Delving into the journey of teachers and students in the knowledge building classroom, Teo’s playkit offers practical approaches to making classrooms a place of knowledge creation.
Teo highlights the potential and possibility of idea-centric discourse and interactions in Singapore’s high-performing education system while offering a trilogue among researchers, teachers and students: the agents of a knowledge building environment in classrooms. Documenting case examples of knowledge building lessons in relation to the curriculum design and pedagogical decisions and moves, as well as the formative assessment, the book focuses on those 21st-century practices embedded within the knowledge building process. It comprises a series of teachers’ journeys in different subjects and grades, demonstrating the depth and breadth of projects that students are capable of pursuing in class when they are entrusted to work with their own ideas and questions. It also offers a collection of concrete tools and strategies for teachers to use to support knowledge building work. The different case examples support teachers in their design effort and will encourage the community of researchers and educators to continue to imagine the possibilities of pedagogical educational reform.
Written for practitioners, this playkit aims to engage the wider community of teachers to play with their own lesson ideas as they engage their students in knowledge creation.
Author(s): Chew Lee Teo
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 124
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Why Do We Need Knowledge Building?
What Is Knowledge Building to Practitioners?
Why Knowledge Building?
Importance of Knowledge Building
Difficulties in Practice
Why Do 21st-Century Educators Need to Know and Practise Knowledge Building?
Why Now?
Notes
Chapter 3: Knowledge Building Principles and Practices
Knowledge Building Principles in Practice
Knowledge Building Language in Teacher-Student and Student-Student Interactions
Parts of Knowledge Building Practice
Strategies for Teachers to Facilitate Each Phase
Tools on Knowledge Building
Knowledge Building Scaffold Cards
Knowledge Forum
Chapter 4: Confronting Common Notions of Learning
Can Young Children Really Create Knowledge?
Three-Year-Old Children Built Sturdy Structures
Five-Year-Old Children Learn About Water Cycle
Key Ideas from Knowledge Building Classrooms
Why Is It So Difficult to Create Knowledge Building Classrooms? Confusion about Knowledge Building
Knowledge Building Is Meant for the Smarter Kids
Young Children Cannot Ask Good Questions; They Have No Idea!
Remove Labels and Focus on Collective Effort
Notes
Chapter 5: Teachers’ Knowledge Building Practices
Story on Turning Projects into Knowledge Building Efforts on Real-World Problems
Brainstorming: Tell Us What You Know…
Engaging in Real-World Problem, Real Community
Eliciting Their Questions: Knowledge Building Talk
New Information, New and Conflicting Ideas
Authoritative Sources and Informational Research
Bringing the Knowledge Together and Making a Change
Conclusion
Story on Young Children’s Natural Ability to Continually Improve Their Thoughts about Living Things
Pervasive Knowledge Building: Beginning of the Inquiry Process
Idea Diversity: Finding Students’ Interests
Democratising Knowledge. Improvable Ideas: Tapping in on Students’ Observations to Grow Their Ideas
Rise Above: Exploration of Seeds
Do Plants Drink Water?
Inquiry on What Plants Eat
Conclusion
Story on Turning Classroom Instruction Time into Knowledge Building Discourse
Role Play as History Lawyer
Real Ideas, Authentic Problems
Epistemic Agency
Diverse Ideas: Taking a Stand
Democratising Knowledge
Rise Above: Bringing in Learning Analytics to Support Students’ Discussion
Scaffold Tracker
Word Cloud
Improvable Ideas
Improvable Ideas: Looking and Building on Promising Ideas
Conclusion
Story on Meta-Talk about Language: Knowledge Building in Primary School English Language Classroom
Making the Writing Process Painless
An Authentic Writing Task
Idea Diversity
Conclusion
Story on Knowledge Building Network in Ontario – An Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Approach to Knowledge Building
Making Knowledge Building Pervasive: Designs for Engaging Students in Sustained Creative Work with Ideas within, across and beyond the Curriculum
Getting Started with Knowledge Building in Grade 6
Building Knowledge in Science
Building Knowledge in Social Studies
Building Knowledge in Math
Conclusion
Note
Chapter 6: Making It Happen: Living Theories, Thinking Pedagogy, Growing Classrooms
Drawing a Knowledge Building Curriculum Map
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Knowledge Building Talk
Suggested Knowledge Building Activities Leading to the Actual Knowledge Building Talk
Knowledge Building Meta-Talk
Assessment
Step 7
What is Knowledge Building Community?
Knowledge Building Community for Capacity Building
Note
Index
