ROLE: The school as a knowing organization - Knowledge management as a strategy for continuous teacher development

Organizations have knowledge. The knowledge is typically dispersed

throughout the organization. Some of it is codified in documents and

policies, some is embodied in projects and strategies, and some is tacitly

held by individuals and small groups. The problem of knowledge management

is that an organization's knowledge is often locally produced, haphazardly

disseminated, and ineffectively indexed. It is inaccessible when and where

it is needed. Knowledge management techniques take a participatory approach

to identifying, codifying, and integrating knowledge resources throughout

the organization. Their objective is to help people make sense of their

organizations, to develop and maintain trust, to make commitments and take

responsibility, to more effectively challenge, negotiate, and learn, and

thereby to improve the quality of the contributions people make to their

organizations.

This project will adapt knowledge management concepts and techniques, and

the information technology they employ, to understand and enhance knowledge

management in school organizations. We will work with school

administrators, but chiefly with teachers. First, we will investigate and

characterize knowledge management practices as they exist today, and

identify needs and opportunities to improve knowledge management. We will

facilitate teacher-initiated development of organizational knowledge

resources, and identify, and accessibly codify the critical knowledge of

the school systems.

We will assess the impact of this intervention on teachers, on the school

system, and on the perception of the school by the community. We will

compare and contrast this analysis and intervention to knowledge management

interventions now becoming typical in business organizations.