Perspectives of Knowledge Creation and Implications for Education

Abstract

This chapter foregrounds a knowledge-centered pedagogy as an overarching framework to design future learning environments. Specifically, we present our research work in a particular future school in Singapore that aims to make pervasive knowledge building as a core practice of student learning. By pervasive knowledge building in the context of our research study, we advocate the continuous improvement and the progressive advancement of knowledge beyond the four walls of the classroom to embrace both formal learning situation in the classroom and informal learning. Employing design-based research as a methodological tool, we trace how the design of knowledge building activities had evolved over a 3-year period toward our research goal for promoting pervasive knowledge building among students. As an attempt to make our tacit design ideas explicit, we pay particular attention to unpack and elaborate the complexity of design features that guided the overall design of knowledge building activities. We conclude the chapter with discussions that highlight tensions and issues related to the design of future learning environments from knowledge creation perspectives.