Can Children Really Create Knowledge

By Carl Bereiter, Marlene Scardamalia. 2010

100 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Can children genuinely create new knowledge, as opposed to merely carrying out activities that resemble those of mature scientists and innovators? The answer is yes, provided the comparison is not to works of genius but to standards that prevail in ordinary research communities. One important product of knowledge creation is concepts and tools that enable further knowledge creation. This is the kind of knowledge creation of greatest value in childhood education. Examples of it, drawn from elementary school knowledge-building classrooms, are examined to show both the attainability and the authenticity of knowledge creation to enable knowledge creation. It is mainly achieved through students’ theory building, and it is a powerful way of converting declarative knowledge to productive knowledge.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/515de3edc29c6b88a6741e8a6d137885095eb7f4