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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