Distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledge-construction, and knowledge-creation discourses

van Aalst, Jan

In Bereiter and Scardamalia's knowledge-creation model (Bereiter 2002; Bereiter and Scardamalia 1996; Scardamalia 2002; Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006) , a class of students is considered a community that shares a commitment to creative work on ideas and advancement of the state of knowledge in that community. Ideas are considered intellectual artifacts of the community; they reside in the community's discourse rather than in people's minds. The community needs to be able to identify gaps in its collective knowledge, map out ways to fill those gaps, design and manage inquiries, manage social processes, and evaluate progress. Thus, the community's goals are emergent. Students are expected to make "constructive use of authoritative sources" (Scardamalia 2002) such as books, websites, and experiments, treating them as potentially useful for informing their work. They are also expected to engage in progressive problem solving, reinvesting cognitive resources to deepen their understanding of problems and taking on more difficult problems over time (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1993) .