Collaborative Knowledge Construction using an Online Annotation System

We studied the collaborative construction of knowledge facilitated by an online annotation system in a flipped class. Students used the online system to collaboratively annotate the pre-class reading assignments by asking questions, responding to questions, or placing comments. The annotation threads reveal the students’ knowledge structures. For example, asking questions (or answering them) exposes lack of knowledge or misconceptions that persist after the pre-class reading. At the same time, even just reading annotation threads without contributing to them can help spread knowledge.

In this study we examined the 638 annotations in 286 threads made by 64 undergraduates in one chapter of a physics textbook. We developed a taxonomy of annotation types that permits us to reliably classify the individual annotations in each thread. We next looked for relationships between the annotations and the students’ prior knowledge and self-efficacy. Finally, we examine the amount of knowledge sharing in each thread. In our presentation we will show the interaction between students in an online annotation system can lead to collaborative knowledge construction.