Position paper submitted to workshop on “Designing for Reflective Practitioners”, CHI 2004, Vienna - Austria, April 25 th . Knowledge Building in Distributed Collaborative Learning: Organizing Information in Multiple Worlds Anders Mørch InterMedia University of Oslo Norway +47 22840713 anders.morch@intermedia.uio.no Karianne Omdahl Department of Information Science University of Bergen Norway +47 55558381 karianne.omdahl@uib.no Sten Ludvigsen InterMedia University of Oslo Norway +47 22840712 sten.ludvigsen@intermedia.uio.no ABSTRACT In the CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning) community a recent topic of keen debate has been whether or not online discussion forums should be typed or not (i.e. information categorized according to predefined message types). We have analyzed findings from a field trial with Future Learning Environment (FLE) and we identified some problems with the system’s knowledge building categories. We propose to integrate collaborative knowledge building with physical modeling (designing with materials) to get more mileage out of information categorization. This is stimulated by Donald Schön’s bottom-up approach to information categorization, from design materials to repertoires of cases. 1. Design according to Schön In a series of empirical studies of professionals in a range of domains Schön (1983) has shown that information categorization to a large extent is bottom up work rather than originating from readymade categories. This process starts from “materials of a situation” and in a good process of design results in new understanding realized as a “case” added to a existing repertoire of cases The notion of a repertoire is more fluid than a concept and constructed out of the local, often messy, situation a person finds himself in when solving a design problem, but in the end is linked with existing understanding so that it can be reused in future situations requiring similar problem solving. A repertoire is thus distinguished from a category set by being the result of a combination of bottom up (situation specific) sense making and top-down structuring of existing understanding. In his own words, analyzing an architect at work, Schön describes the design process as follows: “When a practitioner makes sense of a situation he perceives to be unique, he sees it as something already present in his repertoire. To see this site as that one is not to subsume the first under a familiar category or rule. It is, rather, to see the unfamiliar, unique situation as both similar to and different from the familiar one, without at first being able to say similar or different with respect to what. The familiar situation functions as a precedent, or a metaphor (Schön 1983, p. 138). The quote suggests categories (as flexible repertoire) should be allowed to evolve over time, stimulated and informed by a reciprocal relation of adaptation and situational “back talk”. Adaptation occurs when categories are used locally and the back talk provides feedback to regulate the adaptation process so that it makes sense to the participants. Even though students are not professionals in the sense just described they need to take part in similar processes to successfully learn. For example learners need to engage in a process of grounding, i.e. interaction necessary to establish a common ground to complete collaboration tasks (Baker et al., 1999, Koschmann & LeBaron, 2003). Physical modeling by manipulating domain-specific materials is one form of grounding appropriate for conceptual knowledge building. The following quote by Donald Schön is illuminating in this regard: “the designer’s moves tend, happily or unhappily, to produce consequences other than those intended. When this happens, the designer may take account of the unintended changes he has made in the situation by forming new appreciations and understanding and by making new moves (Schön, 1983, p. 79).” Design according to this occurs on two levels. On the one hand, it is about “forming new appreciations and understanding,” on the other it is about “making moves” in the domain. Moves with unintended consequences can serve as triggers for conceptual knowledge building by identifying new problems (framing of issues) that may require exploration and explanation before new moves can be made. 2. Conceptual Knowledge Building CSCL focuses on technology in its role as mediator of activity within a collaborative setting of instruction and learning, learners and facilitators. It has inherited its intellectual legacy from theoretical schools in the social sciences, in particular sociology, anthropology, and communication (Stahl, 2002). Knowledge, from this perspective, is seen as a human construction elaborated through communication and collaboration with peers, mediated by social and cultural artifacts implying that learning and knowledge building first of all occur on inter-personal grounds within a community of learners before occurring on the intra- personal realm of the individual learner (Vygotsky, 1978). A pedagogical model developed within this perspective is Knowledge Building (Scardemalia & Bereiter, 1994). Knowledge building entails that new knowledge is not simply assimilated with the help of a more knowledgeable person, but also jointly constructed through solving problems with peers by a process of building mutual understanding in some domain of inquiry. Knowledge building and its subsequent refinement Progressive Inquiry (Hakkarainen, Lipponen, & Järvelä 2002) have received considerable attention in the CSCL community. A reason for this is that the model fits well with the educational philosophy