Knowledge Management

The faculty members at every school are made up of a wide variety of professions each with different strengths, passions, and areas of personal professional interest. This is one factor which makes our schools rich learning environments and allows schools to offer programs that appeal to a wide variety of students.

Knowledge is traditionally dispersed throughout our schools – more formally if we look at how departments/subjects are divided and organized, and less informally when it comes to areas of personal professional interest. Also, faculty members often carry the history of an organization with them as well which is valuable knowledge in placing the current practices within a context or timeline of development. Faculty members who have been in the same school for a period of time know where to go to ask certain questions, who has tried that cool project in the past, or who is an expert on a certain topic. The truth is that we cannot all attend every conference, read every article, and be experts on every topic, but yet within our schools we have a great number of faculty members with very specialized knowledge that can be beneficial to the whole if it is leveraged properly.

I believe that we have started to shift the way that we look at knowledge for students in terms of the assignments we engaged them in. Problem based learning is an excellent example of how we are design multidisciplinary problems for students to ponder and help them to see how real world knowledge is trans-disciplinary. The next big shift needs to come in how we address sharing and building the knowledge of faculty members within our schools. Education is a tangled web of interconnected factors – social, emotional, academic – that effect students ability to engage in learning. As professionals, the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) Standards of Practice requires that we are responsible for maintaining our professional knowledge, professional practice, leadership within learning communities, and ongoing professional learning. With the vast amount of research areas being investigated that contribute to student learning, it can be overwhelming to decide what professional knowledge to focus our efforts on in order to “keep up“.

Developing procedures, tools, or spaces (online or face-to-face) to facilitate knowledge management within organizations is critical to establishing a collaborative environment were continuous ongoing professional learning can happen. This is a requirement of schools and teachers in the 21st century and teachers in Ontario are held accountable for this through the OCT Standards of Practice.

“The challenge of knowledge management in organizations is
to ensure that organizations continually learn,
that new knowledge is effectively incorporated into work practices,
and that the knowledge is accessible when needed.” (Choo, 2000.)

The challenge for schools is to used the combined knowledge of the community members in an effective way. Until recently schools have traditionally been places where for teachers personal “learning and sharing are often luxuries that occur outside normal routine” (Caroll et. al, 2005). This is one obstacle to developing best practices for sharing teacher practice or knowledge management that needs to be addressed. If there is time or procedures embedded within the regular routine for learning and sharing to take place it helps to validate the importance of the process and ensure quality sharing and collaboration is happening.

There are many different ways that faculty can be engaged in the sharing process and I am envisioning a hierarchy of effectiveness/impact in terms of sharing. I have come across the TED Talk on  “Hierarchy of Digital Collaboration” by Clay Shirky and I think that some of his thinking could be adapted to fit the sharing of best practices within schools. The diagram to the left was designed by Mike Arauz.

The most basic form of knowledge management that can happen within schools is the sharing of useable resources. This type of sharing is very natural and easy to facilitate  between teachers who teach common subjects/grades. Technology has made this process much easier as we can email documents, use social bookmarking services such as Diigo, and there is often a shared interest in the resource being exchanged. Sharing ready to use resources is also instantly gratifying, because the usefulness and impact of the sharing can be immediately felt – both by the giver and receiver. It also helps to develop a culture of sharing and collaboration, as we become more familiar with the professional practices of our colleagues.

A higher level of knowledge management in schools involves the sharing of professional information that can be adapted to fit a different situation. This type of sharing is slightly more complex because it could involve faculty members who do not normally interact with each other – they may teach different grades, subjects, or in a different physical building. Again technology can make this process much easier as we can use Twitter to share snip-its of what is happening in our classrooms, video tape examples of lessons, and exchange resources with people around the world. Although this type of sharing can be enhanced by technology, there is not the same level of instant gratification that comes with the process because the information being shared needs to be adapted before it can be implemented. Helping teachers see how the information can be adapted to fit their needs is critical to adaptation of the information or knowledge.

In summary:
(1) Maintaining professional knowledge is a requirement for all members of the Ontario College of Teachers.
(2) Sharing or knowledge management needs to be embedded into the regular schedule to increase its effectiveness.
(3) Teachers need assistance to see how the information or knowledge can be adapted to fit their specific situation.

Next, I am going to investigate the procedures, tools, and spaces that can facilitate effective knowledge management procedures.

References

Carroll, J. M., Rosson, M. B., Dunlap, D., & Isenhour, P. (2005). Frameworks for Sharing Teaching Practices. Educational Technology & Society, 8 (3), 162-175.

Choo, C.W. (2000). The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information To Construct Meaning,
Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions, New York: Oxford University Press.