Keynote given by Professor Carl Bereiter at 2011 Knowledge Building Summer Institute in Guangzhou, China.

1. 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

2. 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

3. Knowledge Building
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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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)

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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”

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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”?

20. 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.