Patterns of Knowledge Construction

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify knowledge construction patterns in a local learning community. Observation, documents, and semistructured interviews were employed to collect data. Twenty learners were interviewed. Data were analyzed inductively using the constant comparative method. Five major patterns—radiation, circulation, simulation, socialization, and contextualization—were generalized from an analysis of the data, and their applications in practice were discussed. These patterns concretize the ideas of social construction and emphasize the different aspects of learning in the process of constructing knowledge. The five patterns indicate how knowledge is socially constructed when learners interact with others and their surroundings. This article reveals the main factors that play significant roles in knowledge construction, such as social interactions, social relationships and social connections, knowledge relevance, and knowledge and its social entities.

Keywords

knowledge constructionism patterns lifelong education learning community collective learning sociocultural learning

Chinese leaders and practitioners responsible for facilitating learning in society have been gradually taking steps to integrate community issues and the experience of learners into lifelong learning activities and have been motivating local people to attend learning programs organized in the community context. In this study, I am interested in finding how adult learners who participated in learning programs in the Zhabei community in Shanghai constructed knowledge.

Knowledge construction has a broad meaning. Based on scholars’ understanding (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Cobb, 1994; Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Gergen, 1995; Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007; Vygotsky, Cole, John-Steiner, Scribner, & Souberman, 1978), knowledge construction can be defined as a process of how knowledge is created, institutionalized, and publicized when learners actively interact with people and their surroundings. This is the process of how tacit knowledge from learners is constructed into explicit knowledge, which can be publicized and which can become institutionalized knowledge. In this social interaction process, learners are the active knowledge explorers. Learners make sense of knowledge by enculturalizing/socializing themselves into the practical context of knowledge. Intensive research is being conducted on knowledge construction (e.g., Enyedy, 2003; Hammer & Collins, 2002; Risner, 2000; Yanow, 2004). In practice, there is lack of tangible models of knowledge construction that can guide the work of practitioners. This article aims to generalize some patterns of knowledge construction by analyzing some learning cases in a local administrative community. Two research questions will be explored: (a) What are the patterns of knowledge construction? (b) How does each pattern work in practice?

Literature Review

Knowledge construction in general is the theoretical framework for this article. According to Berger and Luckmann (1967), knowledge construction is a process of how empirical practice (everyday knowledge) is reified (or extracted from pragmatic reality), comes to be socially constructed as knowledge, and then is publicized as explicit and institutionalized knowledge. In this section, I will review the literature of knowledge construction by focusing on the following areas:

Knowledge construction as a process of gaining knowledge by accessing knowledge and its subcategories present in local social entities

Knowledge construction as a two-way process: learning and sharing knowledge in a local authentic context as one process and abstracting, externalizing, and institutionalizing knowledge from a local context as the other process

Knowledge construction as a process that emphasizes the role of social relationships in learning and its social and interactive nature in learning

Knowledge has its structure and its subcategories. Such subcategories reside in their practical entities. Knowledge can be accessed by studying its structure and subcategories embedded in their practical entities. Reality is divided by social structures, or institutions. Every social structure, or institution, has its own stock of knowledge, which is composed of the subcategories of that stock of knowledge (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Brooks (2013), for example, discussed the stock of knowledge in corporate security. He defined the various operational parts of security in practice and integrated them into a body of knowledge in security. This body of knowledge was developed “from core security knowledge categories and with integration from other body of knowledge studies” (Brooks, 2013, p. 100), which created a knowledge structure for professionals in the field of security to learn. Another example is the following: A firm “possesses a body of organizational knowledge that is preserved over time in the form of information outputs (documents, databases, software, etc.)” (Paraponaris & Sigal, 2015, p. 891). Such knowledge is context based and is the knowledge capital of an organization and creates a shared practice for community members to draw from when they negotiate meanings (Paraponaris & Sigal, 2015).

In knowledge construction, knowledge is embedded in its local social, cultural, and historical entities; in the lived life; and in the practices of the local community (e.g., Brown, Collions, & Duguid, 1989; Bruner, 1990; Korhonen, 2001; Lave, 1988; Moore & Brooks, 2000; Stein & Imel, 2002; Wenger, 1998; Zhu & Baylen, 2005). “All knowledge is, we believe, like language. Its constituent parts index the world and so are inextricably a product of the activity and situations in which they are produced” (Brown et al., 1989, p. 33). Damşa, Kirschner, Andriessen, Erkens, and Sins (2010) suggested gaining knowledge through accessing the stock of knowledge residing in the local social entities. They stated,

Constructing shared knowledge objects involves more than just carrying out dialogic interaction. It requires combining individual and collective contributions and learners becoming actively involved in the materialization of ideas in order to give conceptual artifacts a concrete shape and to create a tangible representation of what they are making. It is a complex endeavor that brings about groups’ agency. (p. 148)

Social constructionists value everyday local knowledge derived from the local context (Greenwood & Levin, 1998), legitimate experiential and contextual knowledge, and view such knowledge as equally important as theoretical knowledge (Yanow, 2004). For example, workers in a company can solve practical problems through sharing knowledge with their colleagues on a daily basis. “Knowledge sharing is socialised and the new knowledge is created through interactions between individuals even when they are supposed to be working alone” (Paraponaris & Sigal, 2015, p. 889).

Local knowledge is situational and “is reflective of phenomenological ideas of lived experience as a legitimate and valuable source of knowledge” (Yanow, 2004, p. S13). Knowledge construction is sharing knowledge that is relevant to learners and to their lives. Schutz (1962/1970) described how the body of knowledge within a community was developed and handed down to him by people around him, and that he was taught “how typical constructs have to be formed in accordance with the system of relevance accepted from the anonymous unified point of view of the in-group” (p. 96). People apprehend or interpret commonly accepted rules, norms, and a body of knowledge that are relevant to their surroundings and their experience. “An important element of my knowledge of everyday life is the knowledge of relevance structures of others” (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 45). People gain knowledge and identify other’s knowledge structure that is relevant to theirs by observing, imitating, or modeling others or their surroundings. Through observing different outcomes of modeling, people formulate ideas about which responses are most appropriate in which settings (Bandura, 1977).

Knowledge construction is a two-way process. It is not just about learning and sharing knowledge in its local context. Knowledge construction can also be interpreted as a process of how local tacit knowledge becomes externalized and institutionalized when learners interact with other people and access other people’s tacit knowledge, which is then internalized into learners’ subjective world (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006), for example, thought that it is not enough to only situate knowledge in practice through problem solving. They pointed out that problem-solving–based learning in the local context cannot help learners generate deep structural knowledge, since it is context-limited, concrete, and narrowly focused on the local context rather than on general principles. They recommend generating a deep structure of knowledge or knowledge with principles or laws that can be applied in a larger context, which is consistent with Berger and Luckmann’s (1967) idea that knowledge construction is not just sharing knowledge locally but is a process of how local tacit knowledge constructed among learners is generalized into explicit knowledge (or abstract knowledge with principles)¹ and becomes externalized and institutionalized (the consensus knowledge). Such an abstraction process is able to decontextualize concrete aspects of the objects and allow the salient properties of the objects to remain. It is also a process of reorganizing previous knowledge into a new structure (Dreyfus, Hershkowitz, & Schwarz, 2001).

Knowledge construction emphasizes that learners are not just knowledge carriers but that they should take charge of their own knowledge and engage in generating and conceptualizing new knowledge collaboratively (Damşa et al., 2010). “At moderate to high levels of engagement, knowledge construction can lead to the substantial restructuring of knowledge, which may include the invention of new concepts and enhanced meta-conceptual knowledge” (Aalst, 2009, p. 261). Such abstract conceptualization can be achieved through some methods such as reflection and discussion of the concrete experiences gained in practice (Kolb, 1984) and synthesizing the concrete ideas. “More generally, synthesis that results in understanding phenomena on a higher plane and the creation of new concepts is an important form of knowledge advancement” (Aalst, 2009, p. 261). Learners are highly responsible for managing their learning and increasing sophisticated conceptualization through collaboratively recording and representing their ideas. This process helps learners “negotiate the space of both personal and communal knowledge, of their personal theories and statements of what they need to know, of self-generated experiments and interpretive conceptual artifacts, and of their own ideas and resource material” (Zhang, Scardamalia, Lamon, Messina, & Reeve, 2007, p. 121).

Knowledge construction emphasizes the role of social relationship in learning and its social and interactive nature. It is a social action emphasizing the importance of people and their relationships with each other and with the social contexts of knowledge (Barab, Hay, Barnett, & Keating, 2000; Farell & Holkner, 2002; Hiebert & Carpenter, 1992). Learners obtain, create, and transfer knowledge through sharing experiences, engaging in social activities, and connecting others’ knowledge via social relationships, which echo some scholars’ social perspectives of learning (e.g., Bandura, 1977; Buffington, 2003; Korhonen, 2001; Lave & Wenger, 1990; Wenger, 1998; Wilson, 1993). Learners construct their understanding of the new knowledge through interacting with others and through their personal experience since people cognitively have limitations of their own experience (Gash, 2015).

Learners integrate social activity, context, and culture through social interaction and collaboration (Lave & Wenger, 1990). Farell and Holkner’s (2002) research about knowledge, learning, and the idea of community in a hybrid workspace indicates that knowledge is a kind of social action that is generated, mediated, negotiated, and traded among people in the hybrid workplace community. A network of internal representations of knowledge can be reviewed as a spider’s web where all the nodes are connected together, and external activities influence and stimulate internal representations (Hiebert & Carpenter, 1992). Barab et al. (2000) showed how to diffuse knowledge to others by connecting individual knowledge to the group through social interaction activities in practice: Local groups shared resources with each other, or local groups meet together in the public space and discuss and debate their findings and fuse different local models.

Knowledge from a variety of knowledge carriers is socially connected. Knowledge constructionists recognize the role of human relations and social connections to others and the outside world in promoting knowledge creation, sharing, and acquisition (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Farell & Holkner, 2002; Risner, 2000; Yanow, 2004). Local knowledge within its sociocultural context connects others via social relationships (Yanow, 2004). For example, Risner (2000) suggests that dance educationists and choreographers understand “the complex weave of knowledge construction for dancers in the rehearsal studio as a spiralling process of self, society, body, memory, and the profoundly meaningful relationships intertwined” (p. 169). Knowledge from a variety of knowledge carriers is socially connected.

In knowledge construction, people interact with each other in an entity and develop social relationships. Their understanding of the entity is influenced by the culture and the body of the knowledge in that entity. Storr (2010) described the social construction of the market. He noticed that at a market, people go to specific grocery stores and they interact with barbers and cashiers and develop trust and loyalty. Storr claimed that the market can be different in different contexts due to different cultures attached to the market, and people’s experiences of one specific market are associated with the particular stock of knowledge within that market.

Knowledge construction emphasizes interactive learning in a social system (Brown et al., 1989; Oeberst, Halatchliyski, Kimmerle, & Cress, 2014; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2010). For example, Oeberst et al. (2014) stated that the social system, not the individual, is the main actor that defines the legitimacy of the knowledge and guides people’s actions and behaviors. Stahl, Cress, Law, and Ludvigsen (2014) also emphasized learning happening at the community unit and being implemented at the small-group, discursive unit. Such an approach is associated with learners’ interactions with resources, structures, and relationships.

In summary, in knowledge construction in the social context, tacit knowledge is shared, institutionalized, and transferred to public knowledge receivers in social interactions. Knowledge construction in the social context is a two-way process: It focuses on learning a stock of knowledge that is embedded in local social, cultural, and historical entities and in the lived experience. It also emphasizes generating and conceptualizing new knowledge from the practical world. Learners learn and exchange new knowledge that is relevant to theirs. Knowledge is created and diffused to the public through social relationships. Knowledge construction in the social context emphasizes knowledge relevance; social relationships/social connections, social interactions, and structures; specific social context; and systems and resources in learning. It involves collaborative learning among people in a social unit. Such collaborative learning could spread/transfer from one small unit to a larger unit. The same knowledge may be understood differently when such knowledge is spread/transferred from one unit to another since people selectively grab that aspect of the knowledge that is highly relevant to their own context and their own experience and give new meanings to such knowledge based on their different contexts. Its process involves knowledge moving from one unit to another and from tacit local knowledge to explicit public knowledge.

Methodology

An embedded case study that studies a case and its subunits was employed to examine learning in the Zhabei District of Shanghai and its nine learning cells. A case study is mainly a process of investigating a specific case (or cases) in a certain context to explore the complex human experience or social phenomenon. Researchers use a case study because it can efficiently address real, complex, and specific problems or issues that occur in the real world. Merriam (2009) observes that, usually, a case study is selected for uniqueness. For instance, a case study can focus on a particular situation, event, or program that may reveal to us knowledge from a unique angle. Yin (2006) states that one advantage of the case study is that it examines a case within its real context in depth, and it is especially suitable for addressing “descriptive or explanatory questions and aims to produce a firsthand understanding of people and events” (p. 112).

At the time of the study, Zhabei District, situated in the northern part of Shanghai, was one of the 18 districts of Shanghai. Northern Zhabei looked a little “desolate.” One could seldom see glorious skyscrapers or modern entertainment bars, but one could see heavy manufacturing factories, some large supermarkets, some large stores selling architectural construction materials, and small grocery stores and clothing stores. The middle part of Zhabei District was famous for its tourism, culture, entertainment, and verdure. Southern Zhabei was the economic, business, cultural, and transportation center of Zhabei District. This area was called the ever-bright acropolis. Southern Zhabei was also famous for its historical sites. Historically, the economic situation in Zhabei District was poor compared with other districts. However, community education in Zhabei was well developed.

Administratively, Zhabei District was divided into eight streets (the administrative divisions, similar to wards) and one town. Each street/town had its own community school, satellite learning sites of the community schools, and many learning centers, which developed learning cells such as learning clubs, learning salons, and learning programs for the local people. All the learning cells such as clubs and salons were part of the lifelong learning system to provide learning activities to everyone in the local community. As part of a lifelong learning system, the local government suggested that all social units such as hospitals, cultural centers, schools, and companies in Zhabei District open their educational sites to each other, share human resources, and provide the available resources to the local people so that everyone in the local community could access the learning resources conveniently.

In this study, nine learning cells were selected, consisting of two programs, three clubs, one salon, and three organizations. The structures of the learning cells were from very informal to formal. In some of those cells, learners self-organized their learning activities.

To understand the background information about the learning community, I collected some documents in Zhabei, such as adult education program introductions, learning activities in different programs, community school annual reports and annual plans, and policies, media reports, videos, and official reports of the learning communities in China and in Shanghai. I examined and analyzed the official and institutional documents to trace the development of the Chinese learning communities and to understand the factors that shape the development of the learning communities. I also collected some participants’ personal documents to understand how they construct knowledge and how sociocultural contexts shape their way of knowledge construction.

To familiarize myself with the Zhabei learning community, I observed a routine daily life in the community. “Observation entails the systematic noting and recording of events, behaviors, and artifacts (objects) in the social setting chosen for study” (Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p. 98). In the field, researchers write their field notes as soon as possible and describe the settings, the people and their activities, and their comments (Merriam & Simpson, 2000). I informally observed, among others, the stores, restaurants, cultural centers, entertainment clubs, local residential apartment complexes, local community affair centers, local community schools, local residential communities and their residential committee offices, some learning salons, and programs. The lengths of the observations vary from 1 day to 3 months (see Table 1 for details).

Table 1.

Places Observed.

Purpose of the observation	Fields/sites	Length of time observed	Supporters/supervisors
To become familiar with the Zhabei community	Routine daily life as observed in stores, restaurants, cultural centers, entertainment clubs, local residential apartment complexes, and local community affair centers, and so on	Informal observation for about 3 months	Various organizations/institutions
To get to know the context and background information of the community schools, learning sites, and the collaborative organizations in Zhabei	The community schools and different learning sites in Zhabei; local residential communities and their residential committee offices	Approximately 1 day for each location	Zhabei District Education Bureau, Zhabei District Government
To know how the programs were organized, and how the local community issues, as well as social, cultural, and historical heritages were embedded in the programs	Ground Calligraphy Salon	2 Days	Culture and Education Office of the Gonghe Xin Street
	Bao Shan Photography Salon	2 Days	Bao Shan Street Community School
	West Zhijiang Chorus Programme	3 Days	The West Zhijiang Street Community School
	Golden Dream Fashion Show Programme	3 Days	Daning Street Community School
To know how the programs and instructors were supported, facilitated, and evaluated	Meetings and seminars, such as expert panel meetings for community education evaluation, community school evaluation meetings	2-3 Days	Zhabei District Education Bureau
	A seminar for instructors about how to edit books/reading materials for learners; a seminar for instructors/facilitators about citizens’ etiquette	1 Day	Zhabei District Education Bureau

I wrote short notes about my impressions of these places. To learn how the programs and instructors were supported, facilitated, and evaluated, I attended some of the meetings and seminars (see Table 1 for detailed information). I read through my observational notes and my thoughts about these notes, compared and coded the significant events, and identified more background information or rationales about these events by talking with the administrators and learners.

To fully understand how learners constructed knowledge in the Zhabei community, 20 learners (see Table 2) from nine learning cells were interviewed by using stratified purposeful sampling—Participants selected are stratified by socioeconomic status within a larger population (Patton, 2002). The 20 participants represented a range of genders, ages, careers, and social positions reflecting various socioeconomic statuses and education backgrounds within a larger population. They are migrant workers, unemployed workers, white-collar workers, elderly people, and leaders. The main criteria for selecting the participants are the following: The participants had lived in the local community or had worked in the community for at least 1 year and were very familiar with the Zhabei Learning Community and the local community’s custom, rules, and cultures; and all the participants could speak Mandarin. The participants were interviewed for 1 to 2 hours according to a list of open-ended questions about their learning and life experiences.

Table 2.

Sites and Participants.

20 Learners						Sites
Group	Name	Age (years)	Gender	Education	Position	Cells	Streets	Supervisors
Elderly people	Lin	70	Male	Technical school	Retired	Ground Calligraphy Salon	Gonghe Xin	Zhabei Education Bureau
	Jiang	71	Male	College	Retired	Bao Shan Photography Salon	Baoshan
	Yang	58	Female	Technical school	Retired	West Zhijiang Chorus Programme	West Zhijiang
	Qiong	72	Male	College	Retired	Golden Dream Fashion Show Programme	Daning
Migrant worker	Fan	35	Female	College	Housewife	Sisters’ Club	Pengpu Xincun	Zhabei Education Bureau
	Hong	46	Female	Senior middle school	Shop assistant	Sisters’ Club	Pengpu Xincun
	Shen	29	Male	Junior middle school	Cleaner	The New Shanghainese Club	Linfen
	Chan	40	Male	Senior middle school	Cleaner	The New Shanghainese Club	Linfen
Unemployed workers	Sun	30	Male	College	Employment assistant	D. N. Community Affair Center	Daning	Zhabei Labor Bureau
	Xun	52	Male	Senior middle school	Employment assistant
	Hu	47	Female	Technical school	Employment assistant
	Wan	48	Female	College	Employment director
White-collar workers	Gu	30	Male	College	Technician	Shanghai XY Trans Co.	Linfen	Shanghai General Labor Union
	Lang	37	Female	College	Technician	Shanghai HB Power Co.	Gonghe Xin
	Hao	25	Female	Technical school	Technician
	Yan	24	Female	Technical school	Technician
Leaders	Zun	53	Male	Technical school	Department manager	Shanghai XY Trans Co.	Linfen	Shanghai General Labor Union
	Yu	53	Male	Senior middle school	Department director	Shanghai XY Trans Co.	Linfen
	Lian	30	Male	Technical school	General secretary of youth league branch	Shanghai HB Power Co.	Gonghe Xin
	Chau	36	Male	Technical school	Department director	Shanghai HB Power Co.	Gonghe Xin

The inductive analysis method was employed in analyzing the interview data. The first analytic step of synthesizing a large amount of qualitative data is the coding. In initial coding, researchers categorize and summarize each piece of data by using a label, short name, or key words to name a segment of data (Charmaz, 2006). In analyzing the data from one single interview, I read the data line by line, color-coded the important segments of the data, and used key words to label the meaning of the colored segments. To make sure that a code was correctly assigned, I compared those segments that were assigned the same code to each other in order to “refine dimensions of existing codes and identify new codes” (Bradley, Curry, & Devers, 2007, p. 1762). After the initial line-by-line coding, I used focused coding; in other words, I used the most significant codes identified in the initial coding stage to sift through a large amount of data (Charmaz, 2006). Then I categorized the important parts of segments that shared similar codes, clustered the categories into groups, deleted overlapping categories, reclustered the categories into several big groups, and generated the main themes out of the grouped categories (see Table 3).

Table 3.

An Example of Analyzing Single Interview Data.

Line No.	(Column 1) Original data	(Column 2) Coded data	(Column 3) Category
669	Lin: We communicated and discussed with each other [about the ground calligraphy we wrote in the Zhabei park].
670	Bo: Those who were not familiar with [ground calligraphy] just watched [what you wrote].
671	Lin: Those who were not familiar with it did not talk, but learned [by watching us writing]	Amateurs learned from professionals by watching.	Public space as a learning site for knowledge passing from individuals to the public
672	Bo: In addition to communicating [with each other about ground calligraphy], what else?
673	Lin: There are different types of communication. Every time when we had events, we hung our products on the steel rail in the Zhabei park . . .	Professionals used public space as a learning site to connect to the public.	Public space serves as a learning site.
676	Bo: Hanging the products on the rail and many tourists came to look?
677	Lin: Yes, many people came and looked, and some bought our products.	Tourists passed by and learned by observation.	Public space as a learning site for knowledge passing from individuals to the public

Findings

The term pattern originated from architecture to codify the common elements or themes of complex structures (Kelly & McDermid, n.d.). Knowledge construction patterns in this study include the repeatable and successful elements and structures in the process of knowledge construction. I used terms such as radiation and circulation borrowed from other fields to capture different ways of constructing knowledge in practice. Five patterns of knowledge construction were generalized from data: radiation, circulation, simulation, socialization, and contextualization (see Table 4).

Table 4.

Patterns of Knowledge Construction.

Pattern	Radiation	Circulation	Simulation	Socialization	Contextualization
Figure
Focus	Emphasizing how knowledge is shared among learners and proliferated from individuals to the public through various tools.	Emphasizing how people gain certain knowledge by interacting with the multiple dimensions of this knowledge.	Emphasizing how people gain knowledge suitably analogous through a process of observation, imitation, and adaptation.	Emphasizing how people gain certain knowledge required by a new context by being involved in the changed sociocultural context, being shaped by it, and, finally, by adapting to it.	Emphasizing how people gain new knowledge by situating the knowledge in the local authentic context, or generalizing the local tacit knowledge to explicit/public knowledge.
Rationales	Knowledge from individual learners is socially connected and is promoted to a larger context through social connections and human relationships.	Every social structure or institution has its own stock of knowledge.	Relevance of the knowledge: Learners connect to others’ knowledge that has a similar or relevant structure with theirs.	Knowledge internalization: People internalize the knowledge and culture of the new context.	Close the gap between subjective reality and objective reality, and learn knowledge by retrieving where the knowledge originally comes from in practice.
How it works	Knowledge from individuals is proliferated to the public through nodes/open spaces, which the public can easily access.	Learners access the subcategories of certain knowledges tht are embedded in the social entities.	Learners build internal connections of one body of knowledge to another that has a similar structure through modelling and adaption.	Learners reinterpret their past and reframe their knowledge based on the requirements from the new society.	Situate knowledge in the social and empirical world where knowledge originates. Conceptualize knowledge from practice.
Implications	Open and informal arenas such as parks, public squares, interest-based online forums, etc., can create open communication spaces and a hub for collective interactions and knowledge exchange.	Learners learn by engaging in the activities/events that embody the various dimensions of a body of knowledge.	Learners know their knowledge structure, are able to identify and access the simulatees’ knowledge; the following are also important: open communication; policies and strategies to reward knowledge sharing.	Learners use observations and the help from professionals and significant others to learn the new reality. Practitioners inform learners of the consistent image of the new reality.	Learners learn knowledge in practice, in-service learning project, and conceptualize knowledge through some methods such as reflections and discussions of the concrete experience.
How to support knowledge construction in practice	People with different social positions embody the tacit knowledge and are the carriers of the local knowledge. Valuing consensus/adaptation and social interactions in learning will help knowledge sharing among learners.
	Knowledge is socioculturally embedded. Local knowledge resides at all localities within the social structure. To learn a body of knowledge, learners can access the units that embody the knowledge. Practitioners can integrate the local social and historical entities, resources, and local cultural heritages into learning programs.
	To support grassroots knowledge, it is important to gain institutional and infrastructural support. Integrating educational resources from various social units can promote multilayered information and resource sharing.

Radiation

The pattern of radiation refers to how knowledge is shared among learners and proliferated from individual learners to the public through various tools (see Figure1).

Figure 1.

Radiation (individual knowledge radiates from a small space to a larger community).

The Ground Calligraphy Salon (Di Shu Yuan) served as a communication hub for the professional calligraphers and nonprofessional outsiders. The Ground Calligraphy Salon was formally founded in 2004 with around 170 participants. In 1998, some amateur calligraphers wrote calligraphy on the ground of the Zhabei Park with giant water brush pens. In 2003, several undergraduate students made a short video of this calligraphy group. This video was shown on Oriental TV channel, and ground calligraphy thus became well known. The Culture and Education Office of Daning Street supported this activity and encouraged these amateurs to register this learning cell as the Ground Calligraphy Salon. In 2004, the Ground Calligraphy Salon was founded. The members, of various ages, come from all over the country. Every morning from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., and afternoon starting from 5 p.m., the members of this salon write calligraphy on the ground in front of the parks in Zhabei, which attracts many people from different places who come to watch.

Lin, a famous calligrapher, was one of the salon leaders. After he retired, he and two other calligraphers organized this informal learning group to make more friends. The description from Lin indicates how knowledge of ground calligraphy was expanded from individuals to the public. Lin said that members wrote calligraphy with the water brush regularly on the ground in front of the parks in Shanghai. Their writing caused an immediate reaction from the public. Some people passing by the parks stopped and practiced writing ground calligraphy on the ground. After media reports, some people from other provinces and countries came to know this salon and their writing activities. When I visited Zhabei Park one morning, I noticed that many people passing by the park stopped and watched the ground calligraphers’ writing. Some who were curious about the ground calligraphy practiced writing on the ground too. The members of the Ground Calligraphy Salon extended their learning circle to people from a larger area in Shanghai and to people outside of Shanghai. In order to transfer the highbrow culture of calligraphy to the public, the calligraphy members moved calligraphy writing from the inside to the outside public spaces such as parks and squares, which connected more people. This open-ended learning structure created a communication hub for the professional calligraphers and the nonprofessional outsiders, broke the nonprofessional outsiders’ fear of being unable to access the highbrow culture, and connected multiple knowledge carriers together (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Ground calligraphy writing.

The members from the Baoshan Photograph Salon extended their individual knowledge to the local community by serving the local community. Jiang used their cameras to serve the disadvantaged people in the community and radiated society’s care and compassion to these people by photographing the everyday life of disadvantaged people. The Photography Salon broke the pure art function of the photograph and used the photograph as a medium to transfer the message of societal love and care to the disadvantaged people in the local the community. Jiang also used photographs as tools to save and to reinterpret historical heritages and local events, and to transfer those heritages to people in or outside of the local community.

These photographs could be transferred to the public, and be reused later as historical documents.

The aforementioned examples show how individual learning radiated to the public and became a collective activity that influenced other people in or outside of the local community. Cultural products such as ground calligraphy, newspapers, photographs, and TV played an important role in “radiating” new beliefs, new messages, and new knowledge from individuals to the public. This radiating process bonded the individuals and the public together and created an atmosphere of trust in the local community (Storr, 2010).

Circulation

Circulation emphasizes how people gain certain knowledge by interacting with the multiple dimensions of this knowledge (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Circulation.

To support migrants to adapt to Shanghai well, the Sisters’ Club organized a 1-day trip to Shanghai for the migrants to experience the historical and modern aspects of Shanghai and to get the migrants involved in Shanghai life. This trip provided a good opportunity for the migrant workers to know Shanghai from different angles. Hong, from Sisters’ Club, described how she learned about Shanghai through this type of 1-day trip:

We saw this city, OH, so big! We saw its development, what it looked like before, and what it looked like now. . . . So I felt I was involved in Shanghai, too. Shanghai is so beautiful! . . . Yes, we got to know Shanghai much better. . . . Some [migrant wives] have never been there. When they saw it [the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel], that really opened [their] eyes!

Shanghai has its particular culture, history, custom, and politics, each of which is embodied in the empirical subunits of Shanghai such as the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel and the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. This 1-day trip enabled these migrant workers to imbibe Shanghai’s history and also the facts about modern Shanghai by visiting different areas of Shanghai. Every area of Shanghai embodies one particular knowledge base of Shanghai. These sights are like lived knowledge that is directly and strongly presented in front of these migrants, who seldom have opportunities to go into the society of Shanghai. The organizers connected this entertainment trip together with a purposeful selection of the sights representing Shanghai and also a detailed interpretation of the sights to help the migrants understand the background knowledge of Shanghai better.

Shen described how the Dragon Dance organized by the New Shanghainese Club brought him to different places in Shanghai and increased his knowledge about Shanghai and his confidence in living in Shanghai:

We could see more of the outside world. . . . Sometimes, they exhibited cars, sometimes, faucets, and tools. . . . We went to Pudong Shangri-La. Too. . . . For our migrant workers, we may never have such an opportunity in our lives to visit it there. . . . That day, the mayor attended the activity. It was really a great honor for us. . . . When we first stepped into this city, we totally got lost. Sometimes we felt scared, mainly because we have never stepped out of our hometown.

The dragon dance as a tool enabled Shen to visit different places such as luxury hotels, to attend exhibitions, and to have the honor to experience the social life that the upper class society enjoyed. These experiences of traveling around different places and experiencing the social life of Shanghai, with the dragon dance as an interaction tool, provided the migrant workers with the multiple mini-knowledge base of Shanghai. Through the process of “circulating” around the different parts of Shanghai, migrant workers like Shen not only got to know Shanghai better but also increased their confidence in their ability to be involved in a metropolitan area that was previously far away from their familiar world.

Wan from the D.N. Community Affairs Centre, part of the lifelong learning system, described how she learned a whole package of employment policies through dealing with a complicated case on employment policies. After checking all the relevant policies, visiting the relevant experts who were familiar with the policy on employment accidents, and going through every dimension of this complicated employment case, Wan had gained a systematic knowledge of employment policies.

Circulation is a process of gaining certain knowledge by engaging in its multiple dimensions. Each dimension is like a mini-knowledge base through which learners gradually make sense of the knowledge.

Simulation

In the knowledge construction process, simulation emphasizes how people gain knowledge suitably analogous through a process of observation, imitation, and adaptation (see Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Simulation.

Qiong is from the Fashion Show program. In this program, learners were encouraged to combine their learning activities with the practical world and their daily life. Qiong said that catwalk and people’s walking in the street “are both very similar. The catwalk is more exaggerated. The real catwalk is imitated from life, and is refined and improved.” He observed people’s walk on the street and thought about which walks were elegant and looked very nice and how could he walk that way. Qiong interacted with life and adapted and refined the analogous knowledge of elegant daily-life walks into his catwalk. Qiong also observed the catwalks of elderly people from other catwalks program. Observing other groups’ catwalks as an audience enabled him to see clearly what steps he missed. In order for the learners to see what steps they were missing in observation, Qiong said that learners should have accumulated a similar level of knowledge that the observed groups have.

As part of the lifelong learning system, D.N. Community Affairs Centre encourages its employees to share their knowledge with each other. In his practical work, Sun simulated knowledge from his mentor: “There’s a window, and you can learn by sitting beside [a mentor] . . . . He worked inside, and I observed how he dealt with his work by sitting beside him. Then I tried to help him to deal with some issues.” Before his observation, he was informed of the general procedures of the new job, which helped him understand the general components of the knowledge he imitated. After a period of observation, imitation, and trial/adaption, he said he gradually internalized the new knowledge.

Communication is important for learners to simulate new knowledge. However, not everyone wants to share his or her tacit knowledge with others through communication. Because of the yearly competitive evaluation of the chorus groups in Zhabei District, the chorus groups in the same communities rarely communicated with each other. They had to learn from other groups through observation. Gu said that his mentor was willing to show him some of his tacit knowledge because they had complementary knowledge. Chau said that Shanghai H.B. Power Co. rewarded mentors if they shared their tacit knowledge and skills with their colleagues.

Participants simulated knowledge that had structures relevant to theirs. Learners simulated new knowledge by observing the significant features of the modeled behavior, refining and improving the observed behavior, and adjusting the learned behavior based on their own situations. Communication is important to simulate every component of the knowledge efficiently and avoid the misinterpretation of some components of the knowledge.

Socialization

Socialization emphasizes how people are involved in the changed sociocultural context, molded by the mainstream directions through selectively learning certain knowledge required by the new context, and finally adapting to the new context (see Figure 5). It is a process of learning the social rules and roles in society.

Figure 5.

Socialization.

The Zhabei Learning Community provided a series of programs to support and guide people in the local community to adapt to a changed social context. Hong, a shop assistant, especially mentioned how she used the language she learned as an important tool to help her become involved in Shanghai society:

When you go shopping, they hear what you say, oh, they know you are an outsider, they will rip you off, and the price will be higher. If they hear you speak the Shanghai dialect, they will treat you better. . . . Even if they know you are a migrant, they hear you are speaking Shanghai dialect, they know you stayed in Shanghai for quite a long time, and know you know things well, he dares not cheat you, right?

Shanghai society, which has developed its own institutionalized norms and culture, differentiates those outsiders from the local Shanghainese through language—the Shanghai dialect. People speaking the same language are included in the same cultural community and share the similar tacit knowledge embedded in the daily life practices. Participating in the Shanghai dialect program and other migrant programs provided by the Sisters’ Club supported Hong as an outsider to successfully become involved in the Shanghai daily life practices such as market bargaining. She was informed about Shanghai culture and norms embedded in those daily life practices. The urge to be involved in Shanghai society, to adapt to it, and finally be accepted as one part of it directed Hong to learn Shanghai dialect and to use the new language as a tool to reframe her new social roles and positions in Shanghai.

However, not every learning program aimed at socialization turned out to have a positive result. Shen, a migrant worker, was motivated to adapt to Shanghai life by participating in the learning activities provided by the New Shanghainese Club. Activities such as participating in community volunteer work and visiting many places in Shanghai revealed to him a positive side of Shanghai society. However, 1 year later, he found out that they were invited to attend the learning activities only when the administrative leaders came to visit the community. His negative impression of the traditional bureaucracy came to his mind again, which washed away the good image of Shanghai he had through a series of previous socialized activities. His socialization process backfired due to the discrepant versions of the new objective realities exposed to him.

The changed social structure correspondingly required a series of changes not only in the employment market but also in values, beliefs, and individuals’ knowledge structures. After 1992, Sun was laid off due to business reforms in Shanghai. Social reform disrupted his stable life and his previous knowledge base. He job-hopped multiple times, and finally after many trials and failures, he realized the importance of degrees and certificates in the job search process. However, he still did not know how to keep up with the tempo of the changing society, what kind of knowledge or skills he needed, and from whom he could acquire information. He said, “When you walk toward this direction, it seems there’s something missing, walk that way, another thing is missing too.” Without getting support from significant others or particular agencies, Sun got lost in his socialization process.

Contextualization

The pattern of contextualization is a process of gaining new knowledge by situating the knowledge in the local authentic context, or to generate local tacit knowledge into explicit/public knowledge (see Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Contextualization.

The Shanghai H.B. Power Co., one of the organizations that are integrated into the Zhabei lifelong learning system, developed the quality control system to encourage its different professional groups to explore new techniques and new methods to improve their work. Hao, the white-collar worker, said,

We as a group, with over ten members, discuss how to do this project well using the best methods, the updated methods. . . . This project is not from the authorities, it is from our practical work. In our daily work, we do things day after day, and find a shortcut, or a somewhat [good] method. Then we want to try and see if this method is good, and can be spread [to other groups].

Hao’s professional group as a community pooled each other’s wisdom and generated new knowledge from their practical work. The results of the project were published in the online quality control system of the company. Knowledge is collectively created in the local authentic context and is turned into a form of explicit knowledge shared with the public.

Contextualization not only means learning new knowledge but also means creating new knowledge in the local context. Xun’s work was to deal with the welfare policy issues. Most of the time, he and his colleagues followed the existing policy to solve problems. However, sometimes, the real situation was more complicated and was beyond what the current policies could deal with. In those cases, they adjusted the current policies to fit the local context. Those strategies for dealing with the special issues would be reported in one policy magazine, and some of them were accepted by the policy makers and were included in the new policies. The welfare policies guided Xun and his colleagues in dealing with welfare issues. However, in some cases, things were much more complicated, which required them to adjust the current welfare policies. Adjusted welfare policies became explicit knowledge when it was finally included in the new welfare policies.

Discussion

Knowledge construction in social context involves relationships, connections, interactions, and the specific social context; its process involves knowledge moving from one unit to another, and from tacit local knowledge to explicit public knowledge. People with different social positions embody the tacit knowledge and are the carriers of local knowledge. Valuing consensus/adaptation and social interactions in learning will help knowledge sharing among learners.

The five patterns reflect that social constructionism values social interactions. Knowledge is socioculturally embedded (Brown et al., 1989; Bruner, 1990; Korhonen, 2001; Lave, 1988). Local knowledge resides at all localities within the social structure (Yanow, 2004). To learn a body of knowledge, learners can access the social entities that embody the knowledge. For example, in Shanghai Zhabei Learning Community, learning is a collective effort that was socially embedded in community development, in the learners’ practical works, and in the mundane living world. Grassroots knowledge, knowledge from the pragmatic world, is valued (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). Learners interact with others and their surroundings and are situated in the empirical social world to share their knowledge, to generate new knowledge, and to radiate their stocks of knowledge into the subsocial structures such as the local communities through a variety of social activities.

Radiation is a social interaction process of how learning connects the relevant stocks of knowledge in multiple directions through the relationship of hubs or nodes (Hiebert & Carpenter, 1992). Knowledge from individual learners is socially connected and is promoted to a larger context through social connections and human relationship (e.g., Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Farell & Holkner, 2002; Risner, 2000; Yanow, 2004). Through the nodes that tie the different stocks of knowledge, individual learners and the public are connected. Knowledge from individuals thus proliferates to the public. When knowledge moves from one unit to another, the meaning of the knowledge can also be changed, reconfigured, and adapted, since people in different contexts interpret knowledge differently based on different contexts.

In the pattern of circulation, learners access the subcategories of certain knowledge imbedded in the social entities (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Damşa et al., 2010) and internalize them in social interaction. By socially interacting with each dimension of its pragmatic entities, learners gradually make sense of this body of knowledge.

The pattern of simulation shows the internal connection of one body of knowledge to another that has a similar structure (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Farell & Holkner, 2002). In this pattern, learners simulate any phenomenon that has a similar knowledge structure as theirs. Learners not only model others, they also make adaptions to fit their own situations.

In the pattern of socialization, learners internalize and adapt to the new knowledge, skills, behaviors, and culture of the new context and transform their old assumptions and values that conflict with the new context. Socialization in this study refers to the resocialization of adults. “In re-socialization the past is reinterpreted to conform to the present reality” (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 163).

The pattern of contextualization values the knowledge derived from the local, situational context and lived experience (Greenwood & Levin, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1990; Wenger, 1998; Yanow, 2004). It is a process of learning knowledge in its authentic context (e.g., Damşa et al., 2010), or generalizing knowledge from pragmatic reality (e.g., Aalst, 2009; Kolb, 1984; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). It reinforces the learners’ learning when learners learn in a specific context since the contextual information can provide concrete clues for abstract knowledge, and learners “can incorporate the clues into their knowledge construction” (Hung, Hsu, Chen, & Kinshuk, 2015, p. 750). Contextualization attaches to the social and empirical world where knowledge originates, incorporates personal experiences, and engages learners in social activities, which is consistent with some studies of how to promote knowledge from experience and the local context (e.g., Hammer & Collins, 2002; Handzic & Tolhurst, 2000).

There are few studies specifically addressing different ways of constructing knowledge in a micro-learning context. This article shows various ways of constructing knowledge by emphasizing social interactions, social relationships and connections, and knowledge relevance in learning, and by situating knowledge in its social entities. It concretizes the ideas of knowledge construction and emphasizes the different aspects of learning in the process of constructing knowledge.

This study was conducted in the Chinese learning community, which shares some of the characteristics of constructing knowledge in learning communities everywhere, as discussed above, such as emphasizing the importance of social interactions and social relationships in learning, learning knowledge in its social entities, and imitating nature of learning. However, the Chinese learning community also has its uniqueness compared with the learning community in other social contexts. Chinese learning communities are geographically based. In China, research studies on learning community mainly focused on topics such as functions of the learning community, building the infrastructure for the learning community, leadership support, resource incorporation, sharing, and so on. The key to building a learning community is to nurture a good learning atmosphere and to develop the learning system and organizational mechanism supported from the top-level leadership (e.g., Pan, 2017; Shao & Wang, 2005; Yang & Huang, 2006; Ye, 2005; Zhang et al., 2007). This study clearly shows that to promote dynamic learning activities in the community, it is not enough to only rely on the educational institutions. Educational activities need to “merge into a larger community context and are mingled/interconnected simultaneously with other non-educational activities” (Chang, 2015, p. 231). Top-level leadership support from governments played an important role in developing the organizational mechanism and lifelong learning system, and in mobilizing the resources in the local community, which is easy in the Chinese context since China has a centralized government system, and the requests from the government such as sharing the resources from various institutions with each other usually can be reached out to most of the social units easily. But not every community in other social contexts has such centralized governments to mobilize the whole community resources to support such a learning community.

However, hierarchical power structure represents a double-edged sword: It can promote resource sharing in learning community. It can also become a barrier to knowledge from the grassroots in the process of constructing knowledge. It is important to gain institutional and infrastructural support and redesign the traditional hierarchical organization/management structure.

Implications

Institutional and infrastructural support is crucial for bringing all the social units together and creating a collaborative learning environment for the local people. A centralized power from the government coordinated the resources from various units such as the media, industry, business, hospitals, cultural centers, schools, and companies to support the educational programs in the community and promoted multilayered resource sharing and circulation platform in the Zhabei community, which allowed learners to share, document, and create new knowledge openly and conveniently from different directions (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006), thus creating a local knowledge buzz. Such knowledge buzz “encourages the development of shared values, attitudes and interpretative schemes” (Bathelt, Malmberg, & Maskell, 2004, p. 45).

In this study, some patterns of knowledge construction are generalized and different aspects of learning in the process of constructing knowledge have been comprehensively explored (see Table 4 for the detailed information about these patterns). The following are some suggestions in terms of how to apply the patterns of knowledge construction.

In the pattern of radiation, knowledge from individual learners is socially connected and is promoted to a larger context through social connections and human relationships. In practice, open and informal arenas such as parks, public squares, interest-based online forums, and so on, can create open communication spaces for knowledge radiation and can easily connect people from multiple backgrounds and enable them to share knowledge with each other. People can self-organize their communities in these open spaces. Such self-organized communities “develop their structure over time in an autopoietic process. These rules and regulations, norms, and role structures may then provide orientation for accepted behavior” (Kimmerle, Moskaliuk, Oeberst, & Cress, 2015, p. 127). People can easily disseminate knowledge to the public in these open communication spaces through artifacts such as photography, performances, and so on. Such open spaces can create a hub for professionals to directly communicate with the public from all walks of life and break the structural barriers that prevent the public from gaining access to the highbrow culture and knowledge that is usually maintained within elite groups. To move the personal learning to the social and public level, social networks can be used (Gash, 2015). In social networks, individuals connect with each other and build social capitals through various relations. Various relations allow leaners to access knowledge provided by others (Paraponaris & Sigal, 2015).

The pattern of circulation is built on the rationale that every social structure or institution has its own stock of knowledge. People can access such knowledge by interacting with the multiple dimensions of this stock of knowledge. To learn a body of knowledge, learners can access the units that embody the knowledge. In practice, to support learners in gaining a body of knowledge, practitioners can organize learners to engage in those activities that embody the various dimensions of that body of knowledge. Practitioners can integrate the local social and historical entities, resources, and local cultural heritages into learning programs. Another example is that, to help learners gain knowledge about the various aspects of U.S. society, practitioners can ask learners to go through the presidential debates and the candidates’ campaign advertisements. Such debate documents and advertisements embody the stock of knowledge about American society.

The pattern of simulation reflects the relevance of knowledge. In this pattern, learners connect to others’ knowledge that has a similar or relevant structure with theirs. In practice, practitioners need to know some important factors that affect the simulation process, for example, a similar knowledge structure between learners and the simulatees; learners’ being able to identify and access the simulatees’ knowledge; open communication for simulatees to share the tacit knowledge with learners (Cross, Parker, Prusak, & Borgatti, 2001). To motivate people to share knowledge with learners, organizations should match people who have complementary knowledge or who have no conflicts of interest to work as learning teams.

In the pattern of socialization, people internalize the knowledge and culture of the new context and become aquatinted with the new context by being involved in that context. To fit into the present context, learners reinterpret their past and reframe their knowledge, skills, and some assumptions required by the current society. Significant others such as educators, friends of the learners and family members, or the professionals play an important role in guiding individuals to learn the relevant roles and behaviors and structures of the new reality. These significant others understand the new reality and can “mediate the new world to the individual” (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 157). In the complicated situation where the social structure changes dramatically, professional agencies are needed to support individuals’ adjustment to the new reality. Successful socialization also means “the establishment of a high degree of symmetry between objective and subjective reality” (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p. 163). To gain knowledge in its social entities and to successfully socialize into the new reality, practitioners should provide learners with consistent images of the new reality. The discrepant versions of realities may cause confusion for learners and mislead learners’ conception of the new reality.

Contextualization benefits learners since it provides learners the practical clue of the knowledge in its practical context, and helps learners conceptualize new knowledge in its situational context (e.g., Hung et al., 2015; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006). In practice, educators can encourage learners to embed their learning in the practical learning context. For example, practitioners can support learners to learn new knowledge by engaging in service learning and community activities. Knowledge is embedded in daily life and practical work and is attached to the learners’ subjective world. Learners can also generalize knowledge from their practical work through discussions, reflections, and synthesis (Aalst, 2009; Kolb, 1984; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006).

Significance of the Study

In practice, there is a lack of tangible models of knowledge construction that can guide practitioners’ work. Many scholars have studied knowledge construction; however, their work mainly targeted the nature and general characteristics of knowledge construction. There are few studies specifically addressing different ways of constructing knowledge in a micro-learning context. This article reveals the main factors that play significant roles in knowledge construction, such as social interactions, social relationships and social connections, knowledge relevance, and knowledge and its social entities. It concretizes the ideas of knowledge construction, generalizes some patterns of knowledge construction, and emphasizes the different aspects of learning in the process of constructing knowledge. This article shows different ways of constructing knowledge, which are both practically useful and theoretically beneficial to the literature in knowledge construction.

New terms such as circulation and radiation were used to describe established ideas of knowledge construction, which can contribute to the field since such terms can help people understand established ideas and know how to apply such ideas in practice, especially if these terms can vividly show people how to execute the ideas in practice. Without these terms, the established ideas are fluid and abstract and are difficult for people to understand how to apply knowledge construction in practice. These terms are like the tool aids that show the variations of knowledge construction generalized from this case study. They help people understand how the ideas of knowledge construction work in reality. These terms capture the general process of various types of knowledge construction in practice generalized from this case study.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr. Sharan Merriam and Dr. Josh Radinsky who provided very insightful and critical comments and very detailed and concrete suggestions; Dr. Robert J. Hill, Dr. Dawn Robinson, Dr. Tom Valentine, and Dr. Kathy Roulston who provided good suggestions; Greg Timmons, Dr. Leland Haraszti, and Dr. Rose Badaruddin who helped me edit this article; and Qing Chang who helped me draw the pictures of some of the knowledge construction patterns.

Author’s Note

Oral presentation: Chicago, Illinois, May 2009 (Chang, 2009).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Bo Chang is an assistant professor of adult and community education in the Department of Educational Studies at the College of Education, Ball State University. Her research interests include knowledge-related topics, such as knowledge construction, knowledge and power; different tools such as social networks, culture, discourse, and multimedia in learning; and the social aspect of adult learning in a variety of contexts, such as social structure and learning, social relationships in learning, and the collaborative nature of learning.

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