Building Collective Knowledge Through Conversation #engaginglitminds

We are born curious beings. The essence of our lives is threaded with the ultimate desire to know more and do more. Traditionally, children have gone to school as a place to accomplish this goal.

While the book, Engaging Literate Minds, would have been originally written during the time where most children attended school in person, the practical stories and insights are perhaps even more important now that the pandemic has changed our global landscape. Children are missing their classmates and learning communities. We are all missing the feeling of connection. How might we rethink ‘school’ so that connection and community are brought back to our students?

In chapter seven of Engaging Literate Minds, teacher Merry Komar describes in detail how the students in her second and third grade classroom built knowledge together. The generative conversations shared between students provide readers with a potential blueprint for how students can become active agents in their own learning and lives. This is critical to build engagement and for the ultimate goal: transfer of learning from school into lives. Merry’s blueprint could apply to a physical return to classes, or equally, a digital return using interactive and dynamic platforms.

Recent world events, captured through generative hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, calls all of us to action. As educators, we are part of a collective, responsible to arm our students with tools of agency and self-advocacy. Merry provides readers a window into how this could be done. She teaches children to listen to and learn from each other, and to learn about the world by understanding multiple perspectives.

How do we set up the conditions for knowledge-building conversations?

Collective understanding of how knowledge-building conversations unfold is an essential first step. Merry begins by posing a problem with intentional constraints, rather than a solution. Too often adults stop children from ‘doing the thinking’ by offering answers instead of questions. Merry invites her students to ‘do the thinking’, by asking them to puzzle how they could set up a conversation where they can see each other’s faces as they talk, fit 28 children in the space, and allow them time and comfort for the full depth of conversation with all voices heard. I wonder what solutions our students would generate if given the same challenge in an online environment?

During one of the classroom discussions shared in Engaging Literate Minds,

She (Merry) revoiced their (students’) strategies, helping them take control of their individual and collective bodies (p. 100).

Her role as a teacher was to amplify students’ voices. By naming what she noticed, she reflected the collective knowledge back to the group. Across conversations, students picked up this skill and began to name, reflect and connect just as Merry had modeled.

How do we begin the conversation?

Merry provides an example of how a book, such as The Invisible Boy by Patrice Barton, can become an invitation into collaborative knowledge building. Selecting texts that invite students to see themselves and others in new ways is one way teachers can begin to work with students to better understand what ‘collaborative’ truly means. Which books demand students’ critical thinking and ignite a desire to go deeper into knowledge? Which books lend themselves to ‘critical text sets’ where students build knowledge between each other and the texts themselves?

Collectively the authors of Engaging Literate Minds offer us some book suggestions in Appendix A (p. 296). Through my own searches for texts to use as provocations for knowledge building, I have found my social media network to be invaluable. Educators such as Pernille Ripp and Adrienne Gear, along with organizations such as We Need Diverse Books, offer text suggestions that can expand our understanding of ourselves and our world.

What do students learn through collaborative knowledge building conversations?

We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.

- John Dewey

A regular part of Merry and her grade two/three students’ regular routines included time to critically think about their conversations. Using an anchor chart with a rubric reminded students of the expectation that everyone’s “contributions were recognized as important” (p 110). Through reflecting on their own experiences within the knowledge-building conversations, students showed a depth of understanding far greater than their ages would suggest. Part of being a learning community includes collectively thinking about how the group is working and how it can continue to improve.

Merry describes how reflecting on one day’s conversation often began the jumping point for the next day’s learning. When the authors reflected on students’ conversations, they identified a large body of evidence proving the time spent in conversation was worth the investment. Students demonstrated understanding of knowledge building concepts/strategies, literacy concepts and social practices, and disciplinary knowledge.

When I taught Kindergarten, I found the same was true. My team partner and I would take turns facilitating and recording knowledge-building conversations. At the end of each day, our professional dialogue was an important part of our formative assessment as we collaboratively built our knowledge about students. By analyzing conversations, we learned much more about students’ understanding than we could have via any paper and pencil activity.

In Alberta, moving to emergency online learning was done within days and the flexibility and skill teachers and students showed has been astounding. Now that we know online learning will be part of Fall 2020 in ways not yet defined, I wonder how we might create a sense of community through knowledge-building conversations right from day one? How might we invite students to co-construct what these conversations will look like together?

This particular chapter from Engaging Literate Minds is a practical snapshot of how we might leverage the collective towards becoming citizens who speak and listen with the purpose to understand not just know. No one really knows what state the world will be in come September. But, we do know children will continue to be curious. As educators, we have the opportunity and responsibility to fan their desire to know and do more.

This post is part of our 2020 Summer Book Study. Find all previous posts and more information here. Also, we will discuss Engaging Literate Minds every Wednesday at 4:30 P.M. at the newsletter. Sign up below – it’s free!