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

组织拥有知识。知识通常分散在整个组织中。有些是成文的文件和政策，有些体现在项目和战略中，有些则被个人和小团体心照不宣。知识管理的问题是一个组织的知识往往是本地生产的，随意传播，和无效索引。无论何时何地需要，都无法访问。知识管理技术采用一种参与式的方法来识别、编纂和整合整个组织的知识资源。他们的目标是帮助人们理解他们的组织，发展和保持信任，做出承诺和承担责任，更有效地挑战，谈判和学习，从而提高人们对组织的贡献的质量。本计划将运用知识管理的概念和技术，以及它们所使用的资讯科技，来了解和加强学校组织的知识管理。我们将与学校管理者合作，但主要是与教师合作。首先，我们将调查和描述目前存在的知识管理实践，并确定改进知识管理的需求和机会。我们将促进教师发起的组织知识资源的开发，并识别和方便地编纂学校系统的关键知识。我们会评估这项干预措施对教师、学校制度和社会对学校的看法的影响。我们将把这种分析和干预与现在在商业组织中成为典型的知识管理干预进行比较和对比。

Organizations have knowledge. The knowledge is typically dispersedthroughout the organization. Some of it is codified in documents andpolicies, some is embodied in projects and strategies, and some is tacitlyheld by individuals and small groups. The problem of knowledge managementis that an organization's knowledge is often locally produced, haphazardlydisseminated, and ineffectively indexed. It is inaccessible when and whereit is needed. Knowledge management techniques take a participatory approachto identifying, codifying, and integrating knowledge resources throughoutthe organization. Their objective is to help people make sense of theirorganizations, to develop and maintain trust, to make commitments and takeresponsibility, to more effectively challenge, negotiate, and learn, andthereby to improve the quality of the contributions people make to theirorganizations.This project will adapt knowledge management concepts and techniques, andthe information technology they employ, to understand and enhance knowledgemanagement in school organizations. We will work with schooladministrators, but chiefly with teachers. First, we will investigate andcharacterize knowledge management practices as they exist today, andidentify needs and opportunities to improve knowledge management. We willfacilitate teacher-initiated development of organizational knowledgeresources, and identify, and accessibly codify the critical knowledge ofthe school systems.We will assess the impact of this intervention on teachers, on the schoolsystem, and on the perception of the school by the community. We willcompare and contrast this analysis and intervention to knowledge managementinterventions now becoming typical in business organizations.