Practical Research On Using Knowledge Construction Teaching To Improve Undergraduate Students' Problem Awareness

Questions are the beginning of all learning practices and scientific research.However,current undergraduate students are afraid,unwilling and even unable to ask questions to a large extent after completing the basic education centered on examoriented.Therefore,the methods and techniques of Knowledge Building,a representative theory in the field of international Learning Sciences,is introduced in this study to carry out a one-semester teaching practice with 39 third-year undergraduate students,majoring in Educational Technology.The main questions explored in this study are as follows:(1)How to design and implement effective teaching strategies,using Knowledge Building theory to enhance students' problem awareness;(2)Whether students' problem awareness can produce the expected effects in two dimensions of intrinsic motivational element and extrinsic behavioral performance.Three iterations of instructional interventions based on Knowledge Building theory are developed.The first iteration focuses on developing a classroom culture of free questioning and collaborative inquiry,with specific strategies including creating authentic problem situations and a safe environment for free questioning,and individual/group report;aiming at the problems of students in the first round,such as the lack of initiative and single-angle of questioning,the second iteration focuses on developing students' collaborative cognitive responsibility and the ability to identify problems from multiple perspectives,with specific strategies including establishing community rules,negotiating how to divide problem areas in Knowledge Forum,guiding students to ask diverse questions as well as knowledge building walls;in response to the lack of depth in student questioning that emerged in the second round,the focus of the third round is to facilitate students' ability to read and constructive use of authoritative sources,as well as sorting and refining students' research to enable them to identify new detailed questions,with specific strategies including typical group presentations and written summaries of research findings.Data analysis includes two aspects: data on intrinsic motivational element is obtained from the problem awareness questionnaires distributed by the researcher before and after teaching;data on external behavioral performance is obtained from classroom audio and video recordings collected and compiled by the researcher during the teaching process and notes posted by students in the Knowledge Forum during each round of teaching.The result of paired-samples t-test of the questionnaires completed by the students at the beginning and at the end of the teaching period reveals that Knowledge Building teaching can have a significant positive impact on the intrinsic motivational element of students' problem awareness.Content analysis is used to code the questions posed by students in the classroom and Knowledge Forum,and to analyze the developmental changes in students' external behavioral performance of problem awareness over the three rounds of instruction from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives.It is found that with the iteration of the three rounds of instructional strategies,students can ask more questions with depth and inquiry value.Apparently,Knowledge Building theory and its technology-supported teaching environment can enhance the problem awareness of undergraduates.