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This paper explores the possibility that knowledge building metadiscourse-discourse about knowledge building-can produce a positive feedback loop, with positive emotional state and knowledge advancement serving to increase each other. Grades 2 and 3 students’ utterances over several months were analyzed as a unit of study, starting with identification of each discourse move and corresponding emotion, defined as a state. These states were then analyzed over time, with a focus on metadiscourse sessions in which students reflected on earlier discourse to identify questions and ideas to be pursued in greater depth. Each discourse move-emotional state was analyzed to determine frequency, transition from one state to another, and spread of each state such as “reflection and positive” and “proposing new directions for inquiry and curiosity.” These two states were among the most frequently occurring in the metadiscourse sessions and virtually absent in other discourse sessions. Transition rates indicated that reflection tended to trigger more reflection, and proposing a new direction led to more proposals for new directions. Sequential pattern analysis suggested sub-sequences specific to metadiscourse sessions. Overall, results indicate that engaging in metadiscourse contributes to students’ productive KB and positive emotions.

It seems certain that blended learning will be on the rise in higher education, with in-person meetings increasingly precious time, and online synchronous and asynchronous sessions used to complement them. This paper examines Knowledge Building in two graduate courses conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were no in-person sessions; rather, synchronous Zoom sessions were combined with asynchronous work in a knowledge building environment–Knowledge Forum. Knowledge Forum is designed to make transparent and accessible means by which deep understanding and sustained creative work proceed. Accordingly, for example, rise-above notes and view rearrangement support synthesis and explanatory coherence, epistemic markers support knowledge-advancing discourse, and analytics support self-and group-monitoring of progress as work proceeds. In this report, we focus on these aspects of Knowledge Building, using a subset of analytics to enhance understanding of key concepts and design of principles-based practices to advance education for knowledge creation. Overall, we aimed to have students take collective responsibility for advancing community knowledge, rather than focus exclusively on individual achievement. As we reflect on our experiences and challenges, we attempt to answer the following questions: Do courses that introduce Knowledge Building in higher education need an in-person or synchronous component? In what ways can we leverage in-class time and Knowledge Forum work to engage students in more advanced knowledge creation? We conclude that synchronous and asynchronous Knowledge Building can be combined in powerful new ways to provide students with more design time and deeper engagement with content and peers.

En el treball productiu basat en el coneixement i les idees, hi tenen un paper vital dos tipus de pensament: el pensament crític i el de disseny. El pensament crític ha dominat l’educació, a partir dels diàlegs socràtics des de l’antiguitat fins als moderns marcs d’argumentació, els programaris i les llistes de competències per al segle XXI, orientacions curriculars i proves d’avaluació. El pensament de disseny, per contra, ha entrat en el discurs educatiu molt més tard i des de fora, des de contextos en els quals el treball creatiu amb el coneixement i les idees és dominant. Com que l’educació per a la innovació esdevé un imperatiu, el pensament de disseny ha començat a captar a l’atenció però encara ha de integrar-se en el corrent principal detreball amb continguts educatius. La construcció del coneixement opera en mode de disseny. En aquesta modalitat, el pensament de disseny té el paper principal en la creació de coneixement i en la millora de les idees, mentre que el pensament crític hi exerceix importants funcions de suport. Moure’s de manera flexible entre els dos tipus de pensament és essencial. Per donar suport a la construcció del coneixement és necessari que els mestres estableixin una comunitat que els proporcioni suport mutu per al discurs de la construcció del coneixement i mantenir una norma de responsabilitat col·lectiva pel que fa a la noció de millora. Són necessaris molts anys per desenvolupar un alt nivell tant en el pensament crític com en el pensament de disseny, però els nens poden començar a funcionar en la modalitat de disseny des de molt joves i amb això guanyar la competència en ambdós tipus de pensament i aprendre a usar-los junts en l’avanç del coneixement de la comunitat. Això, en el sentit més ampli, és a dir, en la socialització en la vida i en el treball en una societat del coneixement. Paraules clau: Construcció del coneixement, pensament crític, pensament de disseny, innovació, comunitat de coneixement, millora de les idees.

Knowledge Building principles such as real ideas, authentic problems; epistemic agency; and collective responsibility for advancement of community knowledge convey ways in which Knowledge Building mirrors work in knowledge-creating communities. Previous studies suggest Metadiscourse--discourse about discourse--helps sustain and improve community knowledge. Do students' emotions differ during metadiscourse compared to other discourse contexts? Is metadiscourse even possible in early elementary grades? If so, what emotions are associated with discourse moves requiring high-level reflection on prior discourse? Is it possible that such reflection engenders positive emotions required for sustained creative work with ideas? To address these issues, the authors engaged 22 grade 2 students (7 years old) in monthly metadiscourse sessions over four months, during which they discussed how their ideas changed, what they still wondered about, and what ideas they wanted to pursue. Video recordings of face-to-face sessions, online Knowledge Forum notes, students' interviews, teacher's reflections, and field notes were analyzed using discourse analysis, multi-faceted coding, and correlation analysis. The authors examined how students' emotions and discourse moves differ in Knowledge Building discourse and metadiscourse and correlations between emotions and different discourse moves. The results show: (1) greater levels of enjoyment, reflection on previous ideas, and proposals for new directions for inquiry during metadiscourse sessions; (2) confidence positively associated with explanations and proposals for new directions for inquiry; (3) positive emotions associated with increasingly challenging cognitive work. The relationships between early elementary-grade students' emotions and cognition during Knowledge Building is an underdeveloped area of investigation; in an effort to guide future research a model for regulating emotions in Knowledge Building is presented.

New knowledge media provide new opportunities and means for addressing fundamental problems in education. But there are now so many designs for educational environments that choosing between them is difficult. Advancing the state of the art will require greater clarity regarding different possibilities and the ways in which designs reflect different underlying theoretical frameworks and research bases. This article highlights a particular form of online environment, a knowledge building environment (KBE), and contrasts it with online environments designed more specifically for course delivery, computer-mediated projects, and distance learning. Although a KBE can be used for these purposes, its distinctive strengths emerge in contexts—educational and other—where the emphasis is on knowledge creation and sustained idea improvement.

Online discourse from a class of 22 students (11 boys and 11 girls) was analysed to assess advances in conceptual understanding and literacy. The students worked over a two-year period (Grades 3-4), during which they contributed notes to an online Knowledge Building environment—Knowledge Forum®. Contributions revealed that both boys and girls produced a substantial amount of text and graphics, and that their written texts incorporated an increasing proportion of less-frequent, advanced words, including academic vocabulary and domain-specific words from grade levels higher than their own. Brief accounts of classroom discourse indicate how deep understanding and vocabulary growth mutually support each other in online and offline exchanges. The gender differences that were observed show boys doing slightly better than girls, suggesting that Knowledge Building has the potential to help boys overcome weaknesses in literacy.

The Knowledge Society Network (KSN) “takes advantage of new knowledge media to maximize and democratize society’s knowledge-creating capacity” (www.ikit.org/KSN). This article synthesizes the principles and designs of this network which were initiated over 15 years ago, and presents an exploratory study of interactions in the KSN over four years, elaborating different network structures and the potential of each for knowledge advancement. Four major sub-network structures for participant and idea interaction are described, as reflected in social network analysis of discourse in the KSN. Strengths and weaknesses of work within each sub-network were identified with suggestions for creating a more dynamic, sustained network for knowledge advancement.

This paper examines theoretical, pedagogical, and technological differences between two technologies that have been used in undergraduate interprofessional health sciences at the University of Toronto. One, a learning management system, WebCT 2.0, supports online coursework. The other, a Knowledge Building environment, Knowledge Forum 2.0, supports the collaborative work of knowledge-creating communities. Seventy students from six health science programs (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Pharmacy and Physical Therapy) participated online in a 5-day initiative to advance understanding of core principles and professional roles in pain assessment and management. Knowledge Forum functioned well as a learning management system but to preserve comparability between the two technologies its full resources were not brought into play. In this paper we examine three distinctive affordances of Knowledge Forum that have implications for health sciences education: (1) supports for Knowledge Building discourse as distinct from standard threaded discourse; (2) integration of sociocognitive functions as distinct from an assortment of separate tools; and (3) resources for multidimensional social and cognitive assessment that go beyond common participation indicators and instructor-designed quizzes and analyses. We argue that these design characteristics have the potential to open educational pathways that traditional learning management systems leave closed.

Knowledge Building as a theoretical, pedagogical, and technological innovation focuses on the 21st century need to work creatively with knowledge. The team now advancing Knowledge Building spans multiple disciplines, sectors, and cultural contexts. Several teacher-researcher-government partnerships have formed to bring about the systemic changes required to accommodate pedagogical innovations that range from elementary to tertiary education and require new forms of teacher education. This paper tracks the evolution of Knowledge Building, starting with research on “knowledge transforming,” “intentional learning,” and other processes leading to the development of expertise. It provides an account of how the first networked collaborative learning environment was developed to support such processes and next-generation research and development to advance education for innovation and knowledge creation.

Can children genuinely create new knowledge, as opposed to merely carrying out activities that resemble those of mature scientists and innovators? The answer is yes, provided the comparison is not to works of genius but to standards that prevail in ordinary research communities. One important product of knowledge creation is concepts and tools that enable further knowledge creation. This is the kind of knowledge creation of greatest value in childhood education. Examples of it, drawn from elementary school knowledge-building classrooms, are examined to show both the attainability and the authenticity of knowledge creation to enable knowledge creation. It is mainly achieved through students’ theory building, and it is a powerful way of converting declarative knowledge to productive knowledge.

This study examined growth in graphical literacy for students contributing to an online, multimedia, communal environment as they advanced their understanding of biology, history and optics. Their science and history studies started early in Grade 3 and continued to the end of Grade 4; students did not receive instruction in graphics production, nor were they required to produce graphics. Results show that students spontaneously produced graphics that advanced along seven dimensions, including effective representation of complex ideas, use of source information and captions, and aesthetic quality. On average, the scores for the seven dimensions were higher for Grade 4 students with two years of experience with Knowledge Building pedagogy and technology (Knowledge Forum®) than for Grade 6 students with one year of experience. The overall pattern of results suggests reciprocal enhancement of graphical, textual, digital, and scientific literacy, with students exceeding expectations by available norms, and performance enhanced through extended Knowledge Building experience.

In 1993 Carey and Smith conjectured that the most promising way to boost students’ understanding of the nature of science is a “theory-building approach to teaching about inquiry.” The research reported here tested this conjecture by comparing results from two Grade 4 classrooms that differed in their emphasis on and technological support for creating and improving theories. One class followed a Knowledge Building approach and used Knowledge Forum®, which together emphasize theory improvement and sustained creative work with ideas. The other class followed an inquiry approach mediated through collaborative project-based activities. Apart from this, the two classes were demographically similar and both fell within the broad category of constructivist, inquiry-based approaches and employed a range of modes and media for investigative research and reports. An augmented version of Carey and Smith’s Nature of Science Interview showed that the Knowledge Building approach resulted in deeper understanding of the nature of theoretical progress, the connections between theories and facts, and the role of ideas in scientific inquiry.