The transformation of individual and collective knowledge in elementary science classrooms that are organised as knowledge-building communities

Abstract

This study was designed to address two purposes. First, we wanted to test working hypotheses derived from previous studies about the transformation of individual and collective knowledge in elementary classrooms. Second, we attempted to understand the degree to which “ownership” was an appropriate concept to understand the process of learning in science classrooms. Over a four-month period, we collected extensive data in a Grade 6/7 classroom studying simple machines. As in our previous studies we found that (a) conceptual and material resources were readily shared among students, and (b) tool-related practices were appropriated as newcomers participated with more competent others (peers and teachers) in the pursuit of student-framed goals. We also found that for discursive change (“learning”) at the classroom level to occur, it appeared more important whether a new language game was closely related to students' previous language games than who actually proposed the new language game (teacher or student). Implications are drawn for the design of science curricula and classroom activities.

Both pedagogy and design are still tightly bound by rationalist, symbol-manipulating, problem-solving assumptions that hold knowledge to be a property of individuals. Pedagogy still concentrates on the individual and individual performance, even though most work is ultimately collaborative and highly social. (Brown & Duguid, 1992, p. 171)