Paper Title
Knowledge Building Constructs in Elementary Textbooks
Abstract
Education is a knowledge building activity. Textbooks use knowledge building constructs to produce mental
events in the student’s mind that eventually result in building knowledge. Knowledge building constructs structure the
knowledge and control its flow so that the student is not overwhelmed during the process of learning. In this paper, we report
several knowledge building constructs we have identified in textbooks and discuss their intended knowledge. We propose
strategies for identifying knowledge building constructs and the units of knowledge they build. Finally, we have applied our
methodology to an elementary textbook on Mathematics and report our preliminary results on knowledge building
constructs.
Keywords - Knowledge building constructs; Knowledge units; education