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Questions about the suitability of innovative instructional approaches for students of different achievement levels are frequently raised by teachers and researchers.
This project examined participation in knowledge-building discourse in two consecutive studies focussing on environmental problems. Participants in each study consisted of students from one mainstream and one honors Grade 10 social studies course. We used server-log data to examine individual participation in Knowledge Forum™ and knowledge-building principles to analyse the quality of the total discourse by each collaborative group.
Findings suggest cause for optimism about the scalability of knowledge building across achievement levels: there was strong evidence of knowledge building in both classes by the second study. However, we failed to detect strong effects at the group level. Some suggestions for focussing online work more directly on knowledge building are offered.