We report a longitudinal study on the development of 22 students' productive vocabulary in kn... more We report a longitudinal study on the development of 22 students' productive vocabulary in knowledge building from Grade 1 to 6. Vocabulary growth was assessed based on the student discourse in Knowledge Forum, an online community space designed to support Knowledge Building. Analysis of lexical proficiency based on Lexical Frequency Profile and P_Lex indicated significant growth in productive written vocabulary, especially for words beyond the first two 1,000 word lists. By tracing the growth of vocabulary extracted from specific word lists, we found that the growth rate for different types of words varied across each year but correlated with each other. Correlation analyses between these lexical measures and Knowledge Building behavioral indicators revealed that note revisions are the strongest predictor of vocabulary growth rate, whereas note reading is related with lexical proficiency measures.
With the recent commercial success and increased use of digital games, the study of motivation ha... more With the recent commercial success and increased use of digital games, the study of motivation has gained new impetus in the field of gaming. Indeed, studies of video games have provided a different route to understanding motivational processes. Recent books by game theorists and researchers have pointed out that the world of gaming has produced a large amount of data illuminating how games enhance self-directed learning, deepen engagement, and foster important 21st century learning skills (Koster 2005; Annetta 2008; Chatfield 2010; Rupp, et al 2010; Shih et al 2010; Thomas & Ge 2011; Shute & Ke 2012). The present study has a narrow focus on game reward structures and motivation in game-play. It explores how a reinforcement schedule sustains children's motivation in a game context. Specifically, it assesses the effects of reward allotment for an interactive game through the examination of students' variations in response to different reinforcement schedules. Fifty-four Chine...
Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This means that a large part... more Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This means that a large part of knowledge in these areas only becomes useful to the extent that one understands how facts are connected causally. Assuming that most explaining is done interactively—that is, through dialogue—this research focuses on kinds of contributions students can make that move explanation-building dialogue forward. In this paper, we focus on: (i) discussing the role of knowledge building discourse in construction of coherent causal explanations, and (ii) creating a systematic inventory of ways of contributing to knowledge building discourse in science and history. We conclude by discussing next steps for research, which include the development of tools for formative feedback embedded in the online environment, and designed to increase the level of students' discourse.
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Learning Analytics And Knowledge - LAK '15, 2015
The goal of the present study was to uncover new insights about the learning analytics community ... more The goal of the present study was to uncover new insights about the learning analytics community by analyzing Twitter archives from the past four Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) conferences. Through descriptive analysis, interaction network analysis, hashtag analysis, and topic modeling, we found: extended coverage of the community over the years; increasing interactions among its members regardless of peripheral and in-persistent participation; increasingly dense, connected and balanced social networks; and more and more diverse research topics. Detailed inspection of semantic topics uncovered insights complementary to the analysis of LAK publications in previous research.
Abstract While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for acces... more Abstract While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of knowledge and ideas and for forming social networks they have not performed so well as media for the collaborative production of new knowledge. In this symposium, researchers with experience in efforts to advance knowledge building apply insights they have gained to the question of how to enhance the socio-cognitive benefits of new media. We suggest development of a technological, social, cognitive and epistemic infrastructure ...
Knowledge creation depends on pursuit of promising possibilities. This paper reports a case study... more Knowledge creation depends on pursuit of promising possibilities. This paper reports a case study of a graduate-level course, with promisingness judgments incorporated as an explicit goal of course work. The top-level goal for the course was to have students take collective responsibility for "the creation of an assessment of collaborative knowledge creation." This paper presents the pedagogical design of the course, describes technological affordances to support promisingness judgments, and discusses preliminary findings.
ABSTRACT This study proposes a process-oriented, automatic, formative assessment model for small ... more ABSTRACT This study proposes a process-oriented, automatic, formative assessment model for small group learning based on complex systems theory using a small dataset from a technology-mediated, synchronous mathematics learning environment. We first conceptualize small group learning as a complex system and explain how group dynamics and interaction can be modeled via theoretically grounded, simple rules. These rules are then operationalized to build temporally-embodied measures, where varying weights are assigned to the same measures according to their significance during different time stages based on the golden ratio concept. This theory-based measure construction method in combination with a correlation-based feature subset selection algorithm reduces data dimensionality, making a complex system more understandable for people. Further, because the discipline of education often generates small datasets, a Tree-Augmented Naive Bayes classifier was coded to develop an assessment model, which achieves the highest accuracy (95.8%) as compared to baseline models. Finally, we describe a web-based tool that visualizes time-series activities, assesses small group learning automatically, and also offers actionable intelligence for teachers to provide real-time support and intervention to students. The fundamental contribution of this paper is that it makes complex, small group behavior visible to teachers in a learning context quickly. Theoretical and methodological implications for technology mediated small group learning and learning analytics as a whole are then discussed.
The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of kno... more The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of knowledge building. This study examines the dynamics of promisingness judgments in knowledge-building discourse by young students. Toward this end we implemented a design experiment—with both pedagogical and technological interventions—in a Grade 3 class, and engaged them in judging promisingness of their ideas in three science units over two consecutive years. Analysis of individual profiles identified five ...
Pursuing Effective Facilitating Strategies: The Effect of Facilitator's Leadership Behaviors... more Pursuing Effective Facilitating Strategies: The Effect of Facilitator's Leadership Behaviors on Online Learning Bodong Chen OISE/University of Toronto Canada bodong. chen@ gmail. com Qiong Wang Graduate School of Education, Peking University China qwang@ gse. pku. edu. cn Abstract: Based on various research of online teaching and learning, this study is aimed to establish a behavior system for facilitation in online learning based on a leadership theory–the Ohio State Leadership Studies–which classifies leadership ...
QWERTY-Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology, Culture and Education, Mar 2, 2012
Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This meansthat a large part ... more Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This meansthat a large part of knowledge in these areas only becomes useful to the extentthat one understands how facts are connected causally. Assuming that most explainingis done interactively–that is, through dialogue–this research focuseson kinds of contributions students can make that move explanation-building dialogue forward. In this paper, we focus on:(I) discussing the role of knowledgebuilding discourse in construction of coherent ...
QWERTY-Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology, Culture and Education, Mar 2, 2012
Identifying promising ideas is a significant challenge in any creative enterprise. This paper exp... more Identifying promising ideas is a significant challenge in any creative enterprise. This paper explores the concept of “promisingness judgements” and describesinitial research efforts to cultivate the capacity of students to practice these judgments. As a common characteristic of creative experts, the capacity to make successfulpromisingness judgements is grounded by a rich base of “impressionisticknowledge” accumulated over time. The goal of this study is to help studentsacquire and practice this knowledge. Toward this end we ...
The future of learning: proceedings of the 10th international conference of the learning sciences (icls 2012)–volume, 2012
Abstract: The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped asp... more Abstract: The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of knowledge building. The goal of this research was to examine the extent to which young students can make promisingness judgments and, as a result, engage in more effective knowledge building. Toward this end we embedded a design experiment in a Grade 3 classroom. In this experiment students were engaged in discussion and reflection of the concept of promisingness and used a Promising Ideas tool to identify promising ideas ...
Foundational to Knowledge Building pedagogy is the view that ideas ought to be at the centre of e... more Foundational to Knowledge Building pedagogy is the view that ideas ought to be at the centre of educational endeavours and continually improved through a social process, with members sharing responsibility for advancing not just individual but group knowledge.(Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003). This objective has informed the design of Knowledge Forum, software that supports the pedagogy and the process of knowledge creation. Current features in Knowledge Forum, such as theory-building scaffolds and rise ...
While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of k... more While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of knowledge and ideas and for forming social networks they have not performed so well as media for the collaborative production of new knowledge. In this symposium, researchers with experience in efforts to advance knowledge building apply insights they have gained to the question of how to enhance the socio-cognitive benefits of new media. We suggest development of a technological, social, cognitive and epistemic infrastructure ...
We report a longitudinal study on the development of 22 students' productive vocabulary in kn... more We report a longitudinal study on the development of 22 students' productive vocabulary in knowledge building from Grade 1 to 6. Vocabulary growth was assessed based on the student discourse in Knowledge Forum, an online community space designed to support Knowledge Building. Analysis of lexical proficiency based on Lexical Frequency Profile and P_Lex indicated significant growth in productive written vocabulary, especially for words beyond the first two 1,000 word lists. By tracing the growth of vocabulary extracted from specific word lists, we found that the growth rate for different types of words varied across each year but correlated with each other. Correlation analyses between these lexical measures and Knowledge Building behavioral indicators revealed that note revisions are the strongest predictor of vocabulary growth rate, whereas note reading is related with lexical proficiency measures.
With the recent commercial success and increased use of digital games, the study of motivation ha... more With the recent commercial success and increased use of digital games, the study of motivation has gained new impetus in the field of gaming. Indeed, studies of video games have provided a different route to understanding motivational processes. Recent books by game theorists and researchers have pointed out that the world of gaming has produced a large amount of data illuminating how games enhance self-directed learning, deepen engagement, and foster important 21st century learning skills (Koster 2005; Annetta 2008; Chatfield 2010; Rupp, et al 2010; Shih et al 2010; Thomas & Ge 2011; Shute & Ke 2012). The present study has a narrow focus on game reward structures and motivation in game-play. It explores how a reinforcement schedule sustains children's motivation in a game context. Specifically, it assesses the effects of reward allotment for an interactive game through the examination of students' variations in response to different reinforcement schedules. Fifty-four Chine...
Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This means that a large part... more Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This means that a large part of knowledge in these areas only becomes useful to the extent that one understands how facts are connected causally. Assuming that most explaining is done interactively—that is, through dialogue—this research focuses on kinds of contributions students can make that move explanation-building dialogue forward. In this paper, we focus on: (i) discussing the role of knowledge building discourse in construction of coherent causal explanations, and (ii) creating a systematic inventory of ways of contributing to knowledge building discourse in science and history. We conclude by discussing next steps for research, which include the development of tools for formative feedback embedded in the online environment, and designed to increase the level of students' discourse.
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Learning Analytics And Knowledge - LAK '15, 2015
The goal of the present study was to uncover new insights about the learning analytics community ... more The goal of the present study was to uncover new insights about the learning analytics community by analyzing Twitter archives from the past four Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) conferences. Through descriptive analysis, interaction network analysis, hashtag analysis, and topic modeling, we found: extended coverage of the community over the years; increasing interactions among its members regardless of peripheral and in-persistent participation; increasingly dense, connected and balanced social networks; and more and more diverse research topics. Detailed inspection of semantic topics uncovered insights complementary to the analysis of LAK publications in previous research.
Abstract While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for acces... more Abstract While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of knowledge and ideas and for forming social networks they have not performed so well as media for the collaborative production of new knowledge. In this symposium, researchers with experience in efforts to advance knowledge building apply insights they have gained to the question of how to enhance the socio-cognitive benefits of new media. We suggest development of a technological, social, cognitive and epistemic infrastructure ...
Knowledge creation depends on pursuit of promising possibilities. This paper reports a case study... more Knowledge creation depends on pursuit of promising possibilities. This paper reports a case study of a graduate-level course, with promisingness judgments incorporated as an explicit goal of course work. The top-level goal for the course was to have students take collective responsibility for "the creation of an assessment of collaborative knowledge creation." This paper presents the pedagogical design of the course, describes technological affordances to support promisingness judgments, and discusses preliminary findings.
ABSTRACT This study proposes a process-oriented, automatic, formative assessment model for small ... more ABSTRACT This study proposes a process-oriented, automatic, formative assessment model for small group learning based on complex systems theory using a small dataset from a technology-mediated, synchronous mathematics learning environment. We first conceptualize small group learning as a complex system and explain how group dynamics and interaction can be modeled via theoretically grounded, simple rules. These rules are then operationalized to build temporally-embodied measures, where varying weights are assigned to the same measures according to their significance during different time stages based on the golden ratio concept. This theory-based measure construction method in combination with a correlation-based feature subset selection algorithm reduces data dimensionality, making a complex system more understandable for people. Further, because the discipline of education often generates small datasets, a Tree-Augmented Naive Bayes classifier was coded to develop an assessment model, which achieves the highest accuracy (95.8%) as compared to baseline models. Finally, we describe a web-based tool that visualizes time-series activities, assesses small group learning automatically, and also offers actionable intelligence for teachers to provide real-time support and intervention to students. The fundamental contribution of this paper is that it makes complex, small group behavior visible to teachers in a learning context quickly. Theoretical and methodological implications for technology mediated small group learning and learning analytics as a whole are then discussed.
The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of kno... more The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of knowledge building. This study examines the dynamics of promisingness judgments in knowledge-building discourse by young students. Toward this end we implemented a design experiment—with both pedagogical and technological interventions—in a Grade 3 class, and engaged them in judging promisingness of their ideas in three science units over two consecutive years. Analysis of individual profiles identified five ...
Pursuing Effective Facilitating Strategies: The Effect of Facilitator's Leadership Behaviors... more Pursuing Effective Facilitating Strategies: The Effect of Facilitator's Leadership Behaviors on Online Learning Bodong Chen OISE/University of Toronto Canada bodong. chen@ gmail. com Qiong Wang Graduate School of Education, Peking University China qwang@ gse. pku. edu. cn Abstract: Based on various research of online teaching and learning, this study is aimed to establish a behavior system for facilitation in online learning based on a leadership theory–the Ohio State Leadership Studies–which classifies leadership ...
QWERTY-Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology, Culture and Education, Mar 2, 2012
Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This meansthat a large part ... more Causal explanation is an essential part of both science and history. This meansthat a large part of knowledge in these areas only becomes useful to the extentthat one understands how facts are connected causally. Assuming that most explainingis done interactively–that is, through dialogue–this research focuseson kinds of contributions students can make that move explanation-building dialogue forward. In this paper, we focus on:(I) discussing the role of knowledgebuilding discourse in construction of coherent ...
QWERTY-Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology, Culture and Education, Mar 2, 2012
Identifying promising ideas is a significant challenge in any creative enterprise. This paper exp... more Identifying promising ideas is a significant challenge in any creative enterprise. This paper explores the concept of “promisingness judgements” and describesinitial research efforts to cultivate the capacity of students to practice these judgments. As a common characteristic of creative experts, the capacity to make successfulpromisingness judgements is grounded by a rich base of “impressionisticknowledge” accumulated over time. The goal of this study is to help studentsacquire and practice this knowledge. Toward this end we ...
The future of learning: proceedings of the 10th international conference of the learning sciences (icls 2012)–volume, 2012
Abstract: The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped asp... more Abstract: The ability to identify promising ideas is an important but obscure and undeveloped aspect of knowledge building. The goal of this research was to examine the extent to which young students can make promisingness judgments and, as a result, engage in more effective knowledge building. Toward this end we embedded a design experiment in a Grade 3 classroom. In this experiment students were engaged in discussion and reflection of the concept of promisingness and used a Promising Ideas tool to identify promising ideas ...
Foundational to Knowledge Building pedagogy is the view that ideas ought to be at the centre of e... more Foundational to Knowledge Building pedagogy is the view that ideas ought to be at the centre of educational endeavours and continually improved through a social process, with members sharing responsibility for advancing not just individual but group knowledge.(Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003). This objective has informed the design of Knowledge Forum, software that supports the pedagogy and the process of knowledge creation. Current features in Knowledge Forum, such as theory-building scaffolds and rise ...
While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of k... more While new media have greatly magnified people's opportunities for access to and sharing of knowledge and ideas and for forming social networks they have not performed so well as media for the collaborative production of new knowledge. In this symposium, researchers with experience in efforts to advance knowledge building apply insights they have gained to the question of how to enhance the socio-cognitive benefits of new media. We suggest development of a technological, social, cognitive and epistemic infrastructure ...
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