RE: evaluating the informal

Eugene Matusov (ematusov who-is-at udel.edu)
Wed, 20 Jan 1999 15:11:39 -0500

Hi Kevin, Judy, David and everybody--

I think all learning is essentially "informal" in a sense, as Jane Lave
argues, that learning is an aspect of any activity. It always involves
learner's social history. A student who is bored by a lesson learns how to
"kill time" without attracting much attention. Thus, "formal learning" is a
specially organized "informal learning."

What do you think?

Eugene

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu [mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, January 18, 1999 2:39 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: evaluating the informal
>
>
> diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu on 01/16/99 01:26:28 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu@internet
> cc:
> Subject: Re: evaluating the informal
>
> I'll try my hand at that, Kevin. In "formal" learning, systematicity
> is accomplished in terms of the perspective of a teacher or more
> capable other,
> whose reference is a conceptually consistent history of ideas.
> In "informal" learning, the systematicity is accomplished within the
> learner's social history -- that is, that which is learned is consistent
> with the learner's lived experience.
>
> So actually, both kinds of learning co-occur, but settings,
> institutional arrangements are designed to effect formality
> or not.
>
> whaddayall think?
>
> Judy.
> ______________________________________________________________
>
> Judy,
> Your thinking on this resonates with my own.
>
> I regard constructivism as providing a basis for theorizing
> about formal learning in that it elaborates students' conceptual
> structures vis a vis mature competency. Such theorizing enables
> the teacher to develop specific plans for bringing the student
> along a "hypothetical learning trajectory" (Simon, 1995).
>
> Sociocultural constructs such as Leont'ev's notion of appropriation
> more often describe inadvertant learning ...how people develop
> through mismatches in conceptual orientation. Of course,
> constructivists never quite get it right (and in fact, many of
> them recognize the impossibility of getting it right). So even
> in good formal instruction some degree of appropriation is
> needed on the part of the student. But if the theories of the
> constructivist-oriented teacher are "viable" the teacher will
> be able to construe her or his intervention as successful. If
> not, it's back to the drawing board to develop a better
> conceptual model and/or a better intervention from which to
> construct a better hypothetical learning trajectory. To teach
> formally means to teach for advertant learning along the lines
> sketched above.
>
> Switching to the student's perspective, the clarity of the
> teacher's presumptions about students' learning gives way
> to a good deal of murkiness. Generally speaking, the student
> is not in a position to judge, or even to know about, the
> teacher's interpretations of what should transpire in some
> learning activity. Indeed, there is no qualitative difference
> in the learning that happens to follow the teacher's
> intentions and that which happens inadvertantly through
> appropriation. Constructivist analysts interested in contributing
> to the teacher's efficacy tend not to see the inadvertant learning
> resulting from appropriation. Sociocultural analysts may be
> less attuned to the detailed cognitive models underlying
> an instructional approach, and more attuned to the full
> spectrum of the students' engagement in the learning activity.
> But learning does sometimes tend towards the plans of the
> teacher. For such occasions, my preference is to substitute the
> dichotomy advertant/inadvertant in place of the more familiar
> formal/informal.
>
> David Kirshner
>
> Louisiana State University
> dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu
>