Supporting Discourse and Classroom Orchestration in a Knowledge Community and Inquiry Approach
Keywords: CSCL
inquiry learning
Knowledge Community and Inquiry
multi-modal technology
orchestration
scripting

This thesis presents a design-based research study of a new technology enhanced learning environment called Common Knowledge (CK), which supports students and teachers as they create socially shared notes, including tags, votes, and other forms of interactive knowledge construction. The research served to advance CK through 3 iterations, examining and extending the specific forms of technology, as well as the designs for activity sequences and teacher-mediated discussions. Two teachers participated, with their grade 5/6 students, in all three iterations. The teachers were actively involved in planning and designing the inquiry sequences, informing the designs of CK features, and giving feedback during and after the enactments. In early iterations, CK was employed as a stand-alone brainstorming and reflection tool, used to complement a broader inquiry activity where students collectively investigate a simulated phenomenon that is embedded within their classroom walls. In the final iteration, CK was employed as a scaffolding environment for a structured inquiry progression that included several phases for brainstorming, proposing topics, and open investigations. Discourse episodes are coded and analyzed to reveal patterns of interaction between teachers, students, and the shared knowledge base. Each iteration of CK is examined in terms of the interplay between technology features, activity sequences, and the forms of teacher-guided discourse that emerge to support effective enactment. Because the inquiry topics, technology features and activity sequences vary from one iteration to the next, the teacher-guided discussions must play different roles and make use of CK note content and other knowledge elements in different ways. An activity systems approach is well suited to the interpretation of such interdependencies, as patterns of discourse can be understood as emerging to meet the system requirements, given the fixed set of technology affordances and well defined activity sequence. In each successive iteration, exciting technology features of CK were refined in response to critical evaluations of the previous enactment. New features were also added, including new tagging and data mining, which served to extend new forms of activity sequences. Initial iterations included simple applications as a supplemental brainstorming environment, where the final iteration employed CK to coordinate a structured progression from brainstorming through inquiry proposals and then open inquiry investigations.Findings include the identification of a basic Reflect-Refocus-Release orchestration pattern, in which the teacher helps students to apprehend the progress or gaps in their inquiry, using content or patterns within the CK notes, engaging them in productive discussions, then releasing them to respond to the discussion appropriately. Additionally, four discourse orientations were observed within the Reflection phase of the pattern: (1) teacher reflection, (2) community (whole-class) reflection, (3) individual (student) reflections, (4) community (whole class) instruction. Within these orientations, teachers employed various discourse functions that served purposes of revoicing student ideas, norming the positions across the community, and casting students in various inquiry roles. The two teachers varied in how they employed these orientations, and also changed their patterns from one iteration to the next, reflecting the shifting task demands for discourse from one iteration to the next.