>I hesitate to get very deep into this because I am in office hours and might
>get bumped here, but.......
>
>Dewey-- Vis a vis Piaget/equilibration/contradiction
>
>I thought I was talking about clash of schemas a la the constructivist
>physics literature where the pedagogical strategy is to confront students
>with the errors of their presconceptions (I am a perfect subject for
>all such efforts!), such that disequilibrium is causes by the clash of two
>cognitive schemas.
Mike:
Thanks for spending the time. I've been looking into things and I
have it on some authority that Piaget used the term "schema" to refer
specifically to schematic graphic representations. He used "schemes"
otherwise.
Unfortunately, the "constructivist physics literature" which refers
to confronting students with the errors of their ways is not born out
of an understanding of Piaget. What my misguided colleagues fail to
realize is that for the students there are ONLY the students' own
existing conceptions. Regardless of my misguided colleagues'
convictions as to the reality of what their own conceptions describe
and their inability to distinguish between their own conceptions and
a reality those conceptions describe, my colleagues' conceptions do
not exist for the students. Conceptions are mental constructs.
Hence for the students the disequilibration is experiential (and
biological), the result of perceived discrepancy between experience
and one or more of one's own schemes.
It is only when one is in possession of two schemes that an
incompatibility between schemes could arise at the level of
reflection. In this situation one could imagine a cognitive level of
disequilibration.
>I think that the issue regarding Piaget versus AT may be an issue of unites
>of analysis or levels. That is, when Yrjo studies the issues of contradictions
>that arise in some complex work practice, he is talking about socio-cultural-
>political-economic institutions which constrain people's interactions with
>each other and the objects of their work. These contradictions may exist
>for quite a long time without rise to a crisis point where people both
>individually and collectively feel like "something has to be done." One
>thing they do in such circumstances in Finland is to call in Yrjo's group
>who then run a change lab which elicits from people the history of their
>own involvement in the institutions and their notions of how things used
>to be, are, and might be. There is a collective process of externalizing
>understandings, feelings, etc.
>
>In that collective process, schema conflicts are bound to happen (where
>schemas here are not considered exclusively inside the head). But their
>source is not, so to speak, individual/cognitive as it is cultural-0
>historical, socio-cultural. It also becomes interpersonal within the
>context of the reflective practices of analysis that the change lab
>initiates. And presumably, in that same process of mediated interpersonal
>interaction, individual understandings get examined, externalized,
>appropriated, etc.
>
>If YE has the time, perhaps he can comment. I am not speaking for him,
>but for myself from my own limited understanding.
>
>no students yet, second note to come.
>mike
As you may remember my whole reason for joining the list way back was
because I am convinced, as I expect most on the list are, that in
general people don't "learn" by themselves and that the classroom as
a social setting can do much to harm or help the learning any student
experiences. (Unfortunately, my conclusion at this point is that
mostly harm is done but that's another converstation.) It strikes me
that students come to us and we work in culturally established
institutions such that schools (at any level) fit this description of
"socio-cultural-political-economic institutions which constrain
people's interactions with each other and the objects of their work."
In this case our respective "works" are that of being students and of
being teachers. In my own case my behavior as a teacher and the
settings I place the students in in the course do not match the
expectations of the students. This tends to foster what I see as the
same sort of disequilibration over the "situation" of the course as
the disequilibration I see when students notice some aspect of the
phenomenon in lab does not behave according to their expectations.
How does this disequilibration over the
socio-cultural-political-economic aspects of the course get resolved?
As it turns out, I get the students into conversation over "the
history of their own involvement in the institutions and their
notions of how things used to be, are, and might be. There is a
collective process of externalizing understandings, feelings, etc."
And, "in that same process of mediated interpersonal interaction,
individual understandings get examined, externalized, appropriated,
etc." This happens some in papers I have them write, in conversation
in class and via e-mail. It is interwoven within the activities in
which I try to engage them in comparing their existing ideas with the
physical phenomena.
All of this said though it is still clear to me that almost none of
my students when they first come to my course already possess the
"scheme" entailed in the course. Hence, the student disequilibration
is not due to a mismatch between two schemes. Because the students
are not in possession of both schemes, they are not in a position to
make comparisons and determine there is some mismatch. What they
experience is a violation of their expectations.
I'm not quite sure what all I make of your other note, but here's
some of it. With respect to your examples at the end, it occurs to me
that while we may describe it differently, we are "in the same
business:" Getting groups of students into situations in which they
are disequilibrated (which is how I would describe it) over something
and then engaging them in talk and thought in order that they resolve
the disequilibration. If we're lucky something one might call
conceptual change is one of the outcomes.
We both try to enhance the chances of this disequilibraton. In your
examples there's a kind of habituation that sets up an expectation.
In mine I tend to ask students to make predictions in order to
examine their own ideas about the phenomena. The situations I ask
them to make predictions about the students are generally pretty
comfortable about making the predictions, but the phenomenon does not
behave as they expect. They have a particular expectation and they
are clear to themselves on why they have that expectation, but it is
not met. It is violated. The resulting surprise fosters a setting
in which students seem to even want to talk about it and exchange
ideas about it.
There might be different units of analysis, but in many ways it seems
to me that Yrjo's work, that of Luria you cite in the other note,
that of your own, and that which I have described above, individuals
making sense of what's around them (physical phenomena, other
individuals, socio-cultural-political-economic institutions) are what
it comes down to. In each case if people individually do not change,
then we have not helped them in the way we intend.
Dewey
--+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)426-3105 Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775 Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330 Boise State University dewey@mac.boisestate.edu 1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
"Now there are two theorems that form together the cardinal hinge on which the whole structure of physical science turns. These theorems are: (1) THERE IS A REAL OUTER WORLD WHICH EXISTS INDEPENDENTLY OF OUR ACT OF KNOWING, and, (2) THE REAL OUTER WORLD IS NOT DIRECTLY KNOWABLE." --M. Planck in Where Is Science Going?, 1932. (EMPHASIS in the original)
"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope, still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in Concepts of Force, 1957.
"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in Black Holes and Baby Universes, 1993.
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