This study investigates the interaction patterns within a primary school classroom in China that was designed around knowledge-building principles. While knowledge-building pedagogy has been extensively studied in Western contexts, its implementation in Confucian-heritage classrooms remains underexplored. Using a mixed-methods approach, we developed and applied a 17-category Multimodal Interaction Coding Scheme (MICS) to analyze video recordings of four third-grade batik-themed lessons (N = 1,872 behavioral segments). Quantitative and sequential analyses revealed that student-led discourse dominated classroom activity (62.77%), primarily sustained through peer collaboration (27.40%) and student presentations (26.71%). Teachers primarily used open-ended questioning and indirect guidance (indirect/direct ratio = 0.675) to scaffold learning. Technology served mainly as a presentational and procedural tool, while periods of ‘productive silence’ functioned as metacognitive spaces yet were seldom leveraged for communal knowledge advancement. The study contributes a validated analytical framework (MICS) and empirical insights into how student agency and dialogic teaching can be effectively realized in a Chinese classroom setting, challenging stereotypes about passive knowledge transmission in Confucian-heritage education.
Hongyan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.