Chinese Journal of Science Education


Vol. 16 No. 1 , Pages 53 - 74 , 2008

Utilizing a Knowledge Management (KM) Platform in Promoting Applied Science Teachers’ Professional Growth (Article written in Chinese)

Kuo-Hung TSENG, Shi-Jer LOU, Yuan CHEN, Hung-Jen YANG, & Wen-Hua HSU

Abstract

This study focused on integrating a Knowledge Management (KM) platform into vocational high schools teachers’ instruction and observing the effectiveness of the platform in promoting teachers’ professional growth. This case study aimed to 1) describe teachers’ integration of the KM platform into instruction, 2) understand the change of teachers’ professional growth in the pre-, mid-, and post-instructional stages after integrating KM platform into the curriculum, 3) explore the instructional fluctuation range of KM capacity by applying the KM platform, 4) and propose suggestions for integrating the KM platform into the classroom. This study used both qualitative and quantitative research methods, developmental designs for integrating KM into the curriculum, KM observation checklist, self-evaluation questionnaires for teachers, quasi-experimental appraisals of cost-effectiveness of integrating KM into the curriculum, and finally, in-depth interviews in pre-, mid-, and post-instructional stages. Firstly, the study revealed that teachers in the experimental group demonstrated positive growth in areas of knowledge sharing and knowledge application. According to the growth profiles in knowledge sharing in the KM observation checklist, the teachers showed no significant gains until the fifth and the sixth weeks, where teachers’ pedagogical Knowledge (PK) reached its peak. The study also found that the teachers preferred “knowledge acquisition,” “knowledge sharing,” and “knowledge application” when using PK and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in KM interactions, but teachers using the platform for sharing Content Knowledge (CK) accounted the least amount of overall usage. Secondly, the three in depth interviews (pre-, mid and post) revealed that the teachers’ motivation showed a shift from A passive style to an active style and conceptions about KM changed from vague understanding to clear understanding at later stages. There was a formation of meta-cognition in introspection during later stages. Through interviews, teachers also suggested the usefulness of the KM platform for retaining implicit knowledge. Finally, in order to let the teachers share knowledge openly, broaden the influence of their knowledge, and to develop a high-quality “teaching community”, course content construction of the platform is important. The teachers and students are required to be more motivated to use this platform, in order to construct a culture of knowledge sharing and allow the influence of knowledge to be expanded, which subsequently improves the quality of vocational education.

Keywords: knowledge management (KM); knowledge management (KM) platform; vocational high school teachers; teachers’ professional growth

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