The Student Knowledge Building Design Studio 2020 (KBDS2020) was held from the 23rd to 25th November 2020, with the aim of fostering a KB community among field experts, research analysts, teachers as learning scientists, and students as budding knowledge builders. Participants engaged in creative work by creating and building on ideas related to the studio’s central theme of “Saving Lives, Saving Planet”.
This year’s edition took place in a virtual setting owing to prevalent social distancing regulations, but it did not negate the enthusiasm of the studio’s participants from Singapore and across the world. In total, a record 57 students (age 10-16) and 14 teachers from over 10 schools across Singapore came together to meet and discuss ideas with experts, researchers, and analysts from the United States, Canada, and Singapore.
KBDS2020 theme of “Saving Lives, Saving Planet”
Community of Knowledge Builders
Teachers and students were able to meet with researchers from all around the world, including medical researchers from The Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (KITE), analysts from the Institute of Knowledge Innovation and Technology/OISE in Canada, and a researcher in local wildlife from NIE. Given the myriad of problems and tasks needed to save the planet and save lives, teachers and students set out to tackle real-world problems related to wildlife and human welfare.
On the one hand, students were given opportunities to work on ideas related to wildlife and the well-being of people alongside researchers and experts. When posed with design challenges, students’ interests in the topics peaked as they eagerly shared ideas with one another and also engaged with the researchers, thinking deeper about the topics, and continuously building on each other’s ideas.
On the other hand, teachers took on roles of being learning scientists in a parallel professional development (PD) strand that was newly implemented into the full studio program. We hoped that by creating a seamless and connected professional development experience for teachers, they would be able to experience and engage real data about students’ capabilities during knowledge building sessions and use them for timely reflection in the teacher community.
Designing the Knowledge Building Environment to foster a Knowledge Building Culture
The Design Studio was conducted using online discourse (Knowledge Forum; KF) and conferencing platforms (Zoom), providing a space for students, teachers, and researchers to collectively advance community knowledge. The Knowledge Forum provides a suite of productive tools and Learning Analytics that students can use to engage in meaningful discourse and showcase their designs and ideas. Scaffolds and KB principles were also provided for shaping activities, interactions, and flow of the Design Studio. The Knowledge Building environment was further designed to provide participants with a psychologically safe space to share and develop their ideas with the community.
The Welcome View was designed to welcome participants when they first enter the Design Studio
Students can access their group’s Home View on the Knowledge Forum to post and share ideas with each other, with prompts and hints related to KB scaffolds, principles, and Design Studio themes
Students’ discussions in their Home Views
As students separate into groups for discussions during the Design Studio, each group was provided with a specially designed Home View, which was a dedicated space on Knowledge Forum, instrumental for students to conduct their discussions about the central themes of the Design Studio. In this view, students were given free rein to contribute their ideas by writing notes, drawing diagrams representing prototypes, and to build on each other’s ideas for achieving plausible solutions that can be implemented to solve real and authentic problems.
The Teachers’ View on Knowledge Forum provides teachers with an online space to share and reflect on Knowledge Building principles, practices, and related analytics
Teachers’ community in action
In a parallel PD strand, the teachers formed a community to share their observations of students’ capabilities and ongoing engagement during the Design Studio. The teacher community worked on three broad topics: ‘Building a knowledge creating culture in schools’, ‘Attributes and competencies of student knowledge builders’ and ‘Teachers’ KB practice’, as part of deepening their understanding towards KB principles, practices, and related analytics.
The Community Discussion View on Knowledge Forum, where students, experts, and researchers can interact with each other to discuss about the themes of the Design Studio
Sharing inquiries with experts in the Community Discussion View
A distinct addition to this year’s Design Studio was the Community Discussion View on the Knowledge Forum, where medical experts and wildlife researchers can communicate and interact with all of the Design Studio participants, breaking down barriers between the different groups of participants at KBDS2020.
KBDS Day 1 (23rd Nov 2020)
The Design Studio started off with an opening talk by Dr Donald Philip, Ms Noreen Goraya, Ms Li Guijin, and Mr Eugene Hwang from the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (KITE). They provided an overview of the research and work that are being conducted at KITE, including the various types of Challenging Environments Assessment Labs (CEAL) that simulate authentic environments and problems that people in the society commonly face.
Ms. Noreen Goraya sharing about the ‘HomeLab’
Examples of CEALs are HomeLab, StairsLab, DriverLab, which contain different aids that can be used to facilitate different types of rehabilitations activities for affected people.
Following this, an authentic problem was presented to the students, challenging them to design a model of crutches that can address the physical discomfort and environmental barriers that current users commonly face. Throughout the day, students proposed and discussed ideas among themselves and with the experts, who shared more in-depth knowledge on how ideas can be improved, and students continued to use KF for building onto their groupmates’ ideas, before presenting their ideas and drawings of their prototypes.
Students use Knowledge Forum to post ideas, designs of crutches, and share their thoughts and ideas of new designs
A student sharing his thoughts with the rest of his group using the Zoom conferencing platform
The teacher community was similarly abuzz, as they observe students’ KB efforts, reflect, and post notes on the teachers’ view, as part of efforts in deepening their understanding of knowledge building practice in different learning environments.
Teachers sharing about Knowledge Building practices in their classrooms
Teachers building on each other’s responses and familiarising themselves with other teachers’ KB practices
KBDS Day 2 (24th Nov 2020)
Students observed the similarities and patterns of keywords that were used across the six groups, based on word clouds and network analyses
Learning Analytics in the hand of students
Dr Ahmad Khanlari and Ms Leanne Ma, researchers from the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT), provided students with an overview of how ideas were clustered and overlapped between groups, along with insights that were gleaned from the first day’s discussions. Students were engaged with various learning analytics, providing them with the knowledge on using the analytics findings to think and reflect on their discussions before taking the next step forward to advance community knowledge.
Brain, Learning, and Emotions – How we learn and are affected by emotions
Dr Erik Jahner, an Associate Coordinator of Supplemental Instruction from California State University (CSU), then shared with students about the different parts of the brain and how it is related to our emotions, empathy, and memory. As the students were given an emotional survey to complete at the start and before the end of each day of the Design Studio, he explained the usefulness of the collected data in understanding how emotions can influence the learning process.
A deeper look into Nature, Protection, and Extinction
Following this, Dr Norman Lim, a field ecologist and lecturer with the Natural Sciences & Science Education (NSSE) Academic Group, engaged the students on the theme of biodiversity before students broke out into groups for further discussions using a set of questions related to “Protecting Animals and Extinction”. Students then returned to share their ideas, discussions, and actions in their respective group’s views and the community discussion view.
Dr Norman Lim giving a talk about biodiversity, protection of animals, and extinction
Students posted their ideas about different sub-topics of Wildlife in the Knowledge Forum
Students search for resources on the internet about ecosystems
Teachers’ continued collaboration and build on
Within the teachers’ PD session, the analysts from IKIT assisted in sharing more about the type of KF analytics that were generated from the previous day’s discourse. Teachers proceeded to use these insights to help themselves navigate and explore each other’s ideas on how they can work together on KF and improve KB discourse in their own classrooms.
An example of how some teachers were continuing to collaborate and build on each other’s ideas in their Teachers' View, using analytical findings to facilitate deeper discourse
KBDS Day 3 (25th Nov 2020)
Dr Ahmad Khanlari explaining how the Venn diagrams were derived from using analytics on the Knowledge Forum
Students working together on slides for the final presentation
Time for reflection & deepening of learning
The third and final day started off with an analytics presentation by the analysts from OISE, who helped students to make sense of their discourse from the second day. Students were asked to reflect on the presented analytics by sharing their own current understanding during the session, along with their current best theory and potential areas that they want to further explore.
The students then broke up into their groups for a final session of discussions and to consolidate their thoughts and ideas in preparation of a final presentation to the larger group at the end of the Design Studio. As students engaged in discussions within their own groups, teachers in the PD session were also discussing and sharing with teachers who are more experienced in using KB and on how the implementation of KB in lessons can be better considered and implemented to benefit the students.
After an hour of intense working and deliberations, the students then regrouped for the final presentation, where students from each group were given a few minutes to present their work to their peers, teachers, and researchers. The Design Studio ended on a fitting note as students were able to come together to build on, showcase, and share a diversity of ideas and solutions that can be used to solve authentic problems related to the central theme of “Saving the Planet, Saving Lives.”
Students coming together to present their ideas and findings to each other before the end of the Studio
Teachers’ and students’ reflections about KBDS2020
Overall, students’ responses were very encouraging and positive. Although some teachers previously worry that their students could not manage some tasks, it was evident that the students were more than capable to knowledge build. The students reflected that they thoroughly enjoyed working on the challenges with students from other schools and by posting their notes and ideas on KF, the students were able to advance their understanding and reflect on their emotions. Teachers also posted their reflections after KBDS2020, indicating that they benefitted from the PD sessions over the 3 days and were willing to try and implement what has been discussed in the Design Studio during lessons in their own schools.
Students' positive feedback and how they have benefitted from the activities during KBDS2020
A teacher’s sequence of reflections posted on KF, showing how her perceptions of success were changed over the course of the Design Studio, by encouraging learners to move from being goal-driven towards becoming more active and reflective
Moving towards KBDS2021
As we enter the new year 2021, one of the students have already started expanding on this year’s theme for 2021’s Design Studio, which was suggested to be “Save Earth, Wear Passion”, with some concrete ideas about the flow that the student hoped to see in the next Design Studio. Moving forward, KBDS2020 has shown that students’ inquiry can be pervasive even beyond a virtual Design Studio and that this year’s Design Studio is not the end of the journey for knowledge builders, but rather the start of a new trajectory of deeper inquiry for both students and teachers alike!