Reflection on previous year:

• Quality of discussion had improved
• Some students did not participate in the discussion
• Further facilitation of discussion was required
  
  
  
  

Highlights of design:

• Students were provided an authentic scenario (i.e. field studies) and asked to generate their own inquiry questions.
• Students worked in groups to formulate their own criteria for good notes and shared with the class the good notes they had identified
• Groups then categorized big ideas and wrote a summary note on KF.
  
  
  
  

Learning outcomes:

• Increase in number of notes created by students
• Significant increase in the percent of notes read by students
• Increase in percent of notes linked
• Increase in number of note revisions
• Increase in number of scaffolds used
• A more connected social network diagram as shown by the spider web-like figure in the graph, which shows that students built on each other’s notes
• Increase in depth of discussion thread
• Increase in average number of notes per thread
  
  

Though the quality of students’ discussion had improved in the second year, some students did not participate in the discussion. Therefore, in the third year, Hidy aimed at having every student engaged in the discussion and encouraging students to take charge of their own learning. She set a knowledge building goal, which was to promote learning to learn and to develop students’ ability to engage in inquiry-based learning. In the third year, she selected the topic “Wild space: Sustainability and water” for her class of Secondary 1 students and arranged for her students to collaborate with another class in Quebec, Canada.