Progressive Refinement of a CSCL-Based Lesson Plan for Improving Student Learning as Knowledge Building in the Period for the Integrated Study

Abstract

Although constructivism has been prevailed across schools in Japan, what they call constructivism is a "shallow" one (Scardamalia, & Bereiter, 2002). In collaboration with teachers at a laboratory school, we have been conducting design studies on a lesson for knowledge building from the perspective of "deep" constructivism. For embodying such a new lesson, a CSCL technology called Knowledge Forum has been introduced. Through the progressive refinement of lesson plans, we have been involved in creating pedagogical design principles (Linn, Davis, & Bell (Eds.), 2004) by referring to the metaprinciples on knowledge building (Scardamalia, 2002). In this report, we describe our refinement process of a fifth-grade lesson on genetically modified foods through two years, and discuss how the pedagogical design principles can be transformed into design elements.