Analyzing collaborative knowledge construction in secondary school biology

This research investigates student collaboration in a high school biology curriculum that was based on the Knowledge Community and Inquiry (KCI) model. Using co-design, the researchers collaborated with three high school science teachers to design a curriculum where 112 grade-ten biology students collaboratively developed a community wiki about Canadian ecozones and biodiversity issues. Students then used the wiki as the primary resource for a subsequent inquiry activity. This paper analyzes students' contributions to the knowledge base, test performance, and student satisfaction to evaluate the efficacy of the KCI model. A new method of analysis for collaborative wiki artifacts was developed to measure student interaction in the wiki. We found that students who were higher contributors to the knowledge base performed better on a post-test than students who were measured as low contributors. Our findings suggest that the KCI model is a promising mechanism for supporting both collaborative and individual learning.

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