What is productive knowledge and why is it important?

What do you do with the knowledge you learn? More importantly what do you expect your students to do with the knowledge they are accessing. Pulling it to bits from all angles will not only create a deeper level of meaning but also will produce some knowledge that very well may advance a community.

Sourced from a reading:
Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (2010). Can children really create knowledge?

Productive knowledge has replaced the concept in schools of 'mastery' challenging that no one can ever know everything in one discipline.

Productive knowledge is new knowledge which must be used in different contexts, explored, challenged with links made to other ideas, intuitions and habits.

Creating productive knowledge will change your persepctive of the world, your thoughts will be structured differently and therefore your intuitions and habits of mind undergo a shift. Therfore it is very powerful learning and can not only create understanding for the learner but can also create new knowledge for our world.

So can children really create new knowledge for our world?


sourced from 123rf.com

 Do you believe that they can because this will make the  difference.

Applying productive knowledge concept in classrooms involves students participating in arguement, exposition, reflection, as well as using the knowledge in a variety of fun, constructive, problem solving activities.

However collaborative knowledge building is the most powerful. In a knowledge building community participants use knowledge to create new knowledge therefore are productively using the knowledge.