The opportunity to break away from current practices came about when these teachers attended a conference on Knowledge Building in Hong Kong. Upon their return, the teachers shared new insights into the ways of doing knowledge building in the classroom during the 10th PLC meeting. As revealed by Patty: Patty: We were too stuck in looking at mechanics of writing such as the types of words used. There is no in-depth exploration of the writing. The Hong Kong representatives commented the pictures we used for composition were so restrictive.
They proposed we think about doing KB with a thematic slant. For example, we can do KB on a story hand out, so that they can build on their knowledge in the theme, and the subsequent writing piece can be on the theme.
In this way, when students do the writing, they can reflect on the themes which they had ideas built upon. With knowledge gained from the conference, these teachers worked towards higher-level formulation of the writing problem. This was visible as Kenny next announced that the English teachers were going to plan for a writing task on the abstract theme of Friendship as mandated by the lower primary curriculum. They will read and reason if the story is a good story about friendship and why. In this way, we will have all kinds of ideas form the students and after that we hope there can be one question where they can build on and then they can tie up with their postings.
This would help them in their writing and build on their own knowledge of friendship in their writing. The story takes a different perspective of the actual story, so we want our children to take a stand, to decide is the wolf is as innocent as it seems or if the three little pigs are at fault. We hope to tap on the moral of the story which is to be truthful.
After that students can go on to the composition about the taxi driver who had passengers leaving their wallets behind in his taxi after alighting. I mean students would have gained the knowledge of being truthful and use the vocabulary generated during posting of their views about the wolf story to write their stories. Kenny immediately added that Patty could even give students different snippets of stories on truthfulness which will help give students even more ideas for discussion.
This exchange captured how teachers rally around the improved idea of providing students with thematic writing tasks. Subsequently, realising the challenge this new way of teaching may pose for her students, Patty voiced: Patty: I actually need suggestions because based on this argumentative task that we are thinking about, students may not come up with questions or examples. This is their first time and they are only at K3.
Not afraid of voicing her fear as a more experienced teacher, Patty felt safe in revealing her uncertainty about this new approach.
In this way, students could also exchange their writings on the template as notes to help each other along. By offering such a solution that requires a change of the existing scaffolds in the Knowledge Forum, new syntheses was derived at the KF front.
By moving to a higher plane of how writing can be taught, the teachers abandoned old methods of picture style writing tasks the snatch thief as they embraced a more complex way of teaching thematic writing that can potentially lead to different instructional outcome for different teachers.
In the vernacular of knowledge building, the teachers achieve rise above from their initial ideas about writing, and display collective cognitive responsibility in contributing to the joint effort in lesson design. Discussions The results of our analysis locate knowledge building principles as embedded within conversations of teachers during their weekly PLC meetings. Similarly, over a span of two weeks, Kenny, Priscilla and Patty demonstrated attempts at rising above their initial conception of cookie-cutter type of writing lessons to embrace a thematic approach.
This was especially salient when teachers improved on each other ideas on how the theme of friendship could be developed by their students on the Knowledge Forum.
Ultimately, they engaged in knowledge building discourse that moved students from simplified writing lessons to a thematic one. In terms of the addressing the research gap in knowledge building, the two examples in this study illustrate the principles of Knowledge Building Scardamalia, in action leading to production of new knowledge for teaching during PLC meetings.
These new knowledge include innovation as seen from the way thematic writing tasks were implemented as well as permanent advancement of ideas as evident from instructional designs for topic of Systems.
First, the teachers may not be aware of this tight coupling of their knowledge building on their professional knowledge while working on lesson design for their students.
In short, they are not cognisant that they can apply the same knowledge building principles to enhance their own professional learning. For example, the teachers may not be aware that they can in fact use Knowledge Forum to augment their discussion.
By creating their knowledge artefacts in the online forum, these artefacts can mediate their discussion and serve as record of their innovation. Thus, in further iteration of this research, participation of these teachers in the online Knowledge Forum platform will be considered. Examining the posts of these teachers will also allow for inquiry in the innovation challenges faced by the individual teachers as they reflect upon their teaching practices.
In terms of addressing the research gap in PLC, this study suggested a way of engendering teacher learning while making a real difference in student learning.
Similar to lesson study sessions reported by Lee, the teachers in this study made significant progress in lesson design that can impact student learning.
The common goal in designing lessons to help students advance their ideas provides a natural collaborative task. We propose that consideration of teacher learning in a professional learning community be conceptualised in terms of participatory practices as facilitated by knowledge building principles.
A helpful approach is to encourage and facilitate teacher learning through work and provision of an environment where such learning and associated teacher professionalism can flourish. Moving forward, we suggest enhancing the awareness of teacher participants in terms of the reciprocal layer of knowledge building with more intentional leverage on creating knowledge artefacts to mediate their collective advancement in pedagogical knowledge. References Allaire, S.
Research on Education and Media, 3 1 , Barber, M. Shaping the future: How good education systems can become great in the decade ahead. Bereiter, M. Education and mind in the knowledge age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bereiter, C. Intentional learning as a goal of instruction. Knowing, Learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, DuFour, R.
Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities that work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. Edley, N. Analysing masculinity: Interpretive repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions.
Wetherell, S. Yates Eds. A guide for analysis pp. The Open University: Sage. Greeno, J. On claims that answer the wrong questions. Educational Researcher, 26, 5— Harris, A. Professional learning communities and system improvement. Improving Schools, 13 2 , Horn, I. Journal of the Learning Sciences, just- accepted.
Jordan, B. Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The journal of the learning sciences, 4 1, Lee, L. Teacher learning in a professional learning team: Affordances, disturbances, contradictions, and action possibilities. Doctoral thesis.
Nanyang Technological University. Lieberman, A. Teacher learning: The key to educational reform. Journal of Teacher Education, 59 3 , Little, J. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18 8 , McLaughlin, M. Professional communities and the work of high school teaching.
University of Chicago Press. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 12 1 , Palinscar, A. Reciprocal teaching of comprehension-fostering and comprehension- monitoring activities.
Cognition and instruction, 1 2 , Putnam, R. What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational researcher, Scardamalia, M. Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. Liberal education in a knowledge society, 97, A brief history of knowledge building. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 36 1. Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In Sawyer, R. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Stake, R. The art of case study research. Stoll, L. Professional learning communities: A review of the literature. Journal of Educational Change, 7, — Acknowledgments Appreciation goes to the teachers for their conscientious effort in designing and enacting knowledge building lessons.
How a new actor was temporarily enrolled into the network of game playing By Mark Chen. Is it important for them to have some sense of whether the cloud is a system after all the explanation? Patty: They talked about life cycle and told them to move on about life cycles.
They did not come to a conclusion about whether cloud is a system. Cindy: But it is important for them to have some sense after their explanation. Before Cindy could complete her sentence, Patty counteracted to explain that while students did not come to a conclusion, she was satisfied that her students were able to see the process of water cycle as being embedded in the cloud experiment.
Rather than asking students if cloud is a system, to me, I will ask them why do you say cloud is a cloud system inside the water cycle system.
Because these students think that it is a system within another system. At this juncture, Emma, another teacher in the PLC group, revealed that her students had been posting their ideas about whether clouds belong to a system on the Knowledge Forum.
It is interesting to note that in this process, Emma and Patty noted that students would finally realise that cloud belongs to the water system once they proceed to the topic of State of Matter. This helped Patty to find her justification to move on the topic of State of Matter. Emma: It cloud is part of the water system.
So that is why we students have not got it. Because I think once they do the topic of change of state, then, they will realise that water is after all the same thing. Patty: So that is why I want to move into matter using these notes. It is changing from one solid to a liquid or liquid to gas. And slowly students will see that it is the same water going up and coming back down and up and it is not many parts.
Rising above current practices During the 8th PLC meeting for English lessons design, three teachers first recalled verbally how they had in the previous week helped students on a continuous writing task on the topic of a snatch thief through the Knowledge Forum. Kenny took the lead to share how his students managed to conceive greater details supporting the building up of the story: Kenny: Students are supposed to come up with one idea first and the other groups are supposed to look at ideas and ask questions based on that particular idea.
So we have some examples such as this robber was caught by the police in the end and some students would ask how the thieves were caught by the police. Students also came up with ideas about the type of punishment the robbers would get. These ideations were concluded by Kenny as useful in helping students focus on their writing task. However, this initial knowledge building effort was negated when Kenny revealed that his students were given a sample writing subsequently so that they could submit an individual piece of writing.
In short, the lesson reverted to the traditional mode of scaffolding with model essay. Next, Priscilla shared a different model for teaching the writing task. For example, when Tim suggested on the Knowledge Form that the thieves were getting caught, Priscilla would ask how and where the thieves were captured and at the same time offer the suggestion that the police should be roped in for the plot.
Guiding students through examples of how they can post their thoughts and questions on the forum, Priscilla modelled for students how they could develop their story plot. Unfortunately, after this modelling, it was back to the usual task of writing as Priscilla gave students sample stories to read after their discussion and students were instructed to submit their individual written work. Finally, Patty shared her method of teaching.
She announced that her class was not expected to produce writing with different introductions. Patty also shared that within the constraint of working only with dialogues for story starters, students were able to generate more vocabulary and scenarios. As these teachers replayed their instructional acts during the PLC meeting, they seemed to reveal a common trend that students all ended up with individual writing tasks.
Students were in fact guided through deeply entrenched traditional ways of writing. The opportunity to break away from current practices came about when these teachers attended a conference on Knowledge Building in Hong Kong. Upon their return, the teachers shared new insights into the ways of doing knowledge building in the classroom during the 10th PLC meeting. As revealed by Patty: Patty: We were too stuck in looking at mechanics of writing such as the types of words used.
There is no in-depth exploration of the writing. The Hong Kong representatives commented the pictures we used for composition were so restrictive.
They proposed we think about doing KB with a thematic slant. For example, we can do KB on a story hand out, so that they can build on their knowledge in the theme, and the subsequent writing piece can be on the theme. In this way, when students do the writing, they can reflect on the themes which they had ideas built upon.
With knowledge gained from the conference, these teachers worked towards higher-level formulation of the writing problem. This was visible as Kenny next announced that the English teachers were going to plan for a writing task on the abstract theme of Friendship as mandated by the lower primary curriculum. They will read and reason if the story is a good story about friendship and why. In this way, we will have all kinds of ideas form the students and after that we hope there can be one question where they can build on and then they can tie up with their postings.
This would help them in their writing and build on their own knowledge of friendship in their writing. The story takes a different perspective of the actual story, so we want our children to take a stand, to decide is the wolf is as innocent as it seems or if the three little pigs are at fault.
We hope to tap on the moral of the story which is to be truthful. After that students can go on to the composition about the taxi driver who had passengers leaving their wallets behind in his taxi after alighting.
I mean students would have gained the knowledge of being truthful and use the vocabulary generated during posting of their views about the wolf story to write their stories. Kenny immediately added that Patty could even give students different snippets of stories on truthfulness which will help give students even more ideas for discussion. This exchange captured how teachers rally around the improved idea of providing students with thematic writing tasks.
Subsequently, realising the challenge this new way of teaching may pose for her students, Patty voiced: Patty: I actually need suggestions because based on this argumentative task that we are thinking about, students may not come up with questions or examples.
This is their first time and they are only at K3. Not afraid of voicing her fear as a more experienced teacher, Patty felt safe in revealing her uncertainty about this new approach. In this way, students could also exchange their writings on the template as notes to help each other along.
By offering such a solution that requires a change of the existing scaffolds in the Knowledge Forum, new syntheses was derived at the KF front. By moving to a higher plane of how writing can be taught, the teachers abandoned old methods of picture style writing tasks the snatch thief as they embraced a more complex way of teaching thematic writing that can potentially lead to different instructional outcome for different teachers.
In the vernacular of knowledge building, the teachers achieve rise above from their initial ideas about writing, and display collective cognitive responsibility in contributing to the joint effort in lesson design. Discussions The results of our analysis locate knowledge building principles as embedded within conversations of teachers during their weekly PLC meetings.
Similarly, over a span of two weeks, Kenny, Priscilla and Patty demonstrated attempts at rising above their initial conception of cookie-cutter type of writing lessons to embrace a thematic approach.
This was especially salient when teachers improved on each other ideas on how the theme of friendship could be developed by their students on the Knowledge Forum. Ultimately, they engaged in knowledge building discourse that moved students from simplified writing lessons to a thematic one.
In terms of the addressing the research gap in knowledge building, the two examples in this study illustrate the principles of Knowledge Building Scardamalia, in action leading to production of new knowledge for teaching during PLC meetings.
These new knowledge include innovation as seen from the way thematic writing tasks were implemented as well as permanent advancement of ideas as evident from instructional designs for topic of Systems. First, the teachers may not be aware of this tight coupling of their knowledge building on their professional knowledge while working on lesson design for their students. In short, they are not cognisant that they can apply the same knowledge building principles to enhance their own professional learning.
For example, the teachers may not be aware that they can in fact use Knowledge Forum to augment their discussion. By creating their knowledge artefacts in the online forum, these artefacts can mediate their discussion and serve as record of their innovation.
Thus, in further iteration of this research, participation of these teachers in the online Knowledge Forum platform will be considered. Examining the posts of these teachers will also allow for inquiry in the innovation challenges faced by the individual teachers as they reflect upon their teaching practices. In terms of addressing the research gap in PLC, this study suggested a way of engendering teacher learning while making a real difference in student learning.
Similar to lesson study sessions reported by Lee, the teachers in this study made significant progress in lesson design that can impact student learning. The common goal in designing lessons to help students advance their ideas provides a natural collaborative task. We propose that consideration of teacher learning in a professional learning community be conceptualised in terms of participatory practices as facilitated by knowledge building principles.
A helpful approach is to encourage and facilitate teacher learning through work and provision of an environment where such learning and associated teacher professionalism can flourish. Moving forward, we suggest enhancing the awareness of teacher participants in terms of the reciprocal layer of knowledge building with more intentional leverage on creating knowledge artefacts to mediate their collective advancement in pedagogical knowledge.
References Allaire, S. Research on Education and Media, 3 1 , Barber, M. Shaping the future: How good education systems can become great in the decade ahead. Bereiter, M. Education and mind in the knowledge age.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bereiter, C. Intentional learning as a goal of instruction. Knowing, Learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, DuFour, R. Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities that work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree. Edley, N. Analysing masculinity: Interpretive repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions.
Wetherell, S. Yates Eds. A guide for analysis pp. The Open University: Sage. Greeno, J. On claims that answer the wrong questions. Educational Researcher, 26, 5— Harris, A. Professional learning communities and system improvement. Improving Schools, 13 2 , Horn, I. Journal of the Learning Sciences, just- accepted. Jordan, B. Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The journal of the learning sciences, 4 1, Lee, L.
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