The selection of promising ideas within the collective discourse of primary students
This study primarily examines the use of a tool for selecting promising ideas (IPROM) from the collective discourse of cycle 2 and cycle 3 (years 3-6) primary students in the context of two projects carried out in a collaborative network setting. The projects involved writing an informative text in French on the topic of the Middle Ages, as well as designing a ball in Science and Technology. The students described their use of IPROM in selecting promising ideas as being mainly helpful on an individual level, but also mentioned that the tool helped them develop their collective discourse. Moreover, the potential ways to contribute to the discourse that were selected as promising ideas were mainly formulated as theories and student ideas to be further developed. The in-class use of IPROM thus appears to enable primary students to engage in a knowledge building process.