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Preservice Teachers’ Emerging Professional Identities through Participation in a Knowledge Building Community
Laferrière, Thérèse, Laval University
Christine Hamel, Laval University Stéphane Allaire, University of Québec (Chicoutimi)
Introduction
In Changing Teachers, Changing Times, Hargreaves (1994) argued that teaching is
evolving and must adapt to the postmodern age of information. For Hargreaves, the ethos
of a teacher education program was to be that of a learning community. The US National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) criteria for accreditation are
reflective of this position: learning community is their first criterion. Moreover, NCATE
stresses meaningful relationships between schools and universities.
The above-mentioned best practices are important. However, it is our contention that, for
teacher education to accomplish its mission in a networked society (Castells, 1996) and in a
knowledge age (Bereiter, 2002), we need to go beyond these two best practices. Our most recent
design study attempted this by applying the knowledge building principles (Scardamalia & Bereiter,
2002) and using Knowledge Forum® (KF) software (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; 2006) in
teacher education. It was part of a larger design research program devoted to the examination and
design of knowledge-building oriented teacher communities for innovation, one in which teachers
engaged in professional development activities through participation in local but interconnected
professional communities dedicated to knowledge building principles and pedagogies.
This paper reports on this effort to make a difference in preservice teacher education.
The focus is on preservice teachers’ emerging professional identities as a result of their
participation in a knowledge building community.
Context
Over the last decade we have invested in the development of university-school
partnerships (Laferrière, Breuleux, & Erickson, 2007), and more recently in university-school-
government partnerships (Laferrière et al, in press). Our working hypothesis has been that the
design of advanced forms of teacher education and professional development benefit from such
partnerships (Goodlad, 1990; Holmes Group, 1990), and especially from a hybrid culture of
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teaching and research (Bereiter, 2002). Moreover, Internet-based information and
communication technologies are used to support such partnerships.
The PROTIC program, a school-within-a-school program located in a secondary school
nearby Laval University in Quebec City, benefited from such a partnership. The program has
been in place since 1995, and is characterized by the fact that each of the 400 registered
students in the program (about 40% of the entire school’s students) owns a laptop. The
pedagogical focus has been in the design of a rich and diverse learning environment through
web-based and other Internet tools. That is to say new affordances have been introduced to the
learning environment: Teachers and learners could access online resources, including peers
from other classrooms with whom they can engage in collaborative project-based and inquiry-
based learning.
A province-wide educational reform (Quebec), that began in the late 1990s following a
large public consultation on emerging societal needs, made incremental room for project-based
learning as a way to achieve a rather less teacher-centered curriculum, and pedagogical
renewal. A still unsolved public debate advocating and polarizing direct-instruction and discovery
learning unfolded. The needs of individuals and social organizations in a knowledge society were
hardly brought forward in the debate, nor were Internet-based technologies and their
affordances.
From our point of view, Internet devices and tools are part of pedagogical renewal; they
act as a lever. As pointed out by Scardamalia (2000), technology is instrumental in the design of
rich learning environments envisioned by reformers. In return, the whole reform movement
requires the power of technology to bring ideas to the center of the curriculum. PROTIC
classrooms are rich learning environments because they are networked classrooms:
1) Students’ laptops are connected to the Internet, thus allowing access to out-of-the-classroom
tools, documents and human resources; 2) Teachers’ professional networks provide information
and opportunities for social interaction for learning and knowledge-building purposes. Tools have
little importance in themselves; what matters is what one does with the tools. For us, networked
classrooms are the new workplace of the teacher, including those of teacher educators. It
enlarges and enriches the teacher’s actual workplace.
“Learning about teaching is enhanced when the teaching and learning approaches
advocated in the program are modeled by the teacher educators in their own practice”
(Korthagen, Loughran, & Russell, 2006, p. 1036). This principle is reflected in our early attempts
at principle-based innovation and practice in networked classrooms. Moreover, twelve specific
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design principles emerged (Breuleux, Erickson, Laferrière, & Lamon, 2002), ones that kept
guiding our work with preservice teachers over the years (Table 1).
TABLE 1
Design principles for the networked classrooms of university-school partnerships
• Ease of access. Except for a very few participants, access to Internet and a collaborative platform (e.g., KF is possible from both school and home).
• Co-constitutionality. The development of a socio-technical infrastructure not only relies on electronic connectivity but on an increasing number of participants who value collaborative learning and knowledge.
• Participatory design. The networking capacity is sustained and scaled through the Autumn and Winter Semester intake of student teachers, the renewed commitment of cooperative teachers who gave access to their classroom, two university supervisors who are also involved in collaborative research with cooperative teachers and graduate students through the university-school partnership agreement signed in 1994.
• Multimodal social interactions. Participants meet onsite and online, cooperative teachers have access to the collaborative platform but student teachers are the ones engaged in online collaborative reflective practice.
• Local grounding. Whether planned or improvised, classroom events feed peers’ conversations (pre- and post-action). Primarily through the writings of student teachers, pairs contribute to the understanding of teaching and learning in the networked classroom through their co-located community, the PROTIC community, and the TACT community – a virtual community that stands for Technology for Advanced Collaboration Among Teachers.
• Active collaborative learning. In their co-located community and with the scaffolding of their university supervisor, student teachers engage in online collaborative learning where they tackle real challenges emerging from the teaching practice.
• The classroom as a community of learners. Pre- and in-service teachers are learning by doing as they design the networked classroom as a centre of inquiry where people, resources and ideas are valued. The teachers and the school principal of the PROTIC program view themselves as a professional learning community, allowing preservice teachers to do legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) for one or two terms.
• Diversity. Participants differ from term-to-term and so are the local events, circumstances, problems, and artifacts.
• Progressive distributed expertise. Virtual collaborative spaces provide opportunities to share resources and expertise to solve complex and ill-structured problems.
• Collaborative reflective teaching. Preservice teachers engage in collaborative reflective practice, a discursive process leading to the sharing and negotiation of meanings with others in a dialogical manner, on issues about classroom organization and management of a student owned laptop (or networked) classroom and project-based learning in such a context. Moreover, conversation and actions are meant to complement each other for the co-construction of knowledge: practice leads to negotiation of meaning, and clarification of meaning suggests relevant actions.
• Collaborative knowledge building. When meaning is negotiated across the members of the co-located community, ways of understanding necessarily evolve. Knowledge resources are shared with other members of the PROTIC community and higher levels of understanding emerge.
• Interrelatedness. Resources, events, agents, artifacts, and authors interconnect in ways that add continuity and integration to student teachers’ experience as they learn to teach in networked classrooms. They add as well to the experience of practitioners’ working in networked classrooms.
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This context prevailed when preservice teachers were inducted into principle-based
practice by their school- and university-based teacher educators when collaborative knowledge-
building became the object of inquiry (Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003).
Conceptual framework
Innovative learning environments go beyond mere adoption of classroom procedures and
activities, stressed Brown and Campione (1996). Their main argument was principle-based
innovation in classrooms and schools. Principles that grew out of social views of learning are
articulated around the notion of (networked) community. Researchers suggest that classrooms
are to become communities of learning and thinking where students learn about how to learn
(Bialaczyc & Collins; 1999; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999) or knowledge-building
communities (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). Preservice teachers’ learning environments also
benefit from peer communication and collaboration (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999; Deppeler,
2007; Korthagen, 2004; Lieberman, 2000; Mayer, 1999; Putnam & Borko, 2000; Richardson &
Placier, 2001). Professional identity develops in a social context (Mead, 1934; Alsup, 2005;
Beijaard, Meijer, and Verloop’s, 2004; Flores & Day, 2006), and through reflection on practice
and narrative (Connelly, & Clandinin, 1990, 1999; Freese, 1999; Hooley, 2007; Korthagen, 2004;
Rodgers, 2002; Watson, 2006; Zeichner, & Liston, 1996). Research on teacher professional
identity and online discourse (e.g., Ferry, Kiggins, Hoban, & Lockyer, 2002; Grion & Varisco,
2007) is emerging.
Communities of practice (CoPs) are oriented towards meaning making. The process of
meaning making occurs through two key components, participation and reification (Wenger,
1998). Wenger formulated the three basic characteristics of a CoP as follows: mutual
engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire. The collective result is a locally negotiated
regime of competence (Wenger, 1998, p. 137) – at the individual level, the result being
professional identity (learning as becoming). He goes on to argue that a CoP’s regime of
competence is neither static nor completely explicit. This means innovation can be part of a
CoP’s activity. Technology-mediated communities of practice (Barab, Barnett & Squire, 2002;
Schlager, Fusco & Schank, 2002; Renninger & Shumar, 2002) present new affordances such as
traces of members’ participation (e.g., note reading and writing), digital tools for members’
reification of their experience, and members’ online access to the community’s shared repertoire
(Kimble, Hildreth, & Bourdon, 2008). Thus, technology can make visible the components and
characteristics of a CoP. In this paper, the practice that is the focus of our investigation is
knowledge building. Bereiter and Scardamalia (2003) define it as « […] the production and
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continual improvement of ideas of value to a community, through means that increase the
likelihood that what the community accomplishes will be greater than the sum of individual
contributions and part of broader cultural efforts » (p. 1372). It is a principle and community-
based practice (Table 2):
TABLE 2
Knowledge building principles (Scardamalia, 2002)
Community knowledge, collective responsibility. The knowledge building community (KBC) aims at improving its understanding of a problem through students’ contributions. Democratizing knowledge. All students are invited to contribute to the knowledge advancement of their KBC. Epistemic agency. Students are encouraged to be proactive as they seek to make advances in the understanding of a problem. Real ideas and authentic problems. In a KBC, learners share their real ideas as they tried to understand authentic problems. Idea diversity. The diversity of ideas brought by students is important. Improvable ideas. Students are encouraged to regard their ideas as improvable objects. Constructive uses of authoritative sources. Students are encouraged to refer to credible sources as they work to improve their ideas. Rise above. It is through sustained idea improvement that students reach deeper understanding. Knowledge building discourse. Students not only write but talk about their ideas in the KBC. Symmetric knowledge advancement. In he KBC students and teacher all contribute to the advancement of the collective understanding, and to one another’s learning. Pervasive knowledge building. Knowledge building is transversal, and permeates across classroom activities. Concurrent, embedded and transformative assessment. Students are directed towards understanding the objectives of the curriculum and finding ways to assess, on an ongoing basis, what they understand of the problems they are working on.
The knowledge building perspective focuses on developing classrooms and communities
for progressive problem solving and knowledge creation (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003, 2006)
mediated by discourse on KF. Knowledge Forum® is the electronic forum they developed. Its
affordances support the knowledge building process. Knowledge building communities focus on
both individual and collective expertise; participants are not simply learning; they are generating
and improving knowledge. Thus, Knowledge Forum software allows participants to build on each
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other’s contributions, to document and evidence one’s ideas, to publish those of value for the
knowledge building community, to rise-above current thinking and reach a deeper level of
understanding of the real and authentic problems addressed by the participants. Because the
knowledge building community model is different from most current educational practices,
teachers innovate in their practice as they engage school learners in knowledge building. To
release collective agency to students for innovation, even though an important goal for 21st
century learning, is distant from many teachers’ practice (Breuleux et al, 2002; Scardamalia &
Bereiter, 2006). Preservice teachers’ beliefs are challenged when faced with innovative pedagogical
approaches: it needs to be adapted to their personal conceptions for any deep understanding to
occur (Loughran, 2006; Kagan 1992; Pajares, 1992; Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998).
University- and school-based knowledge building teacher educators are themselves challenged
by preservice teachers when confronted with knowledge building. Previous research on teacher
development in knowledge building include case studies and various efforts for developing
knowledge building communities (Chan & van Aalst, 2006) and are developing virtual
communities for teachers in networked classrooms (Laferrière, 2001; Laferrière, 2002; Lamon,
2003). Along this line of inquiry, we will examine the emerging professional identity of preservice
teachers involved in a pre-service teacher community while developing a knowledge building
practice in networked classrooms.
Methodology
This study is embedded in a design research that draws from Brown’s (1992) and Collins’
(1992) conceptualizations of design experiments, and more recently Collins (1999), and Collins,
Joseph and Bielaczyc (2004). This design research is beyond the scope of this paper and is
presented in Allaire, Laferrière, & Gervais (submitted). We provide here specifics regarding
1) the design of the learning environment provided to preservice teachers, 2) the professional
identity features that were investigated, the participants of the study, and the data gathering and
analysis methods.
Design of the learning environment
In the late nineties, KF was introduced in a few school-based (PROTIC) networked
classrooms as an advanced ICT, one driven by cognitive science research findings and
collaborative technologies. In 2002, a university-based teacher educator worked with preservice
teachers in online collaborative reflective practice. These preservice teachers were in the fourth
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year of their B.Ed. program in secondary education, and completing their internship in PROTIC
classrooms. Scardamalia (2002) had just made public the knowledge building principles. In the
aftermath, each fall semester a new cohort of preservice teachers (6-8 student teachers) was
challenged to identify a shared object of inquiry regarding their networked cooperative
classrooms with PROTIC teachers. Later in the first year, a virtual tour of their view(s) in the KF
database devoted to professional development was created (reification, Wenger, 1998) by one
or two graduating preservice teachers, and participants consented to wider diffusion. Beginning
in the winter of 2003, the same process applied to third-year preservice teachers in a five-week
long practicum. The KF professional development database, with views on teaching in the
networked classroom and ways to move beyond best practices, kept evolving.
Therefore, these preservice teachers were in touch with (onsite/online) university- and
school-based teacher educators who were reinvesting their understanding of the knowledge
building principles and resources into the challenge of fostering knowledge building communities
in their networked classrooms. Preservice teachers were quite helpful to teachers who were
introducing KF and the knowledge building principles. In some cases, preservice teachers took
the initiative to introduce or re-introduce KF and the knowledge building principles in the
networked classrooms they were assigned to. Rapid dissemination did not occur because
1) school learners were not attracted to KF– and were more attracted to other computer-based
tools (e.g., Ms Word, PowerPoint, Inspiration); 2) the bandwidth could not accommodate 400
students connected to the Internet, and the server failed on many occasions, even data was lost;
3) the early versions of WebKF resembled other electronic forums (threaded discussions); and
4) student teamwork was more centered on the product, and when idea improvement occurred
it was done verbally instead of in writing. Over the years, connectivity and KF software improved.
Blogs and wikis, also called collaborative technologies, were included as part of the networked
activity in most of the PROTIC classrooms.
At the pedagogical level, PROTIC teachers have developed ways of working in
networked classrooms and meeting the demands of the curriculum. Project-based and problem-
based learning are part of the classrooms’ routines. Inquiry-based learning and the knowledge
building principles remain sporadic and at an early stage. A critical mass of innovative
(knowledge building) practices was achieved by creating a virtual repertoire of knowledge
building exemplars (guided tours or stories) for the KF professional development database of the
knowledge building-oriented CoP. As a “virtual” knowledge building community (vKBC), this
knowledge building-oriented CoP was to transcend time and location (Zhao & Rop, 2001), thus
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allowing incoming preservice teachers to engage in online as well as onsite legitimate peripheral
participation (LPP, Lave & Wenger, 1991).
The development of professional identity as a pedagogical goal
Identity is an important constituent in Wenger’s (1998) approach, and it is the “individual”
result of participation in communities of practice and reification of experience. He sees identity as
“a constant becoming”. Teachers’ identity formation has been investigated, and teaching beliefs
have been central to such investigations. In a review of recent research on teachers’ professional
identity, Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop’s (2004) stress that research on professional identity needs
to be redefined. They suggested the four following features as cornerstones for redefinition:
1) professional identity is an ongoing process of interpretation and re-interpretation of
experiences; 2) professional identity implies both person and context; 3) a teacher’s professional
identity consists of sub-identities that more or less harmonize – the notion of sub-identities
relates to teachers’ pedagogies according to different contexts and relationships; and 4) agency
is an important element of professional identity, meaning that teachers have to be active in the
process of professional development (p. 122). Their argument is that “identity formation is a
process of practical knowledge-building characterized by an ongoing integration of what is
individually and collectively seen as relevant to teaching (p. 123). Although they use knowledge
building in a general sense, compared to Scardamalia and Bereiter (2003), the features they
stressed, and which characterize the development of professional identity, were thought to be
relevant to this examination of the emerging professional identity of preservice teachers.
Participants
Seventy-five (75) preservice teachers (4%1) participated in one or two2 of 12 semester-
based knowledge building communities (KBCs). They engaged in collective inquiry and shared
responsibility with teachers/peers setting goals for knowledge advancement. A subset of 11
participants (15% of the KBCs members, and less than 1% of the student cohorts) was created
for further analysis regarding the development of their professional identity. They were identified
as those that went beyond best practice according to the authors of this paper who referred to
the following criteria, which borrowed heavily from Wenger’s (1998) components and
characteristics of a CoP: participation and reification in their KBC during undergraduate studies,
1 4% of all registered preservice teachers doing a B.Ed. in secondary education at Laval University during
the 2002-2007 period – cohorts of about 160 in Year Three of the program and of about 140 in Year Four of the program, representing overall about 1800 preservice teachers for the 12-semester period.
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sustained engagement, focus on knowledge building as a joint enterprise, and creation of
knowledge building artifacts (e.g. virtual tours, note contributions). For comparative purposes, a
third group (13 participants) was identified, and referred to as the core local group of knowledge
building teachers who adopted the theory, pedagogy and technology as a central endeavor in
their practice.
Data gathering and analysis
To document preservice teachers’ evolving understandings of the knowledge building
principles, as a result of their participation (and reification of experience) in a knowledge
building-oriented CoP, we gathered online discourse, knowledge building artifacts, and
complementary interviews. We clustered the data according to Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop’s
features of professional development identity (2004). Elements reflective of an ongoing process
of interpretation and re-interpretation of experiences were further differentiated according to Van
Manen’s (1977) ways of knowing (“techne” – focus on procedures and activities, “phronesis” – or
practical judgment), and “critical/emancipatory” thinking). Elements reflective of person and
context were identified according to their direct application to the use of KF and the knowledge
building principles. Elements reflective of more or less harmonized (professional) sub-identities
were identified. And elements highlighting preservice teachers’/beginning teachers’/teachers’
agency strictly applied to knowledge building, were further analyzed according to Wiske’s (1998)
levels of understanding: naïve, novice, apprentice, and master.
Findings
The main result to report is that, over the 2002-2007 period, the knowledge building-
oriented CoP consolidated. Learning through participation became possible for preservice
students: 1) all participated in the discourse of their specific semester-based KBC – each KBC
tackled the problem of teaching in a networked classroom; 2) a minority of preservice teachers
participated in classrooms applying the knowledge building principles and using KF; 3) another
minority of preservice teachers were authorized by their coop teacher to bring about the
knowledge building principles and to use KF; 4) as direct experiences with the knowledge
building principles and KF were reified, other KBCs’ preservice teachers had an opportunity to
learn; 5) through reification, some preservice teachers made valuable contributions not only to
2 There was the possibility for those who did a practicum in a PROTIC classroom to return the next year
for their internship. On average, half of them returned while the other half preferred to do their internship in a more conventional classroom. The PROTIC field placement was filled every semester.
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their KBC but to the emerging vKBC – the result of the knowledge building artifacts of all
participants in the knowledge building-oriented CoP, including the semester-based KBCs.
Preservice teachers’ interpretation and re-interpretation of experiences within their KBCs) Table 3 presents the problems all KBCs’ participants collectively addressed while they
were individually learning to teach in a networked classroom. Only KBC’s problems that reflected
the three ways of knowing identified by Van Manen (1977): “techne”, “phronesis” – or practical
judgment, and “critical/emancipatory” thinking, are identified, and up to a maximum of four per
KBC. Moreover, no distinction was made between KBCs whose members where in a five-week
long practicum or in a fifteen-week long internship.
TABLE 3 Knowledge building communities’ (KBCs) interpretation
and re-interpretation of experiences in a networked classroom
KBCs
Problems discussed in Van Manen’s three ways of knowing
KBC1
• The formulation of authentic problems • The role of the teacher: To direct or to guide? • Knowledge building on learning communities
KBC2
• Student motivation • The role of guide in teaching and the role of teacher-directed lessons • The evaluation process
KBC3
• Meaning negotiation in the classroom • Group cohesion • Evaluation and objectivity • Knowledge balkanisation
KBC4_H04
• Complexity of collaboration • Interaction structures in the classroom • School as a place to learn from errors
KBC5_A04
• Cognitive and socio-cognitive conflict • Individual ZPD/Collective ZPD • Development of a lexicum
KBC6_H05
• Student motivation and engagement • Importance of student teamwork
KBC7
• Pre-action in a networked classroom • Inter-action in a networked classroom • Post-action in a networked classroom
KBC8_H06
• Roles of teacher in a networked classroom • Teaching for understanding • Fostering the student’s agency
KBC9
• Student motivation and engagement • A different evaluation for a different course of action • Network-based participation for learning to plan and evaluate one’s pedagogical action
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KBC10
• Knowledge building • Project-based learning and evaluation (formative and summative) • Cooperation/competition • The teacher role in a PROTIC classroom
KBC11
• Teacher mediation • Autonomy and motivation • Decontextualizing our learning
KBC12 • Differentiated pedagogy
At the techne level, exemplars of knowledge advances were the following ones:
• How to address motivation problems in a networked classroom
• Combining teacher-directed and student-directed activity in a networked classroom
At the phronesis level, exemplars of knowledge advances were the following ones:
• Adopting a different course of action and consequent evaluation practices in a networked classroom
At the “critical/emancipatory” thinking level, exemplars of knowledge advances were the
following ones:
• Knowledge balkanisation: A major hurdle to student learning in a networked classroom -- The KBC thought that the curriculum was presenting knowledge in a too fragmented way for school learners to get a good understanding of what they were learning.
• Group ZPD – The KBC made attempts to apply Vygotsky’s ZPD notion at a small group level and at the classroom level.
All together, these 12 KBCs contributed to the vKBC’s professional development
database in a proportion of almost 80%. Teacher educators’ contributions made up for 10-20%
of the contribution in each of the specific KBCs.
The above elements were reflective of preservice teachers’ interpretation and re-
interpretation of experiences within their KBCs. According to Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop’s
(2004), this is a feature in teacher professional identity that is an ongoing process, and one to be
considered as such when studying teacher identity formation. The interpretations and re-
interpretations of a subset of participants in the semester-based KBCs were analyzed beyond
preservice education.
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Preservice teachers’ evolution along the professional development continuum (subset of KBCs’ participants)
The following results pertain to the 15% of participants (N=11) who demonstrated higher
levels of participation and reification in their KBC during undergraduate studies, and later
sustained engagement, focus on knowledge building as a joint enterprise, and creation of
knowledge building artifacts (e.g. note contributions, virtual tours). We applied the second
(professional identity implies both person and context) and the third (more or less harmonized
sub-identities coexist) features of our analytical framework to better understand participants’
emerging professional identities as knowledge building teachers.
Persons and contexts
Table 4 presents the professional development continuum of the 11 participants with
attention given to persons and contexts:
TABLE 4 Participation/reification according to persons and contexts
Participants
Pre-service education
Beginning teaching/
Graduate studies
Teaching (3-5 years)
Participant A * Graduate studies
Participant B * Graduate studies
Participant C * *** Graduate studies ***** New context
Participant D * *** Graduate studies ***** New context
Participant F * *** Graduate studies ***** New context
Participant G * *** Same context ***** Same context
Participant H * *** Same context
Participant H * *** New context
Participant I * ** New context **** New context
Participant J * ** New context **** New context
Participant K * ** New context **** New context
Legend: * Participation/reification as a preservice student ** Participation/reification as beginning teacher *** Participation/reification as beginning teacher and/or graduate student **** Participation/reification as a teacher (use of basic collaborative tools) ***** Participation/reification as a teacher (use of advanced collaborative tools)
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Five of the 11 preservice teachers registered for graduate studies but for three of them
teaching is their primary occupation. They may be academically inclined but this characteristic
would not apply to all of these participants as six of them have not engaged in graduate studies.
With regard to context only one out of nine participants is teaching in the PROTIC program, that
is, where she did her internship. Eight participants have taken knowledge building to new school
contexts.
This subset of KBCs members (11 participants) uphold values and have personal
resources that inclined them to participate in the vKBC beyond their undergraduate studies. This
does not mean, however, that they did not encounter internal conflicts and external hurdles in
their respective contexts and relationships.
More or less harmonized sub-identities
Teaching in a networked classroom brings its share of affordances in terms of online
tools. Principle-based innovations can take many forms. For instance, most teachers engage
school learners in project-based learning (Kozma, 2003). Within the PROTIC program, this is
what KBCs members also experienced in their coop classroom (Partenariat Protic-Fcar-Tact,
2000). The community of learners model (Brown, 1997) and the learning community model
(Bielaczyc, & Collins, 1999) are principle-based, and, as reflected in Table 2 (see ** and ****),
they appeared more accessible to beginning teachers than the knowledge building model. We
want to underscore here the fact that all this work occurred in a Francophone context, and that
all these models required translation from English to French. Obviously there is much less
documentation of these approaches for Francophone teachers than there is for Anglophone
teachers. However, there are original didactic models reflective of French approaches to
knowledge transmission and construction but they are beyond the scope of this paper.
Table 5 presents an overview of the 11 participants’ understandings of knowledge building
as a principle-based innovation in networked classrooms according to their level of advancement
along the professional development (PD) continuum. Key personal and contextual elements are
specified, and ones considered as cumulative throughout the PD continuum.
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TABLE 5 Understandings of knowledge building as a principle-based
innovation according to position along the professional development continuum
Professional development continuum
Personal &
contextual key elements
Elements reflecting more or less
harmonized sub-identities
Pre-service teachers
Volunteer participation Interest in the use of ICT in the classroom Constructivist-minded Adhesion to the learning community as a classroom organization model Highly successful during their practicum or internship (participation and reification) in a PROTIC classroom
Techne: Focus on procedures and activities • Asking how to conduct a learning project • Wanting to distinguish cooperative and collaborative learning • How to combine direct instruction and guided-discovery learning • How to use Inspiration software as a tool for student thinking Phronesis: Focus on classroom organization and management • Structuring teamwork • Identifying school learners’ misuse of laptops • Identifying school learners’ misuse of time (onsite/online) • Making decisions considering students’ ZPD • Moving ahead with scaffolding in mind Critical/emancipatory thinking: Focus on computer-supported collaborative learning • Familiarisation with the knowledge building principles • Introduction of different forms of online interaction • Knowledge building in the networked classroom
Beginning teaching/ Graduate studies
Choice of technology according to • Personal interest and
pedagogical intents informed by o curricula o theoretical constructs o other teaching team
members • Contexts o Classroom organization o School learners’ level of
access to computers o Remote Networked
School (RNS): technology/pedagogy/ administrative/collegial support
o Innovative teacher team that made other choices regarding technology and pedagogy
o University campus (graduate studies)
Techne: Focus on procedures and activities • Inquiring into the transfer of their PROTIC experience to new
settings (e.g., access to a database, and support) • Knowing the advanced functionalities of KF • Documenting oneself in a number of pedagogical strategies
Phronesis: Deliberation over classroom discourse • Assessing the possibility of implementing their know-how to teach
in a networked classroom within a new school context • Applying the knowledge building principles in a selective manner • Making use of the KF basic scaffolds or developing new ones • Adapting one’s planning with teacher team when engaging school
learners in authentic inquiry (emerging knowledge building community)
Critical/emancipatory thinking: Focus on the design of a knowledge building community • Application of a knowledge building pedagogy in low-tech settings • Combination of onsite/online classroom discourse
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Teaching (3 -5 years)
Choice of context according to • Teaching beliefs,
including opportunities to work in a networked classroom
• Opportunities available o Partnering in projects
making use of KF and the knowledge building principles
Participation in a blog-based community devoted to members’ improvement of their teaching practices as constructivist teachers.
Techne: Focus on procedures and activities • Inquiring into various Web-based tools to support collaboration • Applying “competing” pedagogical approaches Phronesis: Proactive action • Dealing with school settings challenging one’s teaching beliefs • Evaluating KF contributions in KF with the analytic toolkit (ATK)
Critical/emancipatory thinking: • Sharing one’s teaching experiences and experiments in new
settings with more senior knowledge building teachers for deeper implementation of a knowledge building practice into a new school
Contexts and relationships made a difference: their school-based teacher educators
(coop teachers) during their practicum or internship, their onsite teaching team, school
leadership, participation in the Remote Networked School initiative (in which Knowledge Forum
is one of the two basic collaborative tools), an online community or in the vKBC. Conservative
teaching beliefs regained centrality for some, and knowledge building moved to the periphery.
Contexts and relationships also made a difference in participants’ understandings of the
feasibility of engaging school learners into knowledge building: school learners’ ease of access
to computers, and encouragement by school leaders.
Preservice teachers’ levels of understanding of knowledge building as a principle-based innovation, and agency in implementation The 11 participants were active in the early stages of their professional development
regarding knowledge building as a principle-based innovation. Their participation and reification
of experiences contributed to the larger vKBC, along with the contributions of a core group of
twelve knowledge building teachers. Table 6 presents, according to Wiske’s levels of
understanding, a comparative overview of their thinking regarding this principle-based
innovation. A turquoise line is drawn to create two zones of agency pertaining to each of the two
groups of participants, and each is subdivided into Wiske’s four levels of understanding. The
movement goes from top to bottom: The 11 members of the knowledge building-oriented CoP
manifested some depth of understanding, and more senior participants experienced moments of
doubt and some surface understandings. For each level, however, senior participants were more
advanced.
16
TABLE 6
Zones of agency of the knowledge building-oriented CoP participants according to Wiske’s levels of understanding of knowledge building as a principle-based innovation
Levels of under-
standing
KBC subset of participants’ (preservice teachers) agency in implementation
N
aïve
leve
l of
unde
rsta
ndin
g
• KF as one technology among many other ICTs to be used in the networked classroom • Knowledge building as an accumulation of notes in specific KF views and databases • Low need expressed for KF use when school learners are in the same classroom • Use of KF as a digital board for exposing completed student productions
N
ovic
e le
vel o
f und
erst
andi
ng
• Scaffolds derived from knowledge building principles used in a routine manner • All students are working on KF at once instead of small groups taking turns • A number of notes are linked to or refer to other students’ contributions • Questions asked regarding how and when to end work in a KF view • Use of KF as a space for conducting debates among classmates • Entry-level use of the analytic toolkit (ATK) for evaluation purposes • Virtual tours of the community’s online discourse are designed • Transfer of (kb) knowledge to new settings is seen as doable
A
ppre
ntic
e le
vel o
f un
ders
tand
ing
• The knowledge building principles are considered key pedagogical guiding principles • Community’s knowledge building artefacts are identified by the teacher • Knowledge building pedagogy becomes a practice to reflect upon and to analyze • Understanding of advanced functionalities of KF translate into epistemological statements
M
aste
r lev
el o
f un
ders
tand
ing
• Instances of knowledge building are identifiable in the classroom discourse • Knowledge building practice is considered leading edge and improvable
Core local group of knowledge building teachers’ agency in implementation
17
Table 6 represents most of the local knowledge building-oriented CoP’s understandings.
Not included are the understandings of Knowledge Forum in the Remote Networked School
initiative, and their agency in the implementation of the knowledge building principles within their
network of small rural schools. And neither include the understandings of the more senior
participants brought forth through their participation in the Knowledge Society Network (KSN3),
an international community of researchers, educators and students.
Discussion
Findings illustrate what can be achieved when the knowledge building principles guide
teacher education practice. Preservice teachers engaged in knowledge building as they attempted
to make sense of what was going on in the PROTIC classrooms, and to understand what teaching
means in a networked classroom. The percentage of participants (15%) is a finding in itself. Out of
the 75 preservice teachers who did a practicum or an internship in the PROTIC classrooms, they
participated in their semester-based KBC’s discourse and reified their experiences according to
Van Manen’s three ways of knowing. They also demonstrated ongoing interest in knowledge
building as they became beginning teachers and/or graduate students. And all of those with three
to five years of experience continued to engage in an innovative practice that is guided in some
ways by the knowledge building principles. As their professional identity emerged, they shifted
preoccupations: from technical matters and coverage of mandated curricula to the design of
contexts in which school learners could manifest epistemic agency. This minority of former
preservice teachers are those participating in the knowledge building-oriented CoP. They manifest
deep understanding, and the ambition to lead school learners into idea improvement.
Doing so, they kept on the course of action they had engaged in as preservice teachers:
They showed agency in their semester-based KBC as well as in the networked classrooms by
making transformative moves such as explaining the knowledge building principles to their
cooperative teachers and creating virtual tours with knowledge building principles as their
framework. Their professional identity as knowledge building teachers continued to emerge as they
kept involved in the community well after graduation, and contributed to the professional
development KF database.
The professional development KF database was a key element of the design: Pre-service
teachers accessed it at the onset of their practicum or internship, and a few of them are still
contributing as they engage their own students into knowledge building. We suggest that this is a
3 The Knowledge Society Network, led by Marlene Scardamalia, is a design research program (Collins & Bielaczyc,
2004). See http://ikit.org for more information.
18
noteworthy exemplar of an emancipative form of teacher education and professional
development in the sense that university- and school-based teacher educators as well as
preservice teachers moved beyond best practices (the creation of a learning community as
learning environment; meaningful relationships between schools and universities).
Before formulating implications for the design of innovative learning environments in
which to engage preservice teachers, we remind the reader/the audience of Ben-Peretz’s (1995)
basic principles for transforming teacher education (feasibility, comprehensiveness, synergy, and
interaction). We address each of these organizational/ pedagogical principles as we formulate
the following implications:
1. Feasibility. The knowledge building community (KBC) model is a doable one in a
context of innovation where there is leadership and support at the technology and
pedagogical levels. In this case, the semester-based KBCs had their knowledge
building moments regarding what teaching means in a networked classroom.
2. Comprehensiveness. For a principle-based innovation like knowledge building to
impact on preservice teachers’ emerging professional identities, a university-school
partnership (dimension one) and along with it administrative/collegial leadership and
support for principle-based innovation appears to be basic. Onsite and online
participation and reification (dimension two) come next (semester-based KBCs).
Opportunities to stay connected to a local knowledge building-oriented CoP
(dimension three), which is itself connected to the broader knowledge building
community, also seems to be vital. In the above case, some preservice teachers
made remarkable contributions onsite/online and continued to do so as beginning
teachers or more experienced teachers. Given the issue of retaining teachers to the
profession and also the relevance of principle-based innovative teaching at the onset
of the 21st century, this three-dimensional approach could prove valuable.
3. Synergy. In the knowledge building-oriented CoP (vKBC) participants’ reifications
work in synergy. The presence of some has a modeling effect on the construction of
others. And the meaning of the first ones is brought forth even more when other
exemplars are added. A critical mass of exemplars can be reached. In the above
case, when reification led to explicit and tangible though static exemplars, knowledge
building principles became “visible” and onsite/online participation more dynamic.
4. Interaction. Knowledge building is a principle-based innovation that encourages
coherent progressive discourse among participants. In the above case, the
Knowledge Forum professional development database is reflective of such discourse.
19
Conclusion
How teacher educators can design principle-based innovative learning environments
was exemplified in this paper. Preservice teachers built knowledge collectively on teaching in a
networked classroom in their semester-based community, and a minority of them (15%) went on
to engage in further onsite/online applications of the knowledge building principles. Personal and
contextual factors influenced their participation and reification in a knowledge building-oriented
CoP. Three personal factors stand out and further inquiry is required: adhesion level to the
learning community as a classroom organization model, knowledge of the knowledge building
principles, and inclination toward principle-based understanding. It is no surprise that the
following contextual factors also stand out: the nature of the curriculum, school learners’ level of
access to computers, and technology/pedagogy/administrative/collegial leadership and support.
The 12 knowledge building principles form a complex system for improvable practice, and
teacher professional identity takes time to develop. The onsite teaching context must remain
favorable for an individual teacher’s agency to be manifest in the online activity of the knowledge
building-oriented CoP. A locally-based knowledge-building oriented teacher community appears
to be a good idea for sustainability and scalability, one that is connected to the broader
knowledge building community.
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