Developing Progressive Knowledge Building through Idea-Friend Maps and Opportunistic Collaboration

Abstract

We designed and examined a knowledge-building environment in which representations of a learning analytics tool called Idea-Friend Maps (IFM) and opportunistic collaboration were used to scaffold progressive knowledge building in authentic scientific practices. Fifty-two Grade-Five students in a large class in China participated and worked on Human Input and Output, mediated by the online platform Knowledge Forum. Student groups were provided with analytics information generated from Knowledge Forum discourse as IFM to support cross-group fertilization and progressive knowledge building. Quantitative results using social network analysis of word networks show collective knowledge advancement and changing trajectories over time. Qualitative analysis using a framework demonstrates how students pursued related ideas from other research groups, identified the current state and future direction of community knowledge, and created new knowledge by crossing boundaries with IFM and opportunistic collaboration. This study sheds light on the role of learning analytics and opportunistic groups to scaffold young children to engage in authentic scientific practices like scientists.