Knowledge Building Communities

Knowledge Forum - A Knowledge Building Technology

The term Knowledge Building, coined by Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter, can be defined as: "...the production and continual improvement of ideas of value to a community, through means that increase the likelihood that what the community accomplished will be greater than the sum of individual contributions and part of broader cultural efforts" (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003, p. 1370).

Knowledge Building community

Unlike learning, which is both internal and invisible, knowledge building results in the creation or modification of public knowledge. Public, in this sense, means that the knowledge is available to other group members to be worked upon and improved. Thus, the group may be comprised of an exclusive team of knowledge workers, or members of a large-scale open community. Regardless of the context of the specific team, the ideas are the products of joint construction and modification. While learning is task-based and individual, knowledge building focuses on advancing the knowledge of the group. In a computer conferencing environment, the construction and posting of messages is consistent with a knowledge building approach in that submitted messages are made public and remain available for revision and improvement by other members of the class. In addition to learning about the ideas introduced by other people in the conference, individuals learn through deliberating their own ideas in written form. Knowledge building is a process that puts ideas at the forefront by considering their strengths, weaknesses, applications, and potential for future development (Lamon, Reeve & Scardamalia, 2001).

In theory, knowledge building can occur in many types of environments. However, the Knowledge Forum environment was designed to specifically support and sustain knowledge building discourse. More recent versions of the software include a range of features to enrich online discussion. For example, students can label their contributions with scaffolds such as My Theory, New Information, and I Need To Understand. An annotation feature enables users to add less relevant information as appendages to written contributions, thereby potentially reducing the number of online messages that users have to sort through. However, despite the presumed advantages of such features, it is nevertheless recognized that technology alone cannot bring about knowledge building processes in the classroom (Scardamalia& Bereiter, 1994).

The Annotation feature in Knowledge Forum

Recommended Readings:

• Lamon, M., Reeve, R., & Scadamalia, M. (2001). Mapping Learning and the Growth of Knowledge in a Knowledge Building Community. Presented at the American Educational Research Association Meeting 2001, Seattle: Washington Session 21.45.

• Scardamalia, M. (2002). Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. In B. Smith (Ed.) Liberal education in a knowledge society (pp. 67-98). Chicago: Open Court.

• Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283.

• Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2002). Knowledge building. In Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan Reference.