Building capacity to discover and creating knowledge-building community through technology

Paula Hodgson
Lilian LP Vrijmoed
KP Mark
Crusher Wong

City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

 

Abstract:

University study tends to be didactic when learners are expected to acquire declarative and procedural knowledge. As educators reconsider processes and outcomes of learning, embedding discovery as part of the learning process may encourage learners to build both intuition and capacity to learn and empower them to build knowledge as they make meaning through inductive and deductive approaches of learning. To capture what was discovered and continue further exploration, learners can use technologies as pedagogical tools to document and share among members in their learning communities. The paper reported learners’ experiences and their perceptions on how they used technologies to discover authentic cases, and the outcomes of interactions in the Web 2.0 environments in three courses in a university. Survey and focus group interviews were conducted by the end of the courses. Results indicated that students were familiar with using different technologies as they explored and reported authentic cases, but students had different ways to use technology during the journey of discovery. The challenging part was reviewing cases identified by peers. The core learning moments rested on the capability to question one another on cases, and how individuals exerted cognitive reasoning to explain and justify their cases. This resulted in deep and broadening understanding of the subject matters as these students interacted in the environments. In addition, the course-based learning communities can be extended in the university to the local or international communities. Subsequently, this can make a wider impact for both learners and communities at large.