Designing Communities

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

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2. Foundations

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Theoretical Foundations

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 3-20

   3. Empirical Foundations

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 21-40

   4. Engineering for Children Curriculum

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 41-65

   5. Knowing Engineering Design

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 66-97

3. Transformations of a Community: The Emergence of Shared Resources and Practices

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 99-100

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   2. Circulating Resources

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 101-127

   3. Circulating Material Practices

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 129-153

   4. Emergence and Circulation of Discourse Practices

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 154-196

4. Networking Across Interstices

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 197-197

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   2. Networking Humans and Non-Humans

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 199-249

   3. Networking Individuals and Groups

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 250-275

5. Conclusions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 277-277

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   2. Designing Knowledge-Building Communities

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 279-293

   3. Epilogue

      • Wolff-Michael Roth

      Pages 294-303

6. Back Matter

   Pages 304-313

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The study described in this book arose in the contextof a three-year collective effort to bring about change in science teaching at Mountain Elementary School. 1 This opportunity emerged after I contacted the school with the idea to help teachers implement student-centered science teaching. At the same time, the teachers collectively had come to realize that their science teaching was not as exciting to children as it could be. They had recognized their own teaching as textbook-based with little use of the "hands-on" approaches prescribed by the provincial curriculum. At this point, the teachers and I decided that a joint project would serve our mutual goals: they wanted assistance in changing from textbook-based approaches to student-centered activities; I wanted to collect data on learning in student-centered knowledge­ producing classroom communities. I brought to this school my new understandings about classroom communi­ ties from several earlier studies conducted in a private high school (e. g. , Roth & Bowen, 1995; Roth & Roychoudhury, 1992). I wanted to help teachers create science learning environments in which children took charge of their learning, where children learned from more competent others by participating with them in ongoing activities, and teachers were responsible for setting up and maintaining a classroom community rather than for dissem­ inating information. After I had completed the data collection for the present study, I watched a documentary about an elementary school in the small French village of Moussac (Envoye Special, TV5, September 14, 1994).

• Frames
• evolution
• interaction
• knowledge
• learning
• ontology
• problem solving
• science

• Applied Cognitive Science and Science Education Faculty of Education, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

  Wolff-Michael Roth

Policies and ethics