building competencies but also coming to see themselves and their
work as part of the civilization-wide effort to advance knowledge frontiers”
(Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006, p.97).
The proposed alternative culture of schooling is Scardamalia and Bereiter's
(1994) Knowledge-Building Community model. A Knowledge-Building
Community is a group of individuals who work collaboratively to advance the
knowledge of the collective (e.g., a university research team). Scardamalia and
Bereiter affirmed that the "research team" model may be an effective one for
schools. Over the past two decades, the researchers have explored this model in
different settings from kindergarten to graduate classrooms. An important part of
the investigation is the development and the ongoing refinement of Knowledge
Forum (KF) the new version of Computer-Supported Intentional Learning
Environments(CSILE), a networked computer environment designed to support the
"research team" approach.
Hewitt (1996) studied a four-year-period of transformation of a normal
class into a knowledge building classroom. He discussed the Knowledge Building
Community model decentralization of the classroom based activity in two ways: a)
by changing the way of creating knowledge from teacher to student from a
unilateral flow to a multidimensional way, and b) by taking a collaborative stance
for the educational classroom process. He found that the culture of class itself is
accountable for many of today's failures in schools. These failures cannot be
properly addressed through minor changes. Therefore, the fundamental rethinking
of learning should be reconsidered based on redesigning the techniques promoting
understanding and the roles that teacher and student have in the classroom. Also, a
proposed alternative is establishing Knowledge-Building Communities. Hewitt
described a four-year transformation of a class into a Knowledge-Building
Community. After an initial period required for accommodation, when the
productivity in writing and discussing notes in CSILE was low, the research
showed evidence that gradually students started to be productive in using CSILE.
Learning the software environment was successful and helped in improving the
communication among students.
Examining generalized strategies in cross-domain learning, Ogilvie (1990)
designed a study with 25 subjects from the sixth grade. Students were encouraged
to participate in three new learning experiences. They learned some new motor and
cognitive tasks over a six-month period such as: a) juggling, b) learning about the
systems of the body and c) computer games over an hour-long period. Motivation,
learning style, achievement, and performance were measured for each student.
Students were frequently interviewed during the learning process. The analysis
revealed that students tended to use the same style and strategies for all three
domains. In addition, students who had an intentional learning style were more
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effective and performed better than students who were not. Deep planning
appeared to be as strong a predictor of learning as motivation and achievement.
Elaborated rehearsal and self-dialogue were revealed as helpful for students,
helping them to be more effective learners.
Other studies have reported that knowledge building contributes to
teachers professional development selecting a knowledge building path. Brett
(2002), focusing on finding ways on online engagements in mathematics for
preservice teachers, analyzed the patterns of engagement/ disengagement for
twenty math-anxious elementary candidates and offered an online program support
for participants. Noticing that online environments do not always offer positive
experiences to learners, she found that subjects who had been successful in social
experiences and in subject-related experiences benefited more from receiving
online learning support. Also, the online patterns of interactions changed little over
time for those who contributed either with too many or too few contributions in
discussion. Therefore, epistemic agency and identity in community are strongly
required for a successful online engagement.
Knowledge Building Contributions in Science Education
A great amount of research have reported the relevance and the great
contributions of knowledge building theory in science education. In a research
studying a sixth grade science class, Bereiter, Scardamalia, Cassells and Hewitt
(1997) recommended that science education should avoid the old way of
considering learning science as an inflexible effort towards the “ultimate truth”.
Instead, persistently improving present ideas is a preferable strategy. It was found
that respecting the basic commitments for constantly improving themselves,
scientific progress could be realized in elementary classrooms. Also, Bereiter
(2002), in an article about sustained innovation found that radical innovations are
less probable to succeed in education. This can be attributed to the paradigm of
innovation, which always requires a specific limit of effort and time. Noticing a
limited degree of novelty in successful educational attempts, Bereiter raised a
warning about limited capacities of classrooms to adjust themselves to new
reforms.
Another early research who used a knowledge-building approach in
science education was Rukavina (1991). She developed two research studies for
sixth grade students in science. The researcher split the group of students in three
parts: advanced learners, average learners and average learners with assistance. She
proved that knowledge acquisition promote better understanding than direct
teaching. Comparing advanced learners and average learners, she proved that
advanced learners more frequently display a knowledge building approach than
average learners. In the process of learning science through knowledge building
approach, students build a knowledge space in which they engaged in problem
solving actions, using both general learning and domain related learning processes,
that were applied to new achieved information. In the second study, using a
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intervention approach, she compared the knowledge group students with the
control group students. The results proved that using a knowledge building
approach student had few misconceptions in their achievements.
Chan (1993) investigated knowledge construction and conceptual change
analyzing how high-school students processed contradictory approaches in biology
classrooms. There were 108 students randomly sampled, from grades 9 to 12. The
study compared knowledge building pedagogy with non-collaborative and direct
approaches in classrooms, investigating what happened when students are
confronted with contrasting information. The results revealed that exposing
students to contradictory information was not sufficient unless students had a
knowledge building approach in learning science. The results highlighted the
importance of self-constructive activity in order to advance in science.
In his doctoral dissertation, Hakkarainen (1998) did five studies of
processing inquiry in science education in two classrooms across a three-year
period. He found that in one classroom where the teacher provided a strong
pedagogical support, students' communications received and enhanced in peer
interactions, which ultimately induced the advancement of explanation efforts.
Hakkarainen considered that teacher's guidance can make students capable to
produce intuitive and meaningful explanations.
Yasnitsky (2006) studied the dynamics and the nature of the discourse in
science education in a third grade classroom. Based on three of the Knowledge
Building principles introduced by Scardamalia (2000): 1) community knowledge,
collective responsibility; 2) real ideas, authentic problems, idea diversity; and 3)
idea improvement. The discourse produced by a science classroom in the
Knowledge Forum was analyzed. It was noticed that during the time the
complexity of the inquiries and the length of the treads increased. Elaborating and
participating in different explanations students were able to make consistent
progress both individually and collectively.
In science education, van Aalst (1999) designed a model called Learning
for Knowledge Building (LKB). The researcher tested his model on two studies on
a 5/6 grade science classrooms using CSILE, based on the content analysis from
the notes' databases and the analysis of the curriculum coverage. The findings
shows that students who participated with more notes to the CSILE database were
more probable to improve their scientific merit of their notes, diversified the
problem contexts and eventually tended to dominate the discussions in which they
participated. Also, the role of the teacher was explored.
Forrester (2007) explored epistemological aspects of participation for 27
students registered in two online courses. A pre-test and post-test essays were
assigned to participants. The use of dialectal reasoning, justification, and changes
in level of epistemological understanding were measured. Analytik Toolkit (ATK)
tools were used in order to analyze students' participations. Results indicated that
participants with a high participation in belief mode epistemology proved more
metacognitive activity and were more collaborative, often achieved the best level
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of understanding and were more likely to use sophisticated reasoning. As
anticipated, design mode epistemology---a primary indication of knowledge
building---was underrepresented even in the highest levels of belief mode
epistemology. Widespread change occurred in the acceptance of peers as sources of
knowledge. This has significant implications for the practice of teaching.
Participation patterns did not depend on number of graduate courses taken, number
of previous online courses, nor previous familiarity with the course platform.
A study on learning behavior of 21 high school students from two
advanced biology classes, learning natural history with a rich database environment
was developed by Fogg (1995). Subjects contributed independently with research
projects using a database program containing mammal natural history. They were
interviewed regularly to measure progresses and learning strategies and at the end
they were tested. There were some predictors measured in this study such as prior
knowledge of the database content, possession of the mental model and intentional
learning.
The research revealed that the level of intentional learning contributed to
student gains in attitude, content proficiency and performance on higher-order
questions. Initially, intentional learning was seen as predictor for student
performances. The analysis revealed that, during the independent projects,
intentional learners did not show any differences in scheduled tasks of the project.
While students were cooperating, trying and experiencing during the class, for
academic grades purposes they used only safe routines, without experimenting and
collaborating. Fogg(1995) concluded that intentional learning skills are useful for
database exploration, but a supportive instructional environment that encourages
exploration and risk-taking will be necessary for worthwhile, original learning.
A research on classrooms' interaction in an elementary science class, where
students were using CSILE was developed by Lipponen, Rahikainen, Hakkarainen,
and Palonen (2002). The study was in Finland and students had a mixed method
approach. The data was analyzed using social network analysis and content
analysis. Qualitative data explored students’ participations rates, density of
interactions, and the quality of their discourse. The quantitative data was used to
measure descriptive and statistic data from social network analysis. The findings
revealed a high density of interaction among participants having a high use of
CSILE software. There were, however, substantial differences in the students'
participation rates. The results also indicated that one student occupied a central
position, and two students an isolated position in the CSILE mediated interaction.
The study further revealed that the CSILE mediated discussion was composed of
number of short discussion threads. The culture of CSILE mediated discourse and
collaboration can be defined as follows; on topic, neutral, and providing
information to others' comments or questions.
6. Final Conclusions
Reviewing the research in science education, there is no easy way to empower
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students' creativity. As Ford and Wargo (2006) put it “teachers having sat in
classrooms for 16 years have 'ingrained' ways of teaching” (p.154). With all of
these, knowledge building pedagogy can be considered as an reliable way that
might boost students'
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