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Cooperative Learning - NIE Digital Repository - National Institute of ...

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98 Chai Ching Sing and Tan Seng Cheethe discussion. During this phase, students select and combine Notes thatrepresent their understanding. They may create different pages to placetheir Notes and link the pages. This helps the students in organizing theirknowledge in the form <strong>of</strong> hypermedia. At this stage, it is benficial for thestudents to use the recorded interactions for reflection on their researcheffort. They can identify strengths and weaknesses <strong>of</strong> their research strategies,group processes and utilization <strong>of</strong> resources.Challenges <strong>of</strong> Building a KBCBuidinga KBC is by no means an easy task. In this section, we discuss some<strong>of</strong> the potential obstacles that teachers might face based on research reportsand our experience. One potential problem is sustaining the inquiry. Wehave experienced difficulties due to students' reluctance to participate inonline discussion beyond the curriculum time. Reports from Canada seemto suggest that knowledge building activities that are supplemented by relevantfield trips can help to sustain the inquiry (see Caswell and Lamon,1998; Scardamalia, 2002). Field trips tend to generate active discussionswhen the students try ;o make connections between what they learn andwhat they experience. It is one strategy teachers might want to consider.Another challenge to the teachers is to scaffold students' inquiry. It isnot an easy task because the teachers have to provide just enough guidanceas to help progress students' inquiry and yet not so much that might makethe task too easy and un-motivating for the students. Expertise in scaffoldingstudents' learning can only be mastered through repeated practice. Theadvantage that Knowledge Forum <strong>of</strong>fers is that the interactions betweenteachers and students are recorded. These records provide good materialsfor teachers to reflect on and improve their practice.Time constraints and student's language skills are two other factors thatmight affect building a KBC (Chai et nl., 2003). Teachers have to be mentallyprepared for the time investment necessary for the mastery <strong>of</strong> thisapproach. They may need to struggle between fostering deep inquiry andcompleting the prescribed curriculum. One approach is to do it as anenrichment activity if curriculum restructuring is not feasible. Anotherproblem is student's language skills. Lower primary pupils need moreguidance and support in expressing their thoughts and typing their Notes.For students at Secondary level, it might be necessary to impose rules to

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