What? In the context of Learning by Design a Knowledge Producing Community is a school comprised of students and teachers who are actively pursuing deep understanding and from this understanding are producing knowledge (as opposed to memorising and consuming knowledge). Teachers in a Knowledge Producing Community are instrumental in a process involving the mindful and premeditated design of learning using a broad range of knowledge processes and tactics. Such teachers engage with their students using a pedagogical meta-language and are explicit about their designs and their purposes – they listen and respond to their students, understand their needs and different ways of knowing and encourage them to produce their own knowledge. The teachers in a Knowledge Producing Community engage in ongoing analysis, reflection and dialogue with students, colleagues and parents about their teaching and its impacts and consequences.
Why? Knowledge Producing Communities and the people who create, sustain and are sustained by them, are seen as a pre-requisite for bright intelligent and creative engagement with the future. The active initiatives and responses of our society to the possibilities and perplexes of the times will depend on people from such communities.