orchestration in collaborative long-term inquiry (Publication III)
The sub-study III concentrated on the teacher’s longitudinal process between the plans and reflections in the background of the project and the guidance enacted in the classroom. Especially the purpose was to examine and depict the teacher’s balancing between structure and flexibility in order to support the collaborative inquiry. The analysis was based on video recordings and the teacher’s reflective diaries that were used to define the teacher’s background work. Moreover, while sub study II showed the guidance and organizing elements of the collective inquiry classroom teacher, sub study III defined the acts as a part of a longitudinal, object-oriented trajectory.
For the video analysis, the collective whole class activities that included teacher’s guidance or teacher’s and students’ joint discussions were selected.
The attention was drawn to the sustainment of inquiry and how the teacher regulated her own role in the activities in order to support students’participation in the project. Some of the whole class activities were collectively developed.
During those activities, the participants of the community together tried to discuss or plan how to continue. Accordingly, the teacher’s main aim was to support students’ initiations. On the other hand, the second part of the activities were teacher promoted. During these activities, the teacher urged on, encouraged, and facilitated the proceeding of the inquiry while the whole class participated. While promoting inquiry, the teacher urged students to create deepening working theories and questions or facilitated interlinking new inquiries with their previous wonderings. These promotions were needed especially when the teacher was the only one who was able to recognize the cognitive value of the students’ initially preliminary thoughts or other promising ideas, which they could use to deepen the inquiry. Finally, the third part of the activities was categorized asteacher focused. During these activities the teacher took the main control of how to continue, e.g. giving guidelines for making KF notes, or providing a task for sharing the results of inquiry. The teacher used this kind of straight instructing when she just estimated that now her central role in structuring the classroom activities would enable access to explanations or solutions that the students would not be able to reach themselves.
In addition, the episodes were concentrated on three main activities. Firstly, the activities were concentrated on planning (e.g. creating a research plan in collaboration or discussing how to build up the time line in the knowledge
forum). Secondly, there were activities through which they reflected on procedure (e.g., they discussed how to observe an artifact or evaluate observations). Thirdly, the activities concentrated on developing content of inquiry (e.g., they were creating a collective classification for artifacts or creating deepening working theories).
Sub study III illustrated how the teacher’s organizing and guiding work was always based on the pupils’ inquiry process. In the background of the process, the teacher reflected on the process achievements and the classroom situations enacted, created aims and plans regarding how the process could be continued.
Sometimes she searched for suitable pieces of equipment, designs of science experiments, or the knowledge needed to deepen inquiry at subsequent stages of the process. In the enacted collective activities, the teacher’s understanding of the inquiry practices, in conjunction with constant assessment of project achievements, created the basis for focusing the process by offering routines or structures of productive inquiry or offered the possibilities for the improvisational enactment collectively in more flexible way. Sub study III also illustrates the role of KF that fostered students’ authority by putting their own initiations and ideas at the center of discussions and further improvement. It enabled the longitudinally emergent knowledge advancement on which the members were building the inquiry further after each other’s turn.
6.4 Long-term teacher orchestration of technology-mediated collaborative inquiry project (Publication IV)
The focus of the fourth sub-study was to concentrate on the teacher’s longitudinal orchestration within the collective inquiry activities. The study examined how the teacher maintained the course of the ongoing activities from epistemic,reflective,socialandpragmaticperspectives. In addition, the aim was to highlight the mediating role of KF during collective activities. The publication IV also unravels the concept of longitudinal orchestration.
Sub study IV was based on the idea that the co-constructive process can work only if participants have internalized several routines of shared inquiry (Parker
& Borko, 2011; Sawyer, 2004). Thus, the video analysis of whole class episodes started in sub study III was continued in sub study IV at a more detailed level and focused on examining the unfolding events and how these events supported the ongoing activities. These orchestration events fell into six categories and were seen as recurring routines or inquiry practices that structured joint activity when the participants under the guidance of the teacher dealt with various challenges, unforeseen obstacles, and enacted situations (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2011; Erickson, 2011; Sawyer, 2011, 2009).
With the first two types of event, the teacher maintained the epistemic aspects of inquiry. Both epistemic practices focused on understanding the
phenomenon and advancing the epistemic artifacts under construction. In discussing ways of deepening inquiry events, the class was engaged in the collective development of strategies to continue the inquiry at hand. When the class was collectively discussing ideas, they addressed the main content or phenomenon targeted by their inquiry (i.e., object of collective inquiry).
The reflective processes of inquiry were also maintained also with two types of events. The reflective practices were needed to bridge past and future inquiries in the present and enable advancement by changing or redirecting inquiries as necessary. By recollecting previous inquiry activities, the teacher aimed to activate the students’memories of previous activities (e.g., information from a mind map and museum visits) on which the subsequent inquiry was built.
During theassessment of the advancement of an inquiry, she gathered the class together to reflect on the present situation and how they should proceed.
The two last events maintained the socio-pragmatic aspects of inquiry. The pragmatic components of the work included building and managing social relations and interactions, as well as handling and enabling an effective inquiry process. During the practical guidance of inquiry events, the teacher concentrated on providing practical guidance for advancing the inquiry.
Occasionally, the guidelines involved detailed explanations of how to speak in turn, what to observe, how to write notes, how to take care of responsibilities or distribute the work, and how to adequately participate in inquiry. During the practical management of activity, the teacher focused on organizing the physical arrangements for working. She organized the classroom space according to the requirements of the activity and provided instructions or permission to start or stop, thus handling the lesson transmission.
In sub study IV, CORDTRA diagrams (Hmelo-Silver, 2003; Hmelo-Silver, et al., 2008; 2011) were created, showing a temporal account of the relationships between the various orchestration events and the use of KF. The diagrams revealed the regular presence of orchestration events throughout the project. In addition, despite the varied order of orchestration events during the whole class activities, we interpreted the unfolding pattern of the events. Usually, the episode started with the reflective event. It was followed by epistemic event and finally ending with pragmatic event.
KF was actively used in the activities. During the reflective or pragmatic practices, KF functioned as a collective basis for inquiry. For example, students’
ideas were often gathered by the teacher and collectively examined using the shared screen, or when preparing their forthcoming activities, the teacher sometimes created new views that structured the process. To continue, the epistemic events involved placing students’ ideas at the center of joint activity during whole-class episodes. Sometimes, the epistemic ideas represented by KF provided the basis for referring to or discussing the phase or advancement of the
project. However, at times KF worked as developing object while the ideas were projected on the shared screen and collectively developed further.
Sub study IV also visualized the flow of the orchestration events and usage of KF during one episode and showed the teacher’s reflections before and after the episode. With the episode example and CORDTRA diagrams the study provided more detailed results, how the role of collaborative learning environment (in this case, KF) was central in connecting the inquiry longitudinally. Past activities related to present activities, and different lines of inquiry were brought together.
To continue, the orchestration realized during classroom activities often relied on KF, which promoted the collective recollection of past processes and inquiry outcomes. This, in turn, supported reflecting on how to focus subsequent inquiry efforts.
To conclude, sub study IV illustrated how the teacher was able to orchestrate the inquiry in a contingent manner while responding to the ideas and interests that students developed during the process that were often available in the KF database. The teacher’s orchestration design aimed at developing the collective emerging process longitudinally. The teacher continuously followed the results of inquiry and guided the learning collective to follow certain rules and standards, such as establishing productive research questions and making plans of inquiry. The orchestration during the enacted activities included specific objectives, while providing opportunities for mutual, as well as unexpected, development.