Distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledge-construction, and knowledge-creation discourses

van Aalst, Jan

The considerable differences in how the groups functioned socially provide reasons for reexamining the social organization of the class for its knowledge creation. In the assessment literature, the inequities of group work have been noted (Webb et al. 1998 ). If students work together for several months, inequities arising from individual differences in motivation, effort, and ability could lead to substantial disadvantages for some students. Using flexible and opportunistic groups, in which students join a group for a short time to accomplish specific goals, would make students less susceptible to the potential inequities and would help them learn and work with many different students. Recently, Zhang et al. (2009) used social network analysis to compare three social configurations-fixed groups, interacting groups, and opportunistic groups-and found that opportunistic groups best diffused new knowledge. In the present study, the decision to form fixed groups was intended to limit the number of notes students would need to deal with, but this problem could also be addressed by encouraging more reflective discourse with greater attention paid to synthesis and rise-above ( van Aalst 2006) . One thing that this cognitively demanding work does is slow down the growth of the database.