Where is Knowledge Building

Heading?

Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia

Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology

University of Toronto

Knowledge Building Summer Institute

Guangzhou, China

July 9, 2011

Outline

Knowledge Building: A brief introduction

A broader mission: Building cultural capacity for innovation

Learning innovation by doing it

Wider range of innovating activities

Classroom as a center of creative culture

Theory development and theory improvement

Knowledge Building becomes the heart of the curriculum

Theory development not only in science

Explanatory coherence and “rising above”

Idea-centered evaluation at the group level

Inter-group competition and comparison

The BCCI vision: A worldwide knowledge-creating civilization that

values cultural differences

The term is currently used in more than a million web

documents, but seldom defined.

Our definition:

Knowledge building is producing knowledge of value

to a community, and continually improving it.

• Synonymous with “knowledge creation” (Nonaka)

• Common in knowledge-based organizations of all kinds;

rare in schools.

Knowledge Building

Member of the large family of constructivist

approaches to education

If compelled to put into one sentence what

is different:

giving students collective responsibility

for idea improvement

Knowledge Building

In Knowledge Building all ideas are

assumed to be improvable

Engineers and designers do not even

contemplate the possibility of a final state of

perfection

(Petroski, 2003).

Knowledge building students and teachers

don’t either.

Knowledge Building

What “Innovation” Means in

Today’s World

No one seriously advocates innovation for its own sake. In

current usage, “innovation” stands for a cluster of

concepts that include

Invention

Discovery

Knowledge creation

Problem solving

Entrepreneurship

Together these constitute the creative aspect of progress,

progress achieved through the production and application

of new knowledge.

Innovation is not just about new ways

to make money

Innovation is needed for economic progress, but…

The need for new knowledge, new solutions, extends well

beyond the economic sphere.

Homer-Dixon (2000, 2006) has documented the need for

new knowledge that will enable societies to deal with a

host of urgent and increasingly complex problems—

problems of health, environment, resources, crime,

corruption, and oppression.

One of the most pressing needs is for knowledge of how

to deal with complexity itself.

Innovativeness is becoming recognized

as a cultural issue

Governments can do only so much by establishing

innovation centers, providing stimulus funds, and

removing barriers.

Beyond that it depends on the innovativeness of the

people.

Innovativeness is probably not in the genes, but it is

certainly in the culture.

It is in how people are brought up—to be seekers and

risk-takers or to be followers and risk-avoiders.

Knowledge Building as a platform for

developing innovativeness

Learning to innovate by innovating

Innovation in disciplinary knowledge: theory

building

Innovation in engineering: e.g., Learning by

Design (Kolodner)

Entrepreneurship: e.g., Junior Achievement

Innovation in the arts

Classroom becomes a miniature home for the “creative

class” (Richard Florida)

Knowledge Building retains its major

focus on theory building

Theory building is where education for innovation and

disciplinary learning come together

Theory building can enrich the study of history, social

studies, and literature—as well as science and

mathematics

Theories are not beliefs but constructions and tools

Theory improvement takes precedence over truth and

evidence

Explanatory coherence (Thagard) is the goal

Innovation ~ Idea Improvement ~

“Rising Above”

Producing new ideas is easy (at least for children)

Improving ideas is hard

A “rise-above” is not a summary, it is a synthesis

Significant innovation requires sustained creative work

with ideas

Schools typically fail on the “sustained” part, the “work”

part, and the “ideas” part--and confine the “creative” part

to expressive media

Idea-centered Evaluation at

the Group Level

In a culture of innovation, knowledge advancement at the group level

counts for as much or more than knowledge advancement at the

individual level (Stahl)

Group-level assessment traces the emergence and spread of ideas

Assessment should help to motivate and guide collaborative

knowledge building

Inter-group competition and comparison

Different groups may produce essentially the same theory, but with

differences in formulation that call for “rising above”

The BCCI Vision

Building cultural capacity for innovation, starting in early

childhood and making use of all cultural resources both in

and out of school

Young people as junior members of a knowledge-creating

civilization

One civilization, many cultures

BCCI Goals for Students

To become more innovative in today’s world, societies must

develop learners who

1. are socialized into a world-wide knowledge-creating

culture

2. have distinctive ways of contributing to innovation

3. are well grounded in science and humanities and

appreciate their importance in a progressive society

4. are willing to work at improving their own and their

community’s ideas

5. are able to thrive on complexity and idea diversity

These goals represent major challenges

for Knowledge Building

Although goal 3, education in the disciplines, receives

considerable attention in the learning sciences, and goal 5,

thriving on complexity and idea diversity, is beginning to

receive more attention, the remaining goals are largely

neglected:

socialization into a world-wide knowledge-creating

culture

development of distinctive ways of contributing to

innovation

willingness to work at improving own ideas and the

community’s ideas

Acculturation: Socialization into a World-

wide Knowledge-creating Culture A knowledge-creating culture already exists in every

developed and developing nation.

Like the sports culture, it is not dominant in any nation but it cuts across national boundaries and is committed to progress.

Schools know how to promote a culture of continuous progress in sports, one that almost all students identify with and support.

They need to do the same with a culture of continuous advancement of knowledge frontiers.

Just as not everyone needs to be a star athlete in a sports culture, not everyone needs to be a star innovator in a knowledge-creating culture.

Multiple and Individuated Ways of

Contributing In a sports culture everyone can contribute, even if it is

only by cheering for the home team.

A knowledge-creating culture needs cheerleaders and a cheering section too.

It also needs critics and question-askers.

Knowledge Building should help students develop distinctive personal ways of contributing to creative work with knowledge.

These become distinctive talents that graduates can carry with them into the job market.

As with a sports team, the whole is strengthened by the diversity of individual strengths.

Disciplinary Education and

Socialization The boundaries between disciplines are not “artificial.”

Knowledge building in the disciplines should embrace “thinking like a chemist”--like a historian, a lawyer, a literary critic, a mathematician, and so on.

Understanding what this means is a worthwhile focus of metacognitive inquiry in every school subject.

Understanding evolution is an important goal; so is understanding what it means to understand evolution.

Idea Improvement Mindset: Students work at

improving their own and their community’s ideas

Essential for a successful knowledge-creating culture.

Idea improvement should be inculcated as a value.

Delay of judgment about truth is an essential component of the idea improvement mindset.

Jung’s “perceiving” vs. “judging” personality types.

When should judging have priority over seeking improvements?

Students need tools and methods for idea improvement. Is this a place for “scripting”?

Thriving on Complexity and Idea Diversity

Knowledge advances almost always involve increase in complexity, even when the end result is simplification.

Throughout history the main obstacle to intellectual progress has been stubborn adherence to simpler ideas.

Complexity needs to become an object of inquiry in schools, but that isn’t enough.

Oversimplification is an important concept for students engaged in Knowledge Building. Needlessly complex is also helpful.