Two modes of thinking in knowledge building

Abstract

In productive work with knowledge and ideas, two kinds of thinking play vital roles: critical thinking and design thinking. Critical thinking has dominated education, from Socratic dialogues of ancient times to modern argumentation frameworks, software, and 21st century skill lists, curriculum guidelines, and achievements tests. Design thinking, in contrast, has entered educational discourse much later and from outside– from contexts where creative work with knowledge and ideas is dominant. As education for innovation becomes an imperative, design thinking has begun to gain attention but has yet to become integrated into the mainstream of work with educational content. Knowledge building operates in design mode. In this mode, design thinking plays the leading role in knowledge creation and idea improvement,while critical thinking plays important supportive roles. Shifting flexibly between the two kinds of thinking is essential. To support knowledge building teachers need to establish a community that provides mutual support for knowledge building discourse and that maintains a norm of collective responsibility for idea improvement. Both critical thinking and design thinking take many years to develop to a high level, but children can begin functioning in design mode from an early age and thereby gain competence in both kinds of thinking and learn to use them together in advancing community knowledge. In the largest sense, this is socialization into life and work in a knowledge society.

Keywords: Knowledge building, critical thinking, design thinking, innovation, community knowledge, improving ideas.