| | | The Role of Knowledge Building (KB)
Knowledge Building pedagogy refers to teaching and learning approaches that:
- are based on fundamental guiding principles rather than on procedures alone
- focus on improving the ideas of the entire classroom community instead of solely on the individual learner
- emphasize collaborative learning experiences within a classroom environment, where students openly and publicly negotiate their ideas with each other
- strive to help students "regard themselves and their work as part of the civilizationwide effort to advance knowledge frontiers" (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2009, n.p.)
Table 1 summarizes the 12 Principles of Knowledge Building that grew out of a shared history of esearch at the Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology (IKIT), in partnership with The Laboratory School at the University of Toronto. These 12 principles represent the foundational building blocks of Environmental Inquiry and are embedded throughout the classroom examples provided in this resource. Importantly, teachers can use these principles as a guide, not a set of procedures, for understanding and implementing Environmental Inquiry. To learn more about the origin and research surrounding these principles, visit IKIT. | |
