Knowledge building in inter-school learning communities: Reflections from a case on project learning in Hong Kong

The paper reports on 740 Primary (Grade) 5 students' knowledge building and sharing of e-learning resources in a recent project work, involving inter-school learning community of 4 prestigious Catholic primary schools in Hong Kong. By using an interactive web-based learning platform called Knowledge Community (KC) and adopting learning community approach of advancing both individual and communal knowledge through knowledge building discourse (Collins & Bielaczyc, 1997), the project helped gather groups of students from four schools, forming 72 communities to generate thematic discussion on environmental protection over a period of 7 months. Empirical data showed that students exercised higher-order thinking skills through interdisciplinary project learning in the Bloom taxonomy of knowledge (7.77%), comprehension (30.68%), application (25.15%), analysis (9.08%), synthesis (3.52%) and evaluation (23.79%). As a whole, the project has exemplified an inter-school learning community model in East Asia, with stresses on e-leadership in school's collaborative learning cultures, parental involvement in student learning and students' scaffold supports in computer-mediated communication environment. Copyright © 2005 The authors. All rights reserved.