A Community of Knowledge Builders

Learning is social – as they say, TEAM stands for Together Everyone Achieves More – and the KBDS reinforced how every child is valuable in negotiating, dialoguing and advancing each other’s thought processes and reasoning capabilities within a collaboration-driven, community-orientated learning environment. For example, students were able to make use of different modes and forms of thinking (such as divergent-convergent model, part-whole method and content-concept approach) facilitated by the KB scaffolds to spark, strengthen and synthesize ideas within and across groups. Indeed, as voiced by a student of mine, “One plus one is always more than two. Together, we progress more than what we can imagine.”

Learning is also emotional, where emotion affects and shapes our journey of learning and discovery. The KBDS saw numerous episodes of organic rotational leadership where students (of varying ages) each took the initiative to lead their respective group in capturing data, conceptualizing prototypes, connecting ideas, consolidating pointers and/or challenging assumptions to advance the group’s hypothesis and proposition via the use of KB Conversational Stems. Additionally, some of my students expressed how the presence of the multi-modal technological tools increased their consciousness towards their emotions and helped them realize that frustration could be productive and positive for their learning – with the help of cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence, of course.

By emphasizing the social and emotional nature of learning, the KBDS has shown its potential in cultivating students who are able to confidently exercise their critical and creative dispositions within a collaborative community setting.

Melvin Chan
Senior Teacher, Teck Whye Secondary School

Just like History lessons in school, I was delighted that the professors at the KBDS listened to our ideas and refrained from sharing their opinions until my group requested help to clarify some of our thoughts. This gave my group many opportunities to share, build on and think of ways to improve our design. Because of this, I feel so proud of my group’s product because it is truly our own creation! There were times my groupmates had different ideas which seemed contradictory, however, this was not a major issue. I think this is because as knowledge builders, we are familiar with the idea of active listening (like how diplomats work in ASEAN and the United Nations) and the use of KB scaffolds to combine our ideas and make them better. I think this is what fun and real learning should be like!

Isyraf Nur Irfan Bin Borhanudin
Teck Whye Secondary School Student

I enjoyed the part where my group discussed the design of our prototype and I saw how subjects such as Science, Design and Technology, Geography, and History relate to one another. I also remember how an adult thanked me for helping him to see that it is important to consider the culture of a nation in creating the prototype.

After the KBDS, I am now interested in exploring and thinking of possible ways different subjects can be connected. For example, I discovered that we could use mathematical graphs and geographical maps to talk about the changing history of a nation. Alternatively, we could also use the changes in fashion or food recipes (under Food and Consumer Education) to trace the rise and fall of nations and empires.  My classmates were amazed when I shared this information with them!

Pey Zhi Xun
Teck Whye Secondary School Student