Knowledge Building: Breaking Barriers

The Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology has initiated a scholars program to recognize the work of practitioners who are able to break barriers in knowledge building. Our goal is to create cultures where innovation and continual improvement flourish.

Knowledge building requires that practitioners adopt a challenging mix of new theories, principles, practices, and technologies. Critics say knowledge building is great--in theory--but too challenging in practice. We disagree. It is practitioners who have, in our experience, made knowledge building a reality. They did not accomplish this by reducing its complexity but by reaching new heights. In turn, they are allowing us all to set our sights higher. That is what knowledge building is all about. It exploits the endless improvability of ideas. To reduce it to prescriptions or slogans is to miss its essence.

We wish to help overcome disincentives to innovation. The real problem, as we see it, is that practitioners have no time and few rewards for innovation. This IKIT scholars program aims to alter that, at least to some small extent, by providing financial support for those who can break barriers in knowledge building. Important barriers broken this year include: students younger than ever engaged in knowledge building, complex principles of knowledge building now being championed by elementary school students, and workplace environments demonstrating continual improvement with key facets of knowledge building.

We will award up to $3,000 Canadian to an individual or team to assist in accomplishing and documenting a knowledge building innovation. (Multiple or repeat awards are possible, provided each one targets a distinctive advance.) Each award additionally brings with it the following chances to publicize your advances and to contribute to the broader knowledge building community.

1. Newsletter highlights: Your knowledge building innovation will be profiled on our website and newsletters

2. Up to $300 will additionally be provided if you enter your work into the Knowledge Society Network, and if you join others there, both with the goal of continually advancing your own work, and helping others to make parallel advances. The Knowledge Society Network is an international forum for innovation in knowledge building.

3. A $425 fee waiver for presenting your breakthrough at our annual summer institute. At this Institute we discuss barriers to knowledge building and define next steps. Your attendance is one of the best ways to stay current and to ensure that your work is at the cutting edge of the knowledge building enterprise.

4. Support documents to encourage your school or organization to cover costs for your travel and accommodation at our Summer Institute.

Please read the following articles with care before you apply:

• Knowledge Building, The Encyclopedia of Education
• Collective Cognitive Responsibility
• What is a Barrier-Breaking Innovation?

These articles are important for clarifying the ideas of knowledge building and barrier-breaking innovation. In addition to meeting the technical requirements listed in the applications guidelines, you should make clear how your work will advance the state of the art in knowledge building.