Effectiveness of Blended Collaborative Knowledge Construction to Prepare Senior High-School Students for Science Project Development: Learn-Read-Share Academic Journal Publications in Seminar Course

Abstract

Science project endures as a key project for high school students by developing and constructing knowledge through the research questions that they formulated. To reach this aim, students need to gain more knowledge by searching and reading scholarly journals for better understanding, current applications, interesting studies, and findings. Based on this perspective, the study proposes a blended collaborative knowledge construction approach with learn-read-share journal articles. While working in this process, students can construct and develop their understanding and ideas with the support of technology in order to brainstorm with peers, teachers, and specialists. Online social media was used as a medium throughout the learning activities for discussion, brainstorm, and presentation, while face-to-face activities were used when meeting the teachers for consultation. In the meantime, students gained experiences of collaboration and self-learning, which are essential for developing science projects in the future; besides, their reading literacy would be promoted. After the proposed approach was implemented, it was found that most students gained higher scores of learning achievements; also, the reading literacy, presentation, and answering skill. The findings of this study could serve as a model in adopting blended learning with collaborative learning activities for science and other subjects.