David,
Thank you so much for responding to my email. Your suggestions were helpful but raises
another question for me. Is it possible for conceptual development to be constructed through
enculturation given the classroom is a social environment within which students engage in
learning?
I downloaded your paper yesterday from MCA website and have planned to read in in the
morning when my brain doesn't feel so overloaded. This discussion is very timely for me so I
really appreciate your response.
Also, does your response mean my work is crossdisciplinary?
Tina
David H Kirshner wrote:
> Hi Tina.
>
> The confusion your are experiencing can be interpreted from a
> crossdisciplinary perspective. Your goal of getting students to "begin to
> think like an historian" is, in crossdisciplinary terms, enculturationist
> in nature. You want to have students develop certain culturally specific
> dispositions of the historian. Generally, the pedagogy that supports
> enculturation is to "work" the classroom microculture so that it gradually
> comes to resemble historians culture with respect to the target
> dispositions. This does not require "some kind of conflict or disharmony
> for participants to reflect and "look outside the box."
>
> Rather, the creation of cognitive conflict is part of a constructivist
> pedagogical strategy for promoting students' conceptual development. The
> important thing to remember, from a crossdisciplinary perspective, is that
> there is no unitary pedagogy that accomplishes these diverse learning
> intentions. My experience is that pedagogical formulations that attempt to
> capture this kind of diversity are incoherent in their internal structure.
> They elide the node points at which priorities must be set, thus they can
> handicap teachers who are trying to use them to guide their teaching.
>
> So the bottom line is you can choose to aim for enculturation in which case
> there is coherent pedagogical guidance available, or you can choose to aim
> for conceptual construction in which case there is coherent pedagogical
> guidance available, or you can choose to try to work these agendas together
> in which case you need to be prepared to juggle priorities and make many
> difficult trade-offs. I think all three options are viable pedagogical
> strategies.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> David Kirshner
>
> PS. If you're interested in pursuing these ideas further, I think my
> crossdisciplinary paper is still up on the XMCA webpage.
>
> _______________
> Tina Sharpe said:
>
> I viewed Professor Engestrom's video yesterday on the expansive cycles
> in Learning 3 and wondered if someone could help clarify a point for me.
>
> I am researching the role of the teacher in supporting students'
> conceptual development. The students are junior high school history
> students. Before watching the video I thought the expansive cycle was a
> natural stage in development and students could, through dialogue with
> the teacher and other students, co-construct knowledge about the nature
> of history and historical methodology - ie begin to think like an
> historian. Now it seems this expansive cycle needs some kind of conflict
> or disharmony for participants to reflect and "look outside the box". If
> this is the case then in the classroom situation I have described,
> students do not engage in this expansive cycle.
>
> I would really appreciate some clarification on this point.
>
> My second question is the use of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary
> and crossdisciplinary. If, as a teacher researcher I am drawing on
> linguistic theory (SFL) education theory, sociology and cognitive
> psychology to consider learning in the classroom within a social context
> is my work multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary?
>
> I am not sure of the fine points related to these terms.
>
> Again any comments would be appreciated.
>
> Tina Sharpe
> PhD student
> University of Technology
> Sydney, Australia.
>
> _____________________
> David Kirshner
> Department of Curriculum & Instruction
> Louisiana State University
> Baton Rouge LA 70803-4728
> (225) 578-2332 (225) 578-9135 (fax)
> dkirsh@lsu.edu
> http://www.ednet.lsu.edu/tango3/coedirectory.taf?
> _function=detail&Faculty_uid1=135&Users_uid2=135&_UserReference=59F4B47FBE3415E138CD68B2
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