How is knowledge constructed?

The construction of knowledge is a dynamic, active process in which learners constantly strive to make sense of new information.

Over time, this sense-making activity is made up of conscious attention, organising and reorganising ideas, assimilating or accommodating to new ideas, and constant reshuffling and reorganising in efforts to connect ideas into coherent patterns.

Stoll et al., 2003, pages 24–25

What a learner understands from a new message or experience depends critically on the knowledge they already have.

Sense-making is not a simple decoding of the … message; in general, the process of comprehension is an active process of interpretation that draws on the individual’s rich knowledge base of understandings, beliefs, and attitudes.

Spillane et al., 2002, page 391

Timperley et al. (2007) describe four learning processes through which people may engage with new knowledge, each of which is associated with a different outcome. They describe the processes as “iterative” because deeper learning typically requires more than one opportunity to engage with new understandings and skills. The processes are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they may all be present within the course of a single learning opportunity.

The learning processes engaged when developing new understandings and skills involve cycles of one or more of the following:

• Process 1: Cueing and retrieving prior knowledge

  • Outcome: Prior knowledge is consolidated and/or examined.

• Process 2: Becoming aware of new information/skills and integrating them into current values and beliefs system

  • Outcome: New knowledge is adopted or adapted.

• Process 3: Creating dissonance with current position (values and beliefs)

  • Outcome: Dissonance is resolved (accepted/rejected); current values and beliefs system are repositioned or reconstructed.

• Process 4: Developing self-regulated learning in relation to testing the efficacy of teaching for student learning

  • Outcome: Student outcomes are monitored and teaching practice adjusted to maximise effectiveness.

The first learning process lays the foundation for Processes 2 and 3. In order to negotiate new knowledge, learners first need to cue their prior knowledge and engage their theories of practice. Sometimes the new knowledge will align with their current values, beliefs, and understandings (Process 2), and at other times it will not (Process 3).

The second learning process involves developing an awareness of new information that is consistent with learners’ current values, beliefs, and understandings. It can result in the acquisition of relatively discrete pieces of new knowledge and skills that are readily translated into practice or, when accompanied by more extended opportunities to engage with new learning, may result in more substantive development and change.

The third process involves the reconstruction of professional knowledge, a process that can challenge learners’ most basic values, beliefs, and understandings. Timperley et al. (2007) refer to this period of disequilibrium as creating dissonance “with current position”, rather than “with knowledge and/or skills”, because the impact of this can be so profound. (See also pages 156–158.)

The fourth process involves the use of self-regulated learning in which educators evaluate the efficacy of their teaching in terms of its contribution to valued student outcomes that are clearly defined. Educators monitor and adjust their practice according to what they discover. Elsewhere, Timperley (2007) has commented:

If teachers develop a professional identity that involves the systematic monitoring of the impact of their practice on student learning with appropriate instructional adjustments, then searching for new knowledge and skills to enable them to develop their professionalism is likely to become part of the professional learning process. In this way professional learning becomes embedded in practice and targeted towards meeting the learning needs of students.

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