Knowledge Building: Advancing the State of Community Knowledge

“Knowledge Building” may be understood as synonymous with “knowledge creation,” as that term is used in organizational science and innovation networks, amplified by a concern with educational benefit and well-being of participants, knowledge for public good, and complex systems conceptions of knowledge creation. Thus, knowledge-building classrooms and networks function in design mode, with “design thinking” as a basic mode of thought. Although one among many constructivist approaches, Knowledge Building is distinguished by an emphasis on advancing the state of community knowledge (comparable to advancing the “state of the art”) and on “epistemic agency”: students’ collective responsibility for idea improvement. Knowledge Forum technology is designed to support knowledge-creating discourse within and between communities and to provide feedback tools that students themselves can use in exercising epistemic agency. Pragmatic epistemological issues are discussed, including prescribed activity structures, external scripts, and conceptual and material artifacts, as these issues relate to self-organization and creative knowledge work.