Our Term 3 Collaborative Knowledge Building Journey

What does our data show? 

Shifts in academic data: 

When looking at our end of Term 3 academic data we have noticed a massive shift from the beginning of the year, especially in our Maths results. 

After seeing how successful our knowledge building sessions were for developing idea diversity, a safe place to learn from our mistakes and to take risks we felt like we wanted to explore how to utilise knowledge building within other curriculum areas. Coincidentally at that time we also had some Professional Learning as a staff on DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities). We immediately recognised the value of it as it was very similar to what we were doing in Technology with Collaborative Knowledge Building. So towards the end of Term 2 and all of Term 3 we adapted our Maths programme. During Maths sessions the students worked in mixed ability groups (much like our collaborative knowledge building sessions) and collaboratively worked to solve rich problems. They then shared with a larger group their different strategies and had to answer questions and justify their thinking. We feel this approach to our Maths programme was successful as the students were so used to this collaborative approach to learning together (not competing against each other to get the answer first). We have also observed this collaboration across other learning areas and would like to explore how to bring it more into our Literacy programme in Term 4. 

Maths Data: 

Below are our Maths results showing shifts from Term 1 to Term 3 when we changed our approach to teaching Maths. 

Term 1 to Term 2 Data: 

• From Term 1 to Term 2 we had 16% (8 students) of our class move at least one Global Stage for Maths (according to GLOSS testing which tests addition/subtraction, multiplication/division and ratios/proportions)
• Only 2 of our mandatory learners (4% of the total class) moved Global Stages from Term 1 to Term 2 (7 students - 14% of the total class) 
• During this time we also had Alert Level Lockdown for 7 weeks of the school year. This could account for the low movement of students' academic levels. 

Term 2 to Term 3 Data: 

• From Term 2 to Term 3 we had 48% (24 students) of our class move at least one Global Stage for Maths. This is a significant shift from the 16% in Term 1 to Term 2 data. We’ve contributed this to the change in our programme with the introduction of collaborative sessions, mixed ability grouping and the use of Talk Moves as a tool for them to use within their collaborative groups with each other. 
• Another 22% of our class made shifts within one or two of the three areas making up a Global Stage. 
• 4 of our mandatory learners (8% of the total class) moved at least one Global Stage from Term 2 to Term 3. Another one of our mandatory learners moved one stage for two parts of the GLOSS Test but not for Ratios/Proportions which we have not taught yet this year. 

Shift in Practical Skills Development:

With our Year 7 and 8s remaining onsite for Technology this year (as opposed to it being outsourced to a Technology centre catering for several small schools), we’ve had a purposefully scheduled time built into the timetable specifically for Technology.  

This has meant we’ve also been able to see a shift in practical skill development across the sessions throughout the year too. Kim started with the lego rubber-band powered cars, in which it was earlier noted in our blog:

“What became immediately apparent, was the varied (and limited) experience of the students in building and creating with lego.  Very few students had experience with the principles of building ‘freestyle’ with lego, many telling me they usually built from the instructions, then either put the set on display, or would pull it apart to build it again.  Or, if they were more open to creative experiments, as opposed to reading and following instructions, they usually limited themselves to buildings, landscapes, static forms - not working mechanisms.”

With the motorised fan-powered cars, students had difficulty again with the actual construction of a working model before they could even begin innovating their designs. This was after a skinny demo of how to create a straw sleeve for their skewer axles, put on the wheels, then attach them to the chassis, and finally how to assemble the battery operated fan with its motor. 

The students struggled with managing proportions, making sure components were free to move without resistance/friction, attaching different components to the chassis, even just making the fans work (putting the batteries in the right way or wiring the motor).

So it was quite surprising that when we moved on to the land yachts in Term 3, after giving the students the skinniest of demos, (essentially a simple ice block stick raft, with a skewer mast attached and a square sail), the students quickly adapted AND constructed their designs through the innovation cycle, experimenting with different hull types, mast and sail configurations, and attaching wheels, with little trouble at all, and more freedom to investigate and innovate on their designs, some groups collaboratively to building several different models to try out their ideas.

A lot more idea diversity was evident as well, due to increased confidence in practical building skills as well as our collaborative knowledge building skills.

Shifts in how we build our collaborative knowledge:

We also innovated on how we made claims, by experimenting with the use of an investigative team (instead of groups making their own claims), where one student from each group of 3-4 students was selected to go to the other groups, observe and record the claims of that group as to what makes a land yacht go faster and to report back during the conference.  

As each member of the investigative team came back with each of their three different claims they were mandated to collect, the teacher would just check they made sense, and at times send the investigative team member back to a group to seek further clarification.  As an investigative team, the students then organised similar ideas into clusters, and chose ones that best stated what others said as well.  The students then reported back to the class group in the conference.  It was great to have the students taking ownership of collecting claims, clustering ideas and sharing them back to the class.

We continued the critique stage as we usually did, except mandating groups to make at least 3 critiques.  We also removed the use of the online knowledge claims board, and went back to using post-its on a large board.  This stopped students from being influenced by the initial critiques of others, as well as distancing them from who made what claims, and forcing the students to focus on the actual content of the claim instead.

As the teacher shared back the critiques for each claim, we transferred the claim to the ladder of inference.  This is where we discovered the use of the line of trust was invaluable, as it gave a chance for the whole class group to voice where they wanted to place certain claims on the ladder of inference, with visible evidence of why from the critiques board (our questions, support and refutes of the claim, etc).

We then moved on to each group choosing what claim they’d investigate further, with the explicit purpose of us discovering as a class group what our combined ideas would produce in an ‘ultimate model’ - using our knowledge to build a land yacht that had all the possible features we knew would make it faster.

Where possible we tried to include our school community and experts.  We were fortunate to have a parent bring in their Blo-Kart (which interestingly was designed and patented locally in Papamoa).  The students were able to help build the Blo-Kart and then ride it out on our back field.

Please click on this link to read an article about the Blo-Kart

How do we maintain momentum? 

Initially in our Technology programme we started off with one-off sessions that were 3 hours and 15 minutes each. We then wanted to develop our curriculum further so we moved to double sessions to allow students to cycle through the innovation cycle multiple times in order to refine ideas and build more collaborative knowledge. With the first group we struggled to extend the sessions because they pretty much thought once they had made a land yacht that worked they no longer needed to improve their design (“It works, I’m done!”). Even with some land yacht racing it didn’t motivate them to want to change their designs. With the second group the double session was needed as this group worked extremely slowly through the first open exploration phase, which meant we did not really progress further than one cycle. 

After these sessions we had a few questions that we would like to look into further: 

• How do we maintain the momentum with the students over longer provocations? 
• How do we overcome the ‘I’m done’ idea? 
• How do we ensure our task design is ambiguous enough to make sure it generates idea diversity? 
• What do we do when the group comes to a natural finish of the innovation cycle - so what? now what? 

Over the next term we will attempt to answer some of our reflective questions during our Collaborative Knowledge Building Sessions. 

Watch this space….

Term 1 and 2 Reflections and Next Steps

Our Collaborative Knowledge Building Sessions for Term 1 and 2:

Lego Rubber-band Cars (Term 1 and 2): 

Starting in Term 1, and finishing in Term 2 (due to the lockdown), we ran three separate rotations of a one-off Collaborative Knowledge Building session with a third of our entire class each time (approx. 18 students).  Students were asked to power a lego car using a rubber band with the provocation - What makes a difference to the distance a car travels?  As I (Kim) was a new addition to the project, I structured it around what I read from the library of experiences, and used an online claims board and critique that previous teachers had designed and trialled with success.

The constraints included identical bags of lego pieces provided for each group (with an inventory to check against), that the students were restricted to using in the first phase of open exploration; separate skinny demos of how to build a simple frame with the lego pieces (ensuring holes for the back axle), how the basic rubber band mechanism works, and pointing out how to work the different wheel attachment options provided (modified 2x2 plates with a pin holder underneath vs modified 2x2 plates with small wheel holders on both sides).

What became immediately apparent, was the varied (and limited) experience of the students in building and creating with lego. Very few students had experience with the principles of building ‘freestyle’ with lego, many telling me they usually built from the instructions, then either put the set on display, or would pull it apart to build it again.  Or, if they were more open to creative experiments, as opposed to reading and following instructions, they usually limited themselves to buildings, landscapes, static forms - not working mechanisms.

With this in mind, a few claims in both the first and second sessions in response to the provocation, were about making the car stronger:

• We claim that if you build a strong base and put the strongest wheels on the back it will go fast and further. We think this is true because when we tested it it went further and faster than it went last time. (71,100,116 cm) 

• We claim that you need more support on it so it doesn't collapse… We think this claim is true because when we tried the first time it didn't have enough support so it collapsed.

On realisation that this was indeed the case, my response in the third session was to trial giving a little more guidance in the skinny demo, so they’d at least have the basic concepts of how to build a sturdy frame to then innovate on that in response to the provocation.  

Consequently, as success breeds success, more groups achieved collaborative success in the third session (all groups building cars that traveled distances 3-4 metres by the end of the session), than in the first and second sessions where only 1-2 groups were (although all groups were able to make their cars improve in distance over the course of the session).  There was more evidence of open exploration, innovation and willingness to trial and error in the third session, as kids ‘caught the bug’ of modifying their cars to make them travel further and further, then sharing and comparing their knowledge with other groups.

Motorised Fan-Powered Cars (Term 2): 

Continuing on with the car theme in Term 2, we again ran three separate rotations of a one-off Collaborative Knowledge Building session with a third of our entire class each time (approx. 18 students).  This time the students were asked to build a motorised fan-powered car using the materials provided to explore the provocation - What makes a difference to the speed a car travels?  This was taken directly from the library of experiences.

The constraints again included being restricted to using the materials provided, and a skinny demo of how to build a basic model (in which mine didn’t work because the fan kept hitting the ground at the back).

With more variables for this (compared to the rigidity of the lego cars), therefore requiring further refinement of basic construction skills  to build a basic model that worked, technical difficulties were inherent. This is evident in the teacher’s end of session reflections:

What happened as a result of the teaching in relation to the outcomes?

KIM (Session 4/Term 2) - Students were working better at modifying to make their models work, but not great at focusing on the original question - what makes a difference to the speed a car travels?  Even their claims weren’t really answering the question, discussing technical difficulties with trying to make it go at all instead.

Is there something I need to change? 

KIM (Session 4/Term 2) - All of the students chose the smaller A5 car templates today.  Not sure if it was due to my model being that size or not.  A little less imaginative in their ideas with the smaller cars, as they didn’t have to modify it as much to make it work.  Also, need to have the question on a whiteboard, and keep bringing their discussion back to it.

What have we discovered using the Line of Trust? 

A few impressions I had when conducting the line of trust during the 6 different conferences were:

• Some students were voting, or not voting, for a claim based on who had made it, and whether they trusted them personally.  Below is a perfect example, where two different groups in the same session made the same claim:

From this, I made the decision to remove names from the critiquing part of the online canvas and reporting time, keeping colours only to monitor all groups had contributed to the critique.

• Establishing consensus on the line of trust as a whole group didn’t always reflect differences in opinion.  Below is an example of two very similar claims within the same session, one even with three other groups supporting the claim and still it came out as a ‘one’ on the line of trust (meaning no trust at all), whereas, paradoxically, the second group came out with a ‘four’ on the line of trust (meaning all trust it) , yet with no supporting critique/claims.

This is where I can see where the ladder of inference would be far more accurate in reflecting the overall opinions of the whole group.  Unanswered questions, provisos, data could all be posted at the same time, validating everyone’s experiences and the data.

• Ranking of a claim on the line of trust didn’t necessarily feed into the next phase of open exploration - students would disregard claims with absolute trust rankings (4), and go with exploring the rankings that sparked the most interest, even if it got a 1 or 2 on the line of trust (little to no trust).  Examples of this were most evident with the motorised fan-powered cars.  Despite the questions, minimal supporting critique, refutation of the claim and a lower overall rank on the line of trust, nearly every group in the second phase of open exploration in this session tried adding more motors/fans to their models.

We think the Line of Trust might still have a place in the Claims and Critique phase of the Innovation Cycle, in that we could have students think, then physically move to a position with the expectation they will be called upon to justify their choice.  Throughout sharing and discussion time, we thought it would be powerful, and authentic, if we also created space for students to also change position when faced with more convincing arguments, and to share their justifications for doing so.  And for us to really examine as a group what it means to ‘trust’ or ‘distrust’ a claim, and what implications that has for us and further investigations.

How have our claims changed over time? 

In my first initial session (Lego Rubber-band Cars), I forgot to remind the students of the sentence stems to ensure there was some quality control.

• We claim that smaller is better because bigger is heavier and if you make a smaller body then the car will be lighter and faster
• We claim the bigger the body of the car the more stable it will be. We think that two rubber bands are more efficient.

In the second session, I remembered to remind the students to use the sentence stems, but their statements were quite simple and self-referencing.

• We claim that if you wind the rubber band back more it will go further. We think this is true because when we tried pulling it back it went further for us.
• We claim that  making the car longer helps the car go faster and longer. We think this is true because first we made the car short and then ‘L’ came up with the idea of making it longer so we did. It went faster and longer. 

In the third session, I prompted them to start including results from their own records, or their understanding of the scientific ‘why’ to support their claims. 

• We claim that if you pull back the wheels of the car back further, the further it will travel. We think this is true because our car managed to travel 3.9 meters by the force that ‘T’ pulled the wheels back.
• We claim that the lighter the car the further it will go. We think this is true because if the car is heavy it will take longer to travel a long distance and it will probably use all of the elastic energy.

In the second round of sessions (Motorised Fan-Powered Cars), the claims in each rotation were a huge improvement on earlier ones, despite many groups losing focus on the provocation asking what makes a difference to the speed a car goes and focus on what would make it work well.  They were more specific about why it would or wouldn’t work well in their claims.

• We claim that if you have three pairs of wheels/six wheels it helps to balance the car so it could go faster. We think this is true because when we only had four wheels it would sag down then wouldn't move.
• We claim that if you have a sturdy base/chassis it makes the car more able to be successful. We think this because we had an unstable base and the weight of the battery pack and fan were weighing down the ends and dragging the fan on the ground.
• We claim that the higher the motor is, the faster it will travel. We think this is true because our motor was too close to the ground and it was skidding on the carpet making it go slow.
• We claim that more motors would help it go faster. We think this is true because it has more fan power.
• We claim that when you put skewers underneath it will support the battery's weight. We think this is true  because when we did not have the structure  it fell through the cardboard. For example it would drag on the ground.

What is our plan moving forward? 

In discussing how the overall visibility of the online canvas seemed to encourage students to change their claims to make them different, just because someone else had ‘taken theirs', the concept of reliability in the Line of Trust dependent on who made the claims, and the delivering teacher’s perception of the format of the conference being very teacher-driven and lacking real engagement from the students in open discussion of ideas, we wanted to explore ideas for encouraging students to lead and do more talking.

Based on the concept of distributed ethnography, and real-time citizen engagement, we decided to explore the use of an investigative team of students (ethnographers) to observe and interview each other, and make claims based on their findings.  Before reporting back to the class, they’d come together to collate and synthesise the claims, facilitated and overseen by the teacher.  

Claim origins would need to be recorded for the purpose of returning for further investigation, to dig ‘deeper’, as well as providing the genealogy of ideas, for further innovation where we plan to create a final collaborative model bearing evidence of all the ideas from the different groups within the class group.

The investigative team will hopefully have the desired effect of removing emphasis on who made what claims, or groups changing claims because ‘someone else already wrote that’, and guide the students towards examining the content of the claims themselves.  In using students themselves to present the conference as well, we hope it’ll also provoke more open discussion amongst them all.  We think this might help move the teacher’s role more towards that of facilitator/ guide/coach, and away from the ‘leader up the front’.

End of Term 4 Reflection

Successes / New ideas and learning 

What have we been doing differently to support collaborative knowledge building in our classroom?

This term we altered the knowledge building cycle. We dove deeper into our provocation and used a ladder of inference to show our level of understanding and trust as a class. We first identified the big idea which was;

"You have travelled to an unknown country what things are you going to need to know/observe in order to understand their cultural practices (non-material and material)". 

This was relevant because of our whole school Culture Inquiry in Term 4. From here, students worked in collaborative groups of three and developed hunches. When grouping students we based this on mixed ability grouping instead of friendship groups. We believe it allows students to share their opinions openly instead of being swayed by friendships. The hunches they came up with were: food and restaurants, modes of transport we see, architecture, landmarks and environmental features, types of clothes, sports and sporting apparel and the types of animals and paw prints we observe.

We then turned these hunches into testable statements. In the same group of three (investigative teams), the students explored these testable statements using a Google Slide. On the slide they had opportunities to prove or disprove the statement they had made.

Students worked on proving and disproving their testable statement over three 30 - 45 minute sessions. Once students felt they had gathered enough evidence they ran a knowledge building conference. We continued using the online claims board. As a class, we found that the online claims board is more engaging and is a better visual for students. Students critiqued the claims made and gave justifications to support their comments. New knowledge was documented and new hunches were made. We referred to the ladder of inference and decided whether we can move any hunches closer to our data pool. We used the line of trust to help us decide.

Below are some images from a Google Slide created by one of the classes: 

What have we created to support collaborative knowledge building? 

A visual ladder of inference so that children can decide on whether their claim is closer to being in the data pool.

We continued to use our Google Document that tracked our mandatory and non mandatory learners. After each collaborative knowledge session, we recorded any anecdotal notes about these learners. For example if they contributed, whether their claim was chosen or how they interacted with their peers.

How are you using questioning to help students become more aware of their own reasoning / the thinking behind their ideas?

Each term we have used TALK Moves. We find these are incredibly successful as they encourage children to think critically about their own ideas and the ideas of others.

• Re voicing - so are you saying
• Repeating - can you repeat what was just said
• Reasoning - do you agree or disagree
• Adding on - would you like to add something more
• Wait time - take your time, we will wait
• Examples - can anyone support this with an example or counter example

How are students becoming more aware of their own thinking? 

We have continued using the student voice survey. The students are reflecting on their contributions to the knowledge building session and are giving ideas on ways they can improve their collaborative knowledge building as an individual and as a class. At the end of each session we also discuss a class summary of what we agreed / disagreed on and listen to ways we could further explore this.

How are students becoming more aware of their own thinking? 

The competitive element has suppressed in general in all classroom environments. Students are less focussed on winning and are more interested in solving problems as a collective. They are more aware of who they are working with across different areas of the curriculum. From working in these collaborative knowledge groups students are more open to working with a wider variety of students in other areas of learning.

Next steps / Questions for Reflection

• How will they articulate the learning? Is the learning objectives clear? Do students really understand why they are going through this process?
• Still unsure if students are building a deep level of knowledge or just skimming the surface with their responses.
• When the sessions run too long the children disengage. Shorter blocks of time seem to work better.

End of Term 3 Reflection

Successes / New ideas and learning 

What have we been doing differently to support collaborative knowledge building in our classroom?

This term, we have continued using the online claims board. We found that the online claims board is more engaging and is a better visual for students. We are also using the vocabulary across other areas of the curriculum, for example in Mathematics children are beginning to 'refute' or 'build on' others ideas. This shows that the vocabulary is becoming consolidated.

What have we created to support collaborative knowledge building? 

This term Georgia created a document that will track her mandatory and non mandatory learners. After each collaborative knowledge session, she records any anecdotal notes about these learners, for example if they contributed, whether their claim was chosen or how they interacted with their peers.

How have you been developing practices that support divergent thinking? What has and hasn’t worked?

Within our classrooms everybody's claims are listened to even if they are not selected for the conference. Students are beginning to understand the purpose of Knowledge Building so are beginning to move away from one off ideas and further explore their provocations.

How are you using questioning to help students become more aware of their own reasoning / the thinking behind their ideas?

Continuation of TALK MOVES are being used for Term 3

• Revoicing - so are you saying
• Repeating - can you repeat what was just said
• Reasoning - do you agree or disagree
• Adding on - would you like to add something more
• Wait time - take your time, we will wait
• Examples - can anyone support this with an example or counter example

How are students becoming more aware of their own thinking? 

Through the student voice survey children are reflecting on their contributions to the knowledge building session and are giving ideas on ways they can improve their collaborative knowledge building as an individual and as a class. At the end of each session we also discuss a class summary of what we agreed / disagreed on and listen to ways we could further explore this.

How are students becoming more aware of their own thinking? 

Children are more aware of who they are working with across different areas of the curriculum. From working in these collaborative knowledge groups students are more open to working with a wider variety of students in other areas of learning.

Next steps / Questions for Reflection

We do feel some of our questions from last term are still relevant: 

• How can can we create an associated task that would compliment the knowledge building provocations?
• How can teachers be clear about the objectives behind the provocations? What will students learn from building knowledge related to the provocation - how will they articulate the learning?
• How can progress from one off lessons? What opportunities can we provide for students to inquire more deeply into the different claims made in order to seek supporting / refuting evidence and to build on ideas.
• Where to next with our Knowledge Building Sessions - what other provocations could we create or explore? 

End of Term 2 Reflection

Successes / New ideas and learning 

What have we been doing differently to support collaborative knowledge building in our classroom?

We have been trialling an online canvas where each group has access to the same Google Doc. At the top of the document the students all entered their initial claims with their names clearly visible in the left hand column. Each group chose a different colour font so it was easy to distinguish the different groups. In the right hand box we then label the different clusters. From there a cluster gets selected and pasted into the online claims board (this is the same as the physical board but they are typing their responses using their same font/colour for their group). Once this is completed, we paste the numbers from the line of trust down the right hand side. 

What have we created to support collaborative knowledge building? 

We have created a visual poster for the line of trust. This has cartoon pictures which help students make a visual judgement. This is also represented in the online canvas. We also have continued to use the sentence stems to help students structure their claims so that they are easier to cluster and discuss. We have also created a student voice survey for students to complete after each knowledge building session. These seem to be manageable and accessible for all level of learners.

How have you been developing practices that support divergent thinking? What has and hasn’t worked?

We are firstly ensuring that everybody's claims are listened to, even if they are not selected for the conference. Students have also been given opportunities to explore their ideas further. For example while completing the session ‘What would happen if all humans disappeared in an instant’, we had an in depth discussion around pollution and the different gases that affect the earth. One student went home to research whether humans produced the same amount of Methane as cows. However we question below how we can move away from these one off sessions and provide opportunities for students to inquire more deeply into the different claims made.

How are you using questioning to help students become more aware of their own reasoning / the thinking behind their ideas?

We are using TALK Moves extensively when questioning students. This is an effective questioning technique as all students need to engage in the task, as they may be called upon.

Examples of TALK Moves are: 

• Revoicing - So are you saying ..
• Repeating - Can you repeat what was just said? 
• Reasoning - Do you agree or disagree? 
• Adding on - Would you like to add something more? 
• Wait time - Take your time, we will wait. 
• Examples - Can anyone support this with an example of counter example? 

How are students becoming more aware of their own thinking? 

Each time we complete a knowledge building session, children are asked to work with other students they have never worked with before. As children are constantly changing groups, they are having to share their ideas and knowledge with a new audience. They are also having to listen respectfully to the knowledge of others. Due to the changes in audience, students are having to be more aware of their own thinking and the thinking of their peers.

Through the student voice survey, students are reflecting on their contributions to the knowledge building sessions and are giving ideas on how they and the class could improve our collaborative knowledge building.

Next steps / Questions for Reflection

• How can we create an associated task that would compliment the knowledge building provocations? 
• How can teachers be clear about the objectives behind the provocations? What will students learn from building knowledge related to the provocation - how will they articulate the learning? 
• How can we progress from one off lessons? What opportunities can we provide for students to inquire more deeply into the different claims made in order to seek supporting / refuting evidence and to build on ideas. 

Reflection of TLIF

Collaborative Knowledge Building - Room 8

Term 1, 2019

Over the course of the Term 1, Room 8 completed 2 Collaborative Knowledge Building (CBK) tasks. These were Rockets, and Guess Who Ninjas. Below, I will compare how I believe Room 8 completed each of the phases.

Part One: Open Exploration

Rockets - The children were set the task, and I did a shoddy demonstration. For this task I set the children's groups. I did this because I wanted to challenge the children to work with people they don't usually work with. I also wanted to avoid the low academic children being in a group; with set groups I was able to mix up abilities. 

Guess Who Ninjas - For this task we first ran through the rules. We played a dummy game first to ensure that the children knew how to play, and what the rules were. For this task the children were able to choose their own partners. 

With both CBK tasks, the children were very engaged. With the Rockets task the children were so engaged they didn't want to leave when the time was up. With the Ninja's task, the children finished at different paces and this sometimes was challenging. 

Part Two: Claims and Critiques

Rockets - This was our first task, and it took a few goes for the children to understand what a claim was and what was expected. Next time, if I was to do this again with this year group, I would cover what a claim was and what was expected in an unrelated lesson previously. Here, the children made claims as a group. This sometimes caused difficulty within the groups as children were upset or frustrated when they disagreed with their groups claim.

Guess Who Ninjas - The children were better at setting claims as they knew what was expected from the Rockets task. There were more claims this time as this time each child was asked to make a claim. This made grouping of ideas more visible, but not always easier. Each child making a claim worked well as I believe every child felt 'heard' to a certain extent. The difficulties with disagreements were a lot fewer this way. 

Part Three: Building Collaborative Knowledge

Rockets - With this task, the children were very stuck around the different fuels. They were unable to think of different claims aside from fuel based claims. They didn't trust each other's claims about what fuels worked and did not work, and others had blind persistence. For some who were initially successful, they repeated the same action every time, producing the same result with no variation.

Guess Who Ninjas - Here the children were better at asking questions and confirming or denying claims compared to that of the Rocket task. The children asked a different range of questions too, which opened the CBK more, in my opinion. 

Successes

• Engagement of children in tasks. 
• Collaboration between children, particularly in the rockets task.
• Claim statement worked well for Guess Who Ninja challenge.
• Having each child make a claim (Guess Who Ninja challenge).
• Time frame for challenges.

Next steps

• Time frame for conference (This was implemented in Rocket activity, but not GWN as I needed to support low level learners as they weren't spread out, and most had low learner buddies who were unable to help).
• Typed sentence beginnings to make conference time shorter.
• Implementing the line of trust sooner.
• Discuss blind persistence with children and the impact it has.
• Discuss the need to change at least one element each time. 
• Discuss the importance of questioning. 
• Where there is potential for time difference in completing activities, discuss clear expectations and potentially starting claim process instead of children waiting around. 

Up and Away - Rockets

Term 1 2019 

Room 12 and Room 14 (60 students) began our journey into Collective Knowledge Building by trying to discover what would make a film canister rocket go the highest.

Part 1: Open Exploration
Students were asked to form groups of 3 and were asked to select their group members using the following criteria; one group member had to be from the other class and one other group member had to be someone you haven't worked with before. We started off by framing the challenge by saying; 'What makes a difference to the height of the rocket?' We had different fuels on offer for the students - these fuels were named after planets (Earth, Mercury, Pluto, Venus, Saturn). Mrs van Dijk gave an extremely shoddy demonstration on how to make a film canister rocket - her rocket didn't even launch. Students were then given an 11 minute time frame to experiment to see how high they could launch their rocket. Throughout this time we roved around the students provoking thinking and encouraging idea development through the use of reflective questioning.

Part 2: Claims and Critiques 
Twenty minutes after the shoddy demonstration all students were back in ready to start our 'Rocket' conference. Students were given one sticky note to write their claim - they were also given sentence starters help them frame up their claims (“We claim that ...... makes the rocket go higher/stops the rocket going high. We think this is true because.......”). Once students had put their claims up onto the whiteboard we clustered the claims according to similar variables. Our 5 clusters were vinegar, shape of cup, amount of powder, shaking and type/amount of fuel. As this was our first time clustering the claims we do feel we could have split a few of these to make a couple more clusters. We selected the cluster that had the most claims in it to put onto our knowledge building canvas. We went through each of these claims and sought clarification from different groups if their claim was unclear. The students were then given a brief outline on the following four headings on the knowledge building canvas and were then given a sticky note to respond to one of the claims made (either by asking a question, supporting or refuting it with evidence, or building on the initial idea). Many of the groups struggled initially with this and thought they had to make another claim. It took a lot longer as we had to check in with each group and refocus them on the four headings.

Part 3: Building Collective Understanding
During this part of the conference we felt we were running out of time and didn't really understand how to use the line of trust effectively. The students had also been sitting for a long time and were starting to lose focus. During this we noticed that the students tended to trust their own claims the most based on their experiences rather than on the content of the canvas. After a short break we came back to the canvas and used the line of trust to get a collaborative census on what the level of trust was for each claim (see numbers beside each claim for the level of trust). This was an extremely effective discussion as this showed the students which ideas they should pursue when they went out further exploration.

Students were then given another 11 minutes to explore the claims to affirm or build new knowledge about what would make the rocket go higher. There were a lot of great discussions going on within each group and between the different groups.

Reflection: 

Successes: 

• 60 students collaborating (two classes joined together). 
• We were impressed with how the students selected their group based on the criteria we gave them.
• The students were all fully engaged throughout the knowledge building challenge. 
• The first lot of claims the students gave (with very little guidance from us) were well written and quite varied. 
• Giving the students the claim statement to help with the writing of their claims really scaffolded them thought this. 
• Reflective questioning through the open exploration and bringing the students focus back to the initial question (What makes the difference to the height of the rocket?) really helped to keep the groups focussed on the task. 

Next Steps: 

• The timeframe for our claims and critiques so that students are not sitting too long on the mat. 
• Giving them sentence beginnings for the other four headings on the knowledge building canvas (questions, supporting evidence, refuting evidence, building ideas). 
• Moving onto using the line of trust quite quickly so that students can rank each of the claims. This way they can start thinking about what they would like to investigate in their next open exploration phase. 
• Have a discussion with the students about what blind persistence is and why it is not effective when building knowledge. 
• If we were to use the rocket experience again we would be careful what we named the fuels so the students didn't try to use this as a rule/pattern for which fuel would work best. 

Mandatory/Non-mandatory Learners: 

• One of our non-mandatory learners who often struggles to work in a group (he doesn't feel like his is listened to) initially fully participated in the open exploration. At one point he stepped out and said that his group was not listening to his ideas, but quickly came back round and joined in. He struggled with the length of the conference and had checked out towards the end. We will need to be mindful of this in our next knowledge building challenge. 
• Two of our mandatory learners who are extremely low across the curriculum struggled to last the length of the open exploration stage and really not articulate any of their findings or the purpose for the challenge. We will need to find ways to simplify some of the next challenges so that these students can access them along with the others. 
• Another one of our non-mandatory learners was the child who insisted that the fuels went in a particular order - she was looking for a rule (Pluto would work better because it is the furtherest away from the Earth). She also was insistent that her idea was the right one even after other students refuted her claim. In our second round of open exploration she continued to explore her own claim further (blind persistence). Before the next challenge we will need to check in with her group more often and to question their ideas to ensure blind persistence doesn't continue. 
• We noticed one of our non-mandatory students tell his group to be quiet when another group came over to see what they were doing. At this point we were filming this group so reminded them it was about collective knowledge building and that we need to learn from each other.