Cross-boundary Interaction for Sustaining Idea Development and Knowledge Building With Idea Thread Mapper

This study investigated the cross-classroom interaction in four grade 5 knowledge building communities as the third iteration of design-based research. The four classrooms studied human body systems with the support of the Idea Thread Mapper platform. As the students conducted focused inquiry and discourse within their own community, they posted reflective syntheses of their “Journey of Thinking” to a cross-community space accessible to the broader peers from other classrooms. Students from the four classrooms further participated in a live “Super Talk” to collaboratively address a challenging question. Qualitative analyses of classroom videos, online discourse, and classroom observation notes provide a rich description of how the students interacted within and across communities to develop scientific understandings. Introduction Educational researchers have made substantial advances to develop collaborative learning environments and support collaborative knowledge building among students (Engle & Conant, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006; Slotta, Suthers, & Roschelle, 2014). Further research is needed to extend collaborative interaction to higher social levels and scales (Stahl, 2013), so students can build on the knowledge of other communities across school years for sustained knowledge building (Zhang, Bogouslavsky & Yuan, 2017). This requires designs for cross-boundary interaction and collaboration, which has gained interests in the broader fields (Star & Griesemer, 1989; Start 2013) but still lacks systematic investigation in the field of computer-supported collaborative learning. The purpose of this design-based research is to test and refine designs of cross-classroom interaction for knowledge building with the support of a new collaborative platform: Idea Thread Mapper (Zhang et al., 2015, Zhang et al., 2018). Existing explorations of cross-community interactions for knowledge building adopted a single layer interaction design. Each classroom gave other classrooms access to their online discourse space so they could read their notes, respond, and supplement with periodic video conferences (Lai & Law 2006; Laferrière et al., 2012). The findings suggest productive classroom changes. Meanwhile, difficulties arose for students to understand other communities’ ideas and discourses without a clear sense of the contexts. New strategies of boundary-crossing support are needed to make knowledge progress accessible across communities. This research designs cross-community interaction using a multi-level emergent interaction approach, focusing on interactions mediated through boundary objects. “Boundary objects” are artifacts (e.g. reports, tools, models) used to bridge the boundaries (discontinuities) between different social worlds (Star & Griesemer, 1989). Objects from a community often have contextual meanings that are not accessible to other communities. What makes boundary objects effective for bridging different communities of practice is their interpretative flexibility as a “means of translation” (Star & Griesemer, 1989): they have a structure that is common enough to make them recognizable across the different social worlds and allow different communities to interact and work together. Through interacting with shared boundary objects, members from different communities can identify, understand, and reflect on their different practices, leading to enriched understandings within each community and potentially the creation of new, in-between practices (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). As noted above, raw distributed online discourse records are hard to use as boundary objects to bridge different knowledge building communities. Therefore, we developed a multi-level emergent interaction approach (Zhang et al., 2017). Students in each community engage in focused inquiry and interactive discourse within their own community’s space. As progress is made, students selectively synthesize fruitful threads of inquiry emerged from their discourse. The reflective reviews and syntheses can facilitate peer learning and build-on within each classroom (Zhang et al., 2018); they may further be shared as boundary objects to enable cross-community interaction. Students from other partner classrooms (or a subsequent student cohort) can use the syntheses of idea threads to view into the progress of inquiry and build connections. We have conducted a multi-year design-based research to test and refine this multi-level, emergent interaction design (Zhang et al., 2017, Yuan, Zhang & Luo, 2018). The earlier iterations/designs were supported by purposeful uses of existing tools offered by Knowledge Forum (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). CSCL 2019 Proceedings 456 © ISLS On the basis of the findings, we created and upgraded a new collaboration platform: Idea Thread Mapper (ITM) (Zhang et al., 2018), which interoperates with Knowledge Forum. ITM supports knowledge building interaction in a network of “buddy classrooms. ” Students in each classroom co-organize “juicy” wondering areas (shared inquiry foci) as they pursue interactive discourse to deepen their understandings in a domain area. They compose Journey of Thinking (JoT) syntheses to review progress in each area, focusing on (a) overarching topics and problems, (b) we used to think.now we understand. and (c) deeper research is needed. The wondering areas and syntheses are shared in a cross-classroom space that has an easy search tool. By viewing other classrooms’ JoT syntheses, students can get a sense of their inquiry directions and learn from their “big ideas” and deepening questions. As a newly designed feature, ITM allows different classrooms to initiate and participate in live “Super Talk” threads to collaboratively address challenging problems. This paper reports on a new iteration of this design-based research to refine cross-classroom interaction in a set of four grade 5 classrooms supported by ITM. Our research questions ask: (a) How did students generate JoT syntheses for cross-classroom sharing? (b) How did the four classrooms initiate and pursue “Super Talk” to address challenging problems? And (c) in what ways did the within-classroom discourse and cross-classroom “Super Talk” interact to support deep inquiry and understandings?