[Xmca-l] Re: Nate's new webpage on Vygotsky

Sun Sep 14 19:07:21 PDT 2014

Michael,

I was shooting for something a little simpler than what Lynda has
suggested. By arguing for "mediated" reflexes, I was simply pointing to the
fact that (ap?)perception is mediated. We do not immediately perceive the
world in all its fullness. Our eyes, nerves, and brains do a ton of the
work for us and in ways that are unique to humans. Just ask a bat:
http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf
or just about any other animal out there and you'll quickly see that we
reflexively inhabit a very peculiarly constructed world.

Similarly, the child's world is already mediated for them and so to say
that a child is in the world in an unmediated fashion seems unlikely.

But how this fits with Andy's idea of artefact-mediation, I'm not sure. Is
the human nervous system an artefact (it is very tool-like in the way that
it chops up the world for us). Or is the mediation by our senses something
different from artefact-mediation? I'll throw that one back to Andy.
-greg

On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> I think I have trouble with this.  Aren't mediated actions something we
> developed over time to help us in our communications with each other, and
> organizing those communications?  Doesn't that mean that there must be some
> human actions that pre-date mediating capabilities.  Did we just completely
> jettison them?  Or do we just use mediation to claim they don't exist.
>
> I read recently that the reason some dogs are very social and very close
> to you is at least partly because they are observing you.  They are trying
> to gauge when you are paying attention and when you are not - so that they
> become very good at stealing food, but also knowing when you need their
> warmth.  Having had two very different dogs of the same breed in succession
> I think I can attest to this.  There is no mediation in the relationship,
> at least for the dog.  Don't humans have the same thing.  Aren't there
> humans who can watch somebody closely and see their unmediated actions and
> determine how they should act in the moment - really good at stealing but
> also knowing when you need warmth?  Don't we call them politicians?
>
> Michael
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> [xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] on behalf
> of Stone, Lynda [lstone@skymail.csus.edu]
> Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2014 10:52 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Nate's new webpage on Vygotsky
>
> David--
>
> how can actions be unmediated if there are "voices of the mind" (i.e.,
> culture)  with us at all times?
>
> lynda
>
> On Sep 13, 2014, at 7:40 AM, David H Kirshner wrote:
>
> Aside from physical reflexes, are there any actions that are unmediated?
> David
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Stone, Lynda
> Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2014 9:15 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Nate's new webpage on Vygotsky
>
> Ester,
>
> That's my view also---but I've found that this metaphor has led folks to
> think, and I quote, justified "direct instruction" in addition to my
> students thinking that Vygostky came up with the idea, these are seniors
> and entering Master students in a child development program so it's their
> prior instruction---
>
>  Well I guess I added to your "tuppence" a bit--
>
> lynda
>
>
> On Sep 13, 2014, at 4:51 AM, Carol Macdonald wrote:
>
> Esther
>
> The zone of proximal development is constructed in mediated activity.
>
> That's my tuppence worth.
>
> Carol
>
> On 13 September 2014 11:12, Esther Goody <eg100@hermes.cam.ac.uk<mailto:
> eg100@hermes.cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> Hmmmm,
> Re scaffolding = zone of proximal development:
> Is it?/Are they?
>
> I thought zone of proximal development was in one's head ..............
> While scaffolding, a la Brunner, by definition involves at least two
> people.
>
> [Of course text-actor could be seen as scaffolding. But this leads away
> from activity. I hope Vygotsky would not have got mired in text-actor stuff
> ]
>
> I am currently obsessed by the way dialogue - real exchanges between real
> people - seems to account for aspects of cognition.
> So it is important to keep role of actors central.
>
>       Comments?
>               Esther Goody
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Stone, Lynda
> Sent: 12 September 2014 23:42
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Nate's new webpage on Vygotsky
>
> Hi All!
>
> I just wanted to share that I use Peg and Mike's paper in all of my
> cognitive development classes for both undergraduate and graduate
> students.  It has been extremely helpful---my students, I'm thrilled to
> say, develop more complex understandings of what the zoped involves.  And
> when I combine this article with Activity
> Theory---
> the leading activity not only makes sense to them but also allows them to
> see how the intersubjective processes through which knowledge is
> constructed are influenced by multiple aspects of a context--including
> motives.  They even change their views about "context" and come to
> understand it as a dynamic phenomenon--- okay, I share this to say that
> this article is particularly helpful because by reading it my students see
> how culture and cognition  (another paper of Mike's) are constructed in the
> zoped.  These understandings are so different from the scaffolding metaphor
> and most all of my students have been taught that scaffolding is equivalent
> to the zoped.
>
> Hope this sharing is useful---
>
> -lynda
>
>
>
>
> On Sep 10, 2014, at 2:27 PM, mike cole wrote:
>
> The paper Peg and I wrote which takes up scaffolding along with other
> metaphors can be found at   http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Mike    current activity
> for the future is the title.
>
> mike
>
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com
> <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>
> <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> I appreciate ALL of the attachments! I worry that I am not Vygotskian
> enough, and would have thought Marzano was out of the XMCA mainstream. I am
> reminded of the XMCA conversation on direct instruction a few weeks back
> wherein Lisa Delpit's Other Peoples Children (1995) is cited as supporting
> DISTAR, prototypical direct instruction. In the same book, is a chapter on
> the "Silenced Dialog". I had a fantasy that Delpit could jump right in to
> the XMCA chat. I am embarrassed to say that I tried to get in touch with
> her (she was SO nice to me when we met some years ago), but she never
> responded, maybe for no other reason than that she is super busy doing
> other things. Maybe she got the message, but didn't want to join one more
> listserve. But I am wondering what she might have transpired if she joined
> in. I am thinking distributed cognition (Hutchins) and cognitive pluralism
> (a term I know from Vera's book, Creative Collaboration). The attachments
> that Phillip sent seem to find direct instruction complementary with more
> dialogic approaches to instruction, as per the turn-over principle of
> Bruner.
> Henry
>
> On Sep 10, 2014, at 9:58 AM, "White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu
> <mailto:Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>
> <mailto:Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>>
> wrote:
>
> like Henry, i find the metaphor 'scaffolding' a useful term, and at the
> same time i'm also strengthening that metaphor with Brian Cambourne's
> "conditions for learning" that lead to student engagement, as well as how
> it relates to student engagement (Marzano), Fisher's "gradual release of
> responsibility" and Lave & Wenger's "community of practice"  -  in
> combination these works (along with critical race theory and queer theory,
> identity theory, Foucault's understanding of power - an impoverished
> listing here) provide a far richer, more complex understanding of student
> learning, than "motive" in CHAT.
>
> for me, theory is a mutable impression - much like a calligraphic haiku
> - in which theoretical understanding changes over time, context,
> relationships and experiences (again, an incomplete list).
>
> i hope that there aren't too many attachments here.
>
>
> phillip
>
>
>
> Phillip White, PhD
> Urban Community Teacher Education Program Site Coordinator Montview
> Elementary, Aurora, CO phillip.white@ucdenver.edu<mailto:
> phillip.white@ucdenver.edu>
> or
> pawhite@aps.k12.co.us<mailto:pawhite@aps.k12.co.us>
>
> <GradualReleaseResponsibilityJan08.pdf><lave(1996)_teaching.pdf><MarzanoHighlyEngagedClassroom.pdf><Cambourne
> Conditions.doc>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Development and Evolution are both ... "processes of construction and re-
> construction in which heterogeneous resources are contingently but more or
> less reliably reassembled for each life cycle." [Oyama, Griffiths, and
> Gray, 2001]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lynda Stone, Ph.D.
> Professor
> Dept. Child Development
> CSU Sacramento
> CSUS/UC-Links Program Director
> lstone@csus.edu<mailto:lstone@csus.edu>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
> Developmental psycholinguist
> Academic, Researcher,  and Editor
> Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lynda Stone, Ph.D.
> Professor
> Dept. Child Development
> CSU Sacramento
> CSUS/UC-Links Program Director
> lstone@csus.edu<mailto:lstone@csus.edu>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lynda Stone, Ph.D.
> Professor
> Dept. Child Development
> CSU Sacramento
> CSUS/UC-Links Program Director
> lstone@csus.edu<mailto:lstone@csus.edu>
>
>
>
>
>
>

-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
882 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson