SYMPOSIUM | RPIC447: Practical Knowledge on Knowledge Building Practice: A principled and idea-centric approach to curriculum, pedagogy and technology.

There is a growing demand in the Educational literature to understand the transition between theory and social practices for the teaching profession. The lack of successful implication from theory to social practices is often attributed to the lack of opportunities to apply the related new concepts into the teachers' unique teaching context. Thus, to address this challenge, recent literature has placed more emphasis on forming teachers' knowledge-building communities, which shifts the focus from an individual to a collaborative process, to advance both theories and practice; going beyond best practices (Bereiter, 2014; Hong, Zhang, Teo & Scardamalia, 2009; Duffee, Aikenhead, 1992). Knowledge Building practice describes classrooms that work on the premise that students are naturally curious, full of ideas and have intuitive understandings about things around them (Moss, 2005). Knowledge Building practice focuses on giving ideas a space to thrive and grow over time. Research has shown that when students of different age groups and academic abilities engage in knowledge building, they develop strong literacy and numeracy skills (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). Discussions on the translation of knowledge building practice have fallen mainly on two problem spaces, (i) teachers' capacity to manage the evolving nature of students' ideas and (ii) students' capacity, or the lack of it, to tackle such complex idea-improvement processes. The former one, on teachers' capacity, has garnered much research and practice research, and the latter one, on students' capacity, has been an interesting area because research on students' performance in KB classrooms has proven otherwise (Chuy et al., 2010; Resendes & Chuy 2010). This symposium brings together knowledge building teachers, of different experiences, to share practical knowledge of the knowledge building practice; tackling problems at the intersection of these two essential problem spaces. The teachers will discuss the know-what and know-how of the principle-based pedagogy, strategies, and approach in navigating and working on the diverse ideas and questions posed by students. The symposium invites experienced knowledge building teachers and researchers to share their practical knowledge about KB. Through the discussion, we hope to consolidate principled know-how and know-what about KB.