This paper reports on a pilot study in teacher education that commenced in March 1999 at the University of Wollongong. The project started with 22 students from the first year (primary) intake. After 5 weeks of induction to the course the students were assigned to teams of 5-6 at one of the 4 schools involved in the project. Classroom teachers at these schools acted as professional mentors and educational informants about the culture of schools.

The New South Wales Department of Education and Training (DET), the Dean of the Faculty of Education and the NSW Teachers Federation all supported the project. Financial support was provided via an Educational Strategic Development Fund (ESDF) grant, the DET and the Faculty of Education.

The purpose of this project is to explore the viability of a Knowledge Building Community (KBC) as an alternative model for preservice teacher education. This KBC model is made up of three components or sources for learning which should interact together as a basis for continuous learning: (1) Community learning, (2) School-based Learning and (3) Problem-based Learning.

The KBC Project intends to achieve these changes by:

Because it was a pilot study, the program was limited to 22 preservice teachers from the 1999 first year primary education cohort, at the University of Wollongong. In order to be part of the KBC project the students needed to apply to the Project's coordinator via a written resume.

Two recurrent themes emerge from studies that seek to follow-up graduates of teacher education courses. One is that many students report that they leave university with feelings of being under-prepared for life in classrooms and confused by what confronts them when they arrive at schools. The other is that schools, which employ them, report that a majority of recent graduates are unaware of how school and classroom cultures operate. They are unable to see the relationships between what they’ve studied at university and how it can be translated into classroom practice that produces effective student learning (MACQT, 1998). Armour and Booth (1999) have reflected these themes in recent research at the University of Wollongong. They found that most schools who worked with final year primary education students felt that they needed more experience with the day to day operation of schools, and how the daily work of teachers relates to the culture of schools and classrooms.

Hoban (1999) believes that this situation arises because teacher education courses often present a fragmented view of learning and this can hinder preservice teacher development into flexible, progressive teachers. He claims that there are two reasons for this:

The KBC is an alternative teaching model designed to deal with these two issues by contextualising the delivery of instruction (i.e. linking the instruction as closely as possible to the contexts and settings to which it applies).

A Knowledge Building Community (KBC) is a learning environment that supports the continuous social construction of knowledge (Vygotsky, 1978). Wernet (1995) states that the construction of meaning is a vital and central component in a knowledge building community and the members share knowledge for the advancement of the community. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) assert that a knowledge building community is a term for a collection of principles. In the University of Wollongong (UOW) KBC these principles derive from three learning sources: Community learning, school–based learning and problem-based learning.

Community Learning (CL):

This first learning source of the KBC project sees a major shift from the traditional teacher education model. This learning source requires the development of a "community of learners". This community is made up of the preservice teachers, the school-based teachers and the facilitators on campus. It is the expectation that this community will establish a sense of trust among each other as they work together in small groups. Group-based learning is the foundation for problem-based learning, yet it allows for what Thorley and Gregory (1994), describe as a challenge to teaching and learning which is heightened when the human interaction is involved in group activity.

School-based learning (SBL): Schools are more than a conglomeration of buildings and people. They have a culture which has evolved as a response to wider cultural values (Bullough, 1987). Koetsier and Wubbels (1995), state that having completed their teacher training beginning teachers experience "reality shock", when faced with the demands of the teaching practice. The gap between their ideals and the reality of everyday school life is the primary cause for this bewilderment. The second notion of the KBC project’s structure is aimed at developing a rudimentary understanding of school-based culture, and how schools do business. This motive of the KBC project has at its basis the aim of reducing "reality shock" by increasing a preservice teacher’s understanding of a teacher’s "real" role in the classroom and the school. It is expected that the preservice teachers whilst in their allocated schools will through immersion in the school culture learn what it is that teachers and school’s do on a daily basis

Problem-based learning (PBL): encourages and motivates students to ‘learn to learn’ (Duch, 1995). Above all PBL challenges students to take charge of their education (White, 1996). In the majority of Universities the lectures are the central feature for students' learning, however the lecture often rates poorly as a means of motivating students. The goal of the lecture is for the lecturer to present a body of set material (Margetson, 1994). However, effective student learning does not necessarily result from the lecturer having covered the material. It appears that no matter how well the lecturer performs during the course of the lecture, most of the time students still sit passively writing notes and are seldom involved (Margetson, 1994). The lecture is then traditionally followed by a tutorial, seminar or laboratory session. It is in these sessions where the students are encouraged to participate, but often similar inaction is observed. Students in tutorial, seminar or laboratory sessions now find that they are required to meet unrealistic workloads which often lack intellectual challenge and does little to movtivate them. Further, subject-based learning means that subjects are viewed in isolation from each other and it is the subject that is driving learning. This style of learning assumes that the learner is unknowledgeable and the instructor is the source of knowledge (Woods, 1994).

PBL causes a shift from the traditional higher education focus, the lecture. The introduction of PBL results in the abolition of the lecture, as well the tutor’s role changes. No longer is s/he the transmitter of facts, delivering a body of knowledge. The tutor in PBL becomes a facilitator and must be prepared to ask open-ended questions, monitor progress, probe, encourage critical reflection, and make suggestions and help students to create a positive learning atmosphere which by definition alone, requires a high level of interpersonal skills (Margetson, 1994; Aldred et al. 1997). Students need to become used to open-ended questions like: "What is going on here? What do we need to do to know more about it? And what did we do during the problem that was effective? (Stepien & Gallagher, 1993). Open-ended questions help students reflect on their own learning (Aldred, et al., 1997).

The tutor according to Barrows and Tamblyn (1980) assumes the role of ‘metacognitive’ coach. As metacognitive coach the tutor is no longer the knowledge-holder and disseminator, rather it is the students that assume the role of active problem-solvers, decision-makers, and meaning-makers rather than passive listeners (IMSA, 1996). Assuming the role of metacognitive coach the tutor will practice behaviours that they want their students to adopt such as, thinking aloud and coaxing their students into becoming self-directed learners, at this point the tutor then fades away (Stepien & Gallagher, 1993). The tutor’s behaviour can have a direct influence on group function and an indirect effect on the learner’s interest in the subject-matter (Wilkerson, 1995). Barrows, (1986), states that the mark of a successful tutor is knowing when to intervene, not interfering too much in the group process and asking questions.

Although learning can occur from each of the three learning sources, it was the expectation of the KBC Project's design team that the most effective type of learning environment would be formed when they combined together. The KBC Project is represented diagrammatically by three conjoined circles, these circles are comprised of the three interconnecting learning principles the intersection they create is the formation of the KBC.

The three conjoined circles are a diagrammatic representation of a teacher education model that offers a coherent preparation for teaching. When the intersection occurs among these three learning sources (CL, SBL & PBL) the deeper learning process of knowledge building is established. This process is ongoing, iterative, sometimes ill-defined, and results in sustained, life-long learning.

The KBC model adopted was a version prepared for use by the UOW. Restraints beyond the control of the KBC project's design team meant that the KBC project could only be implemented into the first session of 1999. This meant that the students involved in the KBC project oscillated between the KBC Project in session one and the mainstream program in session two.

The KBC model itself has two parts. The first part of the course ran for 5 weeks and was designed to prepare students to work in a learning community consisting of 4 discrete cohort groups. Two groups contained six members and two contained five. Fifty hours of course work was designed to provide learning experiences that would allow members of each cohort group to learn to be effective members within their group as well as effective members of other groups. Another goal of the first part of the course was to prepare students to be what we called a ‘teaching associate’. The role of a ‘teaching associate’ was seen as one that supported the classroom teacher’s work, making a significant contribution to the functioning of a teacher’s class. For example a teacher associate may help teachers to; prepare lessons, mark written work, read to children, have children read to them, conference with children, assist with excursions, sports training, or school playground duty. The tasks given to the students were any that the school based teacher felt was in the capability of a first year student teacher.

During the second part of the course, which ran for 9 weeks, students attended their host school for 2 days per week and attended university for the other 3 days. When they were in schools they had two main roles. One was to be an effective teaching associate and the other was to be what we called ‘an educational researcher’. The role of an educational researcher was to ‘live’ within the school community and gather data that helped them solve specific problems posed by the team of lecturers and teachers. Thus teachers and allied professionals needed to act as ‘informants’ about their profession and the culture of the school.

The school-based experience was jointly coordinated by a lecturer and a school mentor teacher. They met twice with the students each week. The first weekly meeting happened on the first day the students visited the school and was devoted to planning school experiences. The second weekly meeting was a debriefing about the school-based experiences.

During the time the students were back at the university they were expected to engage in two broad kinds of activity, namely: cohort group / lecturer meetings and collaborative problem solving. Cohort-lecturers meetings took 2-4 hours per week and collaborative problem solving 16-18 hours per week. Collaborative problem solving engaged the cohort group for the rest of their study time each week. It of course varied from student to student but the problems and tasks were designed so students would spend at least 16-20 hours per week engaged in the planning, reading, discussing, researching, presenting, and generally being immersed in academic study.

It was anticipated that this mode of delivery would develop students who would:

When the students returned to the mainstream or traditional course structure it was expected that they would utilise these skills that they had acquired as part of their participation in the KBC project .

The purpose of the data collection in session one was to determine if the three sources of learning of the KBC were operating. In session two the data collection focused on the students' experiences as they completed the mainstream component of their first year teacher training.

The research questions posed were:

Was there any evidence to show that a learning community was being formed?

The research reported in this paper relates to the 1999 KBC project conducted at the UOW. Qualitative research methods were utilised due to the predominant human interactions associated with the KBC project. Twenty-two students were enrolled in the KBC and all the students involved in the KBC project were informed of the research and asked to participate. Participation was voluntary; all students were given the right to refuse or withdraw from the research. The data was derived from several sources: (i) interviews, both formal and informal (ii) e-mail correspondence, (iii) observation of students in their KBC homeroom on campus and at one of the nominated school sites. Member checks were employed to increase the reliability and trustworthiness of the data.

The data collection spanned the first and second semesters of 1999. Observations began in conjunction with the project and interviews were conducted prior to the students entering their chosen school site (weeks 1 and 4). Once students had started their in-school experience data was collected on a weekly basis. When the students began in their schools the time they spent on campus was less and it was at this point where e-mail correspondence with the students was employed. Students involved in this form of data collection reported that they preferred this method rather than audiotaped interviews. The students stated that questions that were sent electronically allowed them time to think about their responses.

When students returned to the mainstream in session two data were again collected via observation of the students in lectures and tutorials as well as through personal interviews and electronic mail correspondence.

Transcripts and e-mail correspondence were analysed for emerging themes. Similar views and ideas were grouped together under the relevant source of learning i.e CL, PBL or SBL.

Preliminary findings are discussed under headings that relate to the research questions.

Before PBL and SBL could be attempted it was necessary to build a learning community. The KBC project was designed with the intent that community learning would support the students as they embarked upon the other two sources of learning. The establishment of a community atmosphere was initiated from the first day of session. Team building workshops and activities were designed to engage students in learning experiences that allowed members of each cohort group to learn to work effectively with all members of the KBC cohort. It was the intention that the students would develop teamwork skills as they acquired problem-solving skills.

In order to enhance the community learning atmosphere the students were housed in a special ‘home room’. This room was the physical space in which the students and the four lecturers who mediated their learning met for all the activities that were at the core of PBL. The students established an ownership for their room decorating it with work samples and furnishing it with tea and coffee making facilities. The room was supplied with 6 computers linked to the Internet.

During the preparation phase other students of the KBC group also echoed Siobhan’s sentiments.

From the above student quotes several themes have emerged. For the students involved it would appear that friendship, and community support has assisted in their learning. Because they have felt comfortable in their environment they have learnt through participation in conversation and KBC class activities.

This source of learning was to provide students with an opportunity to better understand the culture of schools, teaching and classrooms. It was intended that students could achieve this through observing and interviewing teachers providing support for teachers and teaching individual and small groups of students. Preliminary interviews conducted with students about teaching included statements that described a teacher as being a "third parent", a "person who entertains and introduces children to new things" and a "jack-of-all-trades". In the space of three weeks of in-school experience the students involved in the KBC project were beginning to understand that teaching was a much more multifaceted and complex role than they first thought:

Perhaps though one of the most poignant realisations came from Kerrie when she described a normal day in Kindergarten:

The above quotes from the KBC students are indicative of the increasing awareness that students were describing and reporting in the debriefing sessions back on campus. It would appear that in a very short space of time the students through their immersion into the school culture were able to appreciate and witness the complexity and multitude of a teacher’s role. Students were reporting awareness about welfare, programming and planning issues as well as the realisation that schools and teachers are busy people and places. Students were also increasing their awareness that teaching requires skills and practice. That the art of teaching develops with time. Importantly however students were gaining an insight and understanding that being a teacher is a commitment and a profession that requires life-long learning. It would appear from this early data that at this preliminary stage of the KBC project the SBL has been a successful source for the students.

The third of the three learning sources was a critical factor for students to understand. In order for the students to be aware of the criteria for PBL the preparation phase engaged the students in several workshop and assessment tasks where they needed to work in small groups and use self-direction in order to complete given tasks.

However the problems that the students were given to solve whilst in schools caused many students to question why they had undertaken this strand of learning. The silence that befell the room with the issuing of problem package one was errie. For the first time in six weeks there was silence in the KBC homeroom! The issuing of their first PBL assessment task resulted in intellectual unrest. Some students immediately began asking questions while other students tried to guess what the facilitator was thinking. Several students voiced disapproval at having their questions returned with a question. Even though the students were aware of the criteria for PBL they needed to be reminded about its structure.

At the culmination of the first problem (which had a literacy focus), students stated the following:

However some students felt that the problem was too big and lasted for too long they felt that it overshadowed and dominated their life! Siobhan although a competent student who produced a high quality assessment task for problem one felt tired and drained at the four week mark:

Siobhan was not alone. The combination of several new factors for the students i.e the role of a teacher associate combined with the problem assessment task prompted the facilitators to undertake two courses of action. The students were given a week's break between the end of the first and the issuing of the second problem. And the second problem was modified so that less material was covered but to a greater depth. It was directly observed how the students' development or understanding about PBL had progressed when the students were handed their second problem package. This issue did not get greeted with silence instead students launched immediately into conversations related to the planning and presentation. Jodi’s final e-mail about the second problem illustrates this point.

Although the problems and the students' newness to the school culture were factors that contributed to their intellectual unrest, so too did the group work situation. PBL requires students to work in groups to solve problems, an emphasis of the KBC was to establish a learning community. It was the intention that this learning source would assist the groups as they worked through the PBL component. It would be misleading to suggest that the groups all functioned effectively. As the KBC students progressed through their problem packages they also learnt that not always is working in a group an easy task. The role of group work in a project such as this cannot be underestimated, as it is a central and vital component to the success or failure of each member of each group. To combat what could only be seen as a decline in community moral the facilitators brought in an outside consultant to take the students through the fundamental differences between groups and teams. The two workshops also demonstrated to the students that the problems and issues they were facing were common to the majority of teams. Through a series of interactive team building exercises that were simply designed to get the students talking again the students initiated a whole class conversation that appeared to release into the open some of the built-up frustrations that they had amassed as they worked through the first problem. The students were alerted to the fact that when they understand each other's roles in their particular groups then the chances of them functioning more efficiently are greatly improved.

One of the school groups discussed their own group and the roles they all played in it just one week after the team building skills workshops. The following discussion took place:

The members of this group felt relieved once this discussion had taken place. Like the team building exercises the week before the effect of airing their feelings had played a cathartic influence. The team was able to appreciate what each of them had to offer and had they not opened up and voiced their opinions they may never have reached the level of effectiveness that they did. What this example illustrates is that for effective functioning teams there needs to be input, guidance and structure by the facilitating staff but also a committed effort on the part of the students in each of the respective teams. Each member of each team has to be willing to take a risk and show honesty and openness. As was shown by the above example when such risks are taken the result is often for the betterment of the team.

In July 1999, the KBC students returned to the mainstream program. The mainstream program follows the traditional structure of the lecture-tutorial mode. The students' schedule comprised three education subjects and one elective subject from any outside faculty. KBC students chose outside electives ranging from Australian history, Philosophy, Introduction to Public Health and Management studies.

The lecture was a new experience for the majority of the KBC students. On the first day of the new session Siobhan reported the following:

Siobhan's comments about feeling detached are a reflection of how involved the students were in their learning environment during the KBC Project. Several KBC students reaffirmed this initial observation made by Siobhan in week four. The following comments were made via the asynchronous chat space, which the students used to keep in touch with each other.

The comments made by Kerrie are far removed from the girl who said she went home and found that "stuff just came out" and that she "didn't even realise she was learning". For Kerrie the learning community had been central to her learning, by week four of the mainstream program she admitted that she was struggling to create personal motivation.

It would appear that the learning community had given the students an identity. The need to be part of a group, involved and active in their learning. This would exhibit that the students had indeed felt a great deal of ownership for both their learning and their group. The last comment in the above collection from Fran would suggest that what she was missing in the tutorials was the community interaction which was prevalent in the KBC, (especially in the first 5 weeks of intensive preparation, which was dominated by discussion and workshop activities). The comments appear to have a commonality in that the KBC students have identified that for learning to occur there needs to be an active role-played by the student and that learning is more than absorption.

The above comments and observations about life in the mainstream were made early in session two as the session progressed the KBC students accepted the mainstream way of doing things. This did not mean however that they always liked what they were doing! Their early sentiments remained close to the above themes but what became more evident as the session progressed was the ability of the KBC students to compare the two modes of delivery in a deeper more analytical manner. The students were looking for connections between their university studies and the work of a teacher. They were consciously looking for the links between theory and practice.

The fundamental objective of the KBC model of teacher education is to equip students with skills and information that will transfer from the university to school to his/her professional life. The preliminary data collection was intended to inform the facilitating team whether the three sources of learning were in fact operating as intended. From the data gathered it would appear that the community and school-based learning sources were the most influential on student learning in the first session. From these two sources the students have reported an increasing awareness about teaching and the role of a teacher. They have also provided an insight into the benefits and advantages of community learning from the perspective of first year students.

Whilst the PBL learning source caused some initial intellectual unrest it is acknowledged that teachers and students were new to PBL and that it requires time, patience and willingness to accept risk and uncertainty. The tutors were often tempted to give the students key variables, or too much information. When the students returned to mainstream classes in session two they began to compare their experiences between the two modes of learning. The majority of the KBC students were quick to realise that for their own learning they needed to play an active involvement and that a link between theory and practice was required to make the learning meaningful.

Invitations have been extended to the KBC students to join a Second Year KBC program in first session 2000 the response to this invitation indicate that all but two students are returning. Of the two students who have decided not to return to the KBC model, one is leaving the Education Faculty to transfer to Informatics and the other is staying in the mainstream, as she prefers this mode of learning. This result along with the preliminary research signals that the KBC Project is a worthwhile alternative model for preservice teacher education. The preliminary research shows how the students developed an understanding of teaching, schools and their culture as well as observing that for their own personal learning they need to take an active role. The KBC Project has an authentic potential to make a difference in preservice teacher education because of its ability to provide students with a link between theory and practice and an appreciation of the complexity of teaching and schools.

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