Title: Rotating leadership and collective responsibility in a grade 4 Knowledge Building classroom

Authors: Leanne Ma; Yoshiaki Matsuzawa; Marlene Scardamalia

Addresses: OISE/University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada ' Aoyama Gakuin University, 5-10-1 Fuchinobe, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa 252-5258, Japan ' OISE/University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada

Abstract: Productive collaborative engagement in increasingly global, innovative enterprises requires feeling at home with complexity and knowledge creation. Knowledge Building aims to engage students directly in sustained creative work with ideas from the earliest years of schooling, with all students taking responsibility for advancing community knowledge. Knowledge Forum technology aims to make knowledge-creating interactions integral to day-today knowledge work and extensible to all students, creating opportunities for rotating leadership, a feature of collaborative innovation networks. In this study we examined social network patterns of rotating leadership in an elementary school class and the discourse moves associated with temporary leadership. We found a relatively decentralised student network, with 20 out of 22 students leading the group at different points in time by connecting unique ideas to the larger class discussion. Our findings are discussed within the context of education for the Knowledge Age.

Keywords: knowledge building; collaborative innovation networks; COINs; collective responsibility; rotating leadership; self-organisation; opportunistic collaboration; knowledge creation; innovation; community knowledge; social network patterns; social networks; elementary schools; elementary education.

DOI: 10.1504/IJODE.2016.080159

International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering, 2016 Vol.4 No.1/2, pp.54 - 84

Received: 29 Jul 2015
Accepted: 11 Nov 2015
Published online: 06 Nov 2016 *

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