04.+Case+Study+1+-+SpeakEasy

=Case Study 1 - Speak Easy and the Knowledge Integration Environment=

**Summary**
SpeakEasy is a bulletin board discussion tool which is part of the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE)( http://kie.berkeley.edu/KIE/), a learning tool created by the University of California. The purpose of this environment is to assist students in learning to think critically about science education. It was developed using the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration (SKI) framework, which was developed by the same research group who developed the KIE (Hoadley and Bell 1996). Though aimed at pre-tertiary students, this case study is still being included due to the science thinking skills it aims to teach students. Using frameworks such as SKI, Bloom’s Taxonomy and theories of social and situated learning, this tool has great potential at better preparing younger students for tertiary and ongoing learning in science.

The KIE learning environment both helps students structure and organise their work while still giving them independence as to how they organise it. Work is project based, with projects aimed at allowing students to explore science in a way that is relevant to their own lives (Hoadley and Bell 1996).



The KIE learning environment (Hoadley and Bell 1996).



The SpeakEasy Discussion Tool (Hoadley and Bell 1996).

One particular tool will be examined in greater detail – SpeakEasy. SpeakEasy is an online discussion tool “that allows students, teachers, and scientists to talk with each other over the web” (Hoadley and Bell 1996). One of the benefits of the SpeakEasy tool is that combines discussion categories with graphical representations of the discussion participants' faces. Students can reply to any message or thread and can browse through opinions on a topic (Hoadley and Bell 1996). The system can be used synchronously, with new posts appearing when the student navigates, or asynchronously, with conversations stored in the system and searchable at a later date.

Of interest is a study by Hoadley in 2000 which investigated whether or not students could successfully learn science through peer discussion. He studied six 8th grade science classes taught by the same teacher as they investigated the nature of colour. The use of SpeakEasy was assigned as homework, with the students required to contribute to 3 or more discussions (Hoadley 2000, p. 843). The SpeakEasy system posed a question to the students which was related to their everyday experiences in science (Hoadley 2000, p. 844). Hoadley (2000) cites that prompting students for opinions and requiring them to categorise their comments according to the topic areas on the discussion board gives them the opportunity to develop a high level of reflection (p. 845).

The results of the study showed that the students enjoyed and participated well in the study, but through feedback communicated that they found it less interesting than other aspects of scientific study (Hoadley 2000, p. 850). They were surprised to discover that their peers held different opinions about scientific views, but found hearing these views beneficial (p. 852). The students also reported that they had more opportunity to learn about the discussion topic at hand than they would in class because they learned additional information from their peers. Therefore, it was found that students can learn science from an asynchronous online discussion alone, as well as demonstrating that students can learn from each other (Hoadley 2000, p. 855).

**Critique**
The SpeakEasy learning environment was designed with several frameworks and theories in mind, the most prominent of these being SKI and constructivism. As SKI was developed in conjunction with the KIE learning environment, one assumes that its application to the SpeakEasy aspect of it would be appropriate to the way this learning resource has been designed. However, a critique of this framework (and others) will be conducted.

As SKI comes from a socio-constructivist background, it is relevant to incorporate these theories into the examination of the learning resource. Collaborative and social learning theories cite the benefits of the visibility of learning in aiding students’ ability to model and observe each other. This is also a tenant of SKI (Hoadley 2000, p. 841). Using SpeakEasy, students can read and interact with the opinions of other students, thus making their own thinking visible and interacting with the visible thinking of other students. This is also in line with Hoadley’s (2000) view that knowledge integration is a process of building on previously held ideas (p. 841). The SpeakEasy environment aims to ask the students science-based questions which are relevant to their day to day lives. This also allows them to integrate knowledge, but also further applies the constructivist leanings of the theory to the learning environment. Here, students are able to form opinions and construct knowledge in conjunction with their own past experiences. This theory also accounts for the range of theories and opinions that students will have on a particular topic, which as mentioned in the summary, came of surprise to some students. However, that the environment allows for this is another sign that it has been well constructed around this additional framework.

Another theory to consider is Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, which suggests that the range of skills which can be developed is increased if developed in a collaborative setting (Kearsley 2009). Hoadley (2000) not only mentions that this is an important part of collaborative learning through use of SpeakEasy, but goes on to discuss it in conjunction with SKI, stating that using the software may “support multiple zones of proximal development…a SpeakEasy peer-to-peer discussion elicits a broad range of ideas about a topic, enabling students to distinguish among ideas they might not consider their own” (p. 842). That the author has considered the theoretical implications and the way that multiple theories and frameworks may correlate with each other shows that the design of the learning resource and the applications of frameworks to it is particularly well thought out.

When considering improvements that could be made to the frameworks applied to the construction of this learning resource, I found this particularly difficult. While other theoretical ideas can be applied, such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, it seems unnecessary to do so given the suitability of the current frameworks to the resource and to its educational aims.