Participatory knowing is a type of epistemology that recognizes the collective process of knowledge generation and education. It holds that knowledge exists inextricably within the collective experience of individuals, and involves the active engagement and collaboration of all those involved in the learning process. It is a form of learning and knowing which places emphasis on the ease of access that individuals have to knowledge, as well as the capacity of the collective to cultivate, refine and form its own understanding. It acknowledges the capacity of individuals to both construct and reconstruct knowledge, as well as the power of collective reflection and dialectic dialogue to bring about new forms of understanding. In this way, participatory knowing recognises the potential of learning communities to be more than the sum of their parts.

See also: collective intelligence, distributed cognition, feedback loop, possibility space, simulated thinking