KB for Everyone

“Knowledge Building for Everyone” was the theme of the Knowledge Building Community Network Learning (KBCNL) event hosted by the Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice (CRPP) and held on 18 March 2024. The event brought together a community of 40 educators and 15 researchers at the National Institute of Education (NIE) to advance knowledge on Knowledge Building (KB) practice and to showcase real works on how KB enhanced classroom teaching and learning. In line with the event’s theme, presenters also shared insights on how they made KB accessible to other educators and their students, at different scales and in ways that were supported by various pedagogical resources or technological tools.

Future of Learning: Introduction and Building KB Culture in Schools

The event started with an address from Dr Teo Chew Lee, who stressed the importance of working with the wider educator community to sharpen the teaching practice. According to Dr Teo, it is not enough for researchers to just look at data. Rather, “We want to be connected to you (teachers).” These opening remarks were followed by a presentation from Dr Katherine Yuan, who dove deep into strategies for building the culture of knowledge building and emphasising the value of students engaging in reflection tasks such as the Journey of Thinking, before discussing some of the habits of creative minds.

An example of a school that embodies knowledge building culture was seen in an academy headed by Prof Zhang Yibin. He presented salient examples of KB triggers in his school (such as a zoo in the school) that facilitates students to find authentic problems to build new knowledge. The school proudly displayed examples of KB throughout its hallways, allowing students to immerse themselves in KB culture. To conclude, Prof Zhang brought on one of his teachers, Ms Emily Cao, to show attendees an example of a Mathematics lesson where KB was at the forefront. The widespread implementation of KB in Prof Zhang’s school highlighted the fact that Knowledge Building pedagogy is transformative both within and out of individual classrooms. Thus, the building of a KB infrastructure on a larger scale can go a long way to establish the culture for everyone.

Knowledge Building (KB) for Everyone: Varied Possibilities

Mr Melvin Chan shared his thoughts on building a KB-empowered environment in the context of professional learning and development. He put an emphasis on the people-oriented nature of professional development. He explained that teachers must see their peers as a community, and finished with the notable quote, “Every person is valuable! Every idea is improvable! Every inquiry is do-able!”

Four teachers, Teacher Sulo Kanapathy and Teacher Thein from a kindergarten class, and Ms Linda Shah and Ms Liyana Saine from a grade four class, shared ways that they incorporated KB strategies into their teaching practice . The value of a KB Cloud approach, where students build-on to the ideas of their peers by writing with different coloured pens, was made evident. These teachers stressed the need for students to find authentic problems in the subjects they are studying, and to develop “big idea questions”. Their works showed that KB can support even very young learners too (pre-schoolers) in collective inquiry.

Learning analytics, Generative AI and KB: Technological advances to support Knowledge Building (KB)

The remaining duration of the event zeroed in on how technology can be leveraged to enhance the KB process. Mr Andy Ng used the analogy of people making their own walking path on top of grass despite having a paved road available to highlight the fact that what students want to learn and what teachers want to teach do not always align. He posed the question “What if we can get students to start walking ‘desire lines’ of inquiry first, then we pave it with them.” He showed how he used an analytical tool called a word cloud to give his students the ability to come up with the questions that they wanted to explore. He remarked, “The students could come up with questions that even I could not come up with.”

Ms Chen Siyun and Ms Tan Yee Yin concluded the event with their respective presentations on the power of generative artificial intelligence to enhance KB practice. Ms Chen shared about a GPT chatbot named Fairbot that she used in her classroom. Fairbot was used to train her students to ask better questions and to use better vocabulary through the use of prompts. As an analytical tool, it was explained that Fairbot’s interactions with students can show teachers gaps in their students’ knowledge. Importantly, Fairbot can filter out content so that it can remain age appropriate for whoever is using it . Ms Tan then introduced the Knowledge Building Learning Companion for Teachers (KB LCT), another Chat GPT-based software that can be used to deepen teachers’ understanding of KB principles. Users can ask KB LCT to do things such as explain a principle in further detail or even to propose a lesson plan that uses KB principles. KB LCT aids teachers to integrate KB principles into lesson designs and potentially build their conceptual understanding and confidence in KB practice.

Closing remarks

The success of the KBCNL event again demonstrates the potential of a KB community to advance knowledge and foster culture. KBCNL makes it possible for everyone to learn collectively, and develop new ideas for KB practice to cater to different contexts, schools and classrooms. Through these sharings, it is hoped that educators will bring KB to their practice and take on a mindset to value and keep student ideas alive. Stay tuned for upcoming network learning sessions and events, and do not hesitate to join us, as knowledge building is for everyone.

Our first KBCNL for 2024 will be held in NIE on the 18th March (Monday) with the theme of “Knowledge Building for Everyone”. This event is set to kick off the other events that have been planned for the following months to come for the Knowledge Building Community in Singapore.

With expert teachers sharing their experiences alongside new research opportunities, there will definitely be some Knowledge Building takeaway for everyone!

If you have still not signed up for the event, what are you waiting for?

Use the QR code to register your attendance. We hope to see you there!

Course details

Duration: 4.5 hours (including e-learning)

The first of the series is a 3-hour workshop designed for teachers to engage students’ natural curiosity through understanding the big ideas of the electricity curriculum. Participants will acquire a more indepth knowledge of the primary science curriculum on electricity by collectively creating a curriculum map that connects different pieces of knowledge on electricity, drawing connections of facts towards the big ideas in the curriculum. The electricity curriculum at secondary level will be brought in to draw essential connections to the primary curriculum map. The workshop will then progress to analyse a pool of students’ questions and examination questions in relation to the big ideas and facts derived in the curriculum map.

Objective

This workshop aims to:

1. develop in-depth content knowledge on Electrical circuit by developing a “big idea” curriculum map that connects different pieces of knowledge on electricity;

2. develop competencies in unpacking the concepts of challenging PSLE questions;

3. develop competencies in understanding students’ questions and answers.

Outline

Lesson + 1 KB Network Learning:
1.   Lesson 1: Developing curriculum map on electricity  (1.5 hr e-learning + 3 hrs face-to-face)

• Analyse the various Subject Instructional Objectives (SIOs) demanded of Electrical circuit.

• Connect the various SIOs to derive facts, theories, and principles on electrical circuit.

• Discuss the relevance of the curriculum to understanding students’ ideas and questions.

• Explore research idea to engage students’ in conversation and identify students’ ideas and questions in relation to the big ideas.

2.     KB network learning: Network learning  (optional: 3 hours)

• Participate in a networking session with teachers and students to explore student-driven-collaborative-inquiry further, for greater exchange of ideas among teachers and students.

The event themed ‘Seeing Students Voices’ has concluded! This chapter brought together educators and researchers from institutions locally in Singapore as well as those from the international KB community. Living up to the theme, students from Chua Chu Kang Secondary School and Clementi Town Secondary School shared their cognitive journey in the uncovering of the interwar past within the cross-school collaboration project, ‘The History Times’. The respective teachers from both schools also followed up with their deliberate design behind the thinking and facilitation of this project.

Interested to find out more? Head over to this page!

In preparation of the Student KB Design Studio Nov2021, a KB refresher course will be taking place on the 19th November 2021.

Successful registrants who are unfamiliar with KB and the Knowledge Forum are encouraged to join this refresher course. Please reach out to your contact at NIE for more information.

The Knowledge Building Community Network Learning (KBCNL) is back in 2021! The event has concluded and we thank all attendees for their participation. You may view the proceedings of the KBCNL here!

Schedule

3:00pm - KBDS and E-Pedagogy (Panel discussion)

• Presentation of KBDS activities and relation to E-Pedagogy

• Discussion Panel - Relating the panel’s experiences to current classroom practices and initiatives (E.g., digital readiness)

3:40pm - Sharing by Red School House

3:50pm - Breakout discussion regarding E-pedagogy and enhancing classroom interactions with KB

4:10pm - Consolidation

4:20pm - Keynote by Hong Kong researcher on Idea-Friend Maps

4:35pm - Q&A and Conclusion

Dr Teo Chew Lee will be moderating a webinar by Professor Jim Slotta, Associate Professor Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, from OISE, University of Toronto.

Dr Teo Chew Lee, Senior Research Scientist at NIE, will be talking about case studies of teachers’ Knowledge Building (KB) communities and how teachers worked together through lockdowns caused by COVID-19 to plan and deliver lessons using the KB approach. This talk will be held as part of the New Education Normal Webinar Series on the 16th October 2020, from 3.00 to 4.30pm (GMT +8, Singapore time) using the online Zoom platform.

Please click on the above button or scan the following QR code to be directed to the registration page.

Publicity Poster

An introductory workshop to Learning Analytics for Knowledge Building Discussion has been designed for interested teachers to attend. The details of the workshop are as follow:

Date: 15 September 2020 (Tuesday)

Time: 3.30 pm to 5.00 pm (1.5 hours)

Venue: To be conducted via Zoom (Online)

Learning Analytics for Knowledge Building Discussion 

Synopsis:

This is a short introductory course on the use of learning analytics in the Knowledge Forum (KF) to facilitate knowledge building (KB) discourse. KB discourse are discussions that move beyond students sharing information and toward students actively developing deeper understanding and building upon ideas. It is an important component of e-pedagogy.

The course is intended for teachers who are familiar with KF and are keen to adapt the learning analytics in their KB lessons. The course includes interactive presentations, a hands-on session and discussion. At the end of this course, teachers will learn the use of learning analytics in KF and the interpretation of the visualisation of the learning analytics in relation to 21cc and deep learning. They will also learn ways to apply the LA to support students’ KB discourse. Attendees will need access to KF.

Dr Teo Chew Lee, Senior Research Scientist at NIE, will be offering her perspectives about work in Singapore schools. The talk will be held online on the 11th September 2020, from 6 to 7pm (GMT +8, Singapore time). Registration is free and seats are limited. You may still register to be on a waitlist.

Education in the City is a series of talks that offers perspectives from researchers who work in Singapore schools that will enable the public to better understand education issues and gain practical tips on what can be done to help the students.

KB NLC at Teck Whye Secondary School

The annual KB symposium 2017 was held on 20th November at Haig Girls School. It was a successful event with extensive reach involving students, teachers and school leaders from a number of local primary and secondary schools and tertiary institutions.

For full details on this event, please go to https://www.nie.edu.sg/news-detail/knowledge-building-(kb)-symposium