RE: [xmca] mediational theories of mind: Suggestions requested

Hi Tony,
 
Thanks for the great reply. I'll have to beg off responding in any depth. I am currently in Italy where the class I am teaching is happening and my precious laptop has just blown up on me. Everything I need to teach is on there!!!! So I am relegated to limited time on public computers with European keyboards.
 
But briefly, I take a more conciliatory approach to theory. I don't see it as a matter of behaviorist hegemony, etc. ANY theory can be misused. I take the theories to be tools or sets of glasses for viewing a situation with each tool having its potentialities and its limitations, each set of glasses brings some things in to focus and blurs or distorts others. Behaviorism was very helpful to me in sorting out my son's episodes of enuresis. It is a good tool for thinking about classroom organization. But behaviorism omits/distorts notions like self agency so other tools, other glasses should be examined as well. So I don't see the historical progression from behaviorism to cognitivism and beyond as an evolutionary one where were are gradually homing in on the one true theory. I see it as a process of discovering more possibilities - which of course makes it harder to know which alternative might be the most useful in a given situation. I believe Giddens called that process "manufacturing uncertainty". I have dedicated my career to creating uncertainty!
 
Ciao..........djc
 
Don Cunningham
Indiana University

________________________________

From: Tony Whitson [mailto:twhitson@UDel.Edu]
Sent: Thu 9/6/2007 6:27 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: Cunningham, Donald James; Mike Cole
Subject: RE: [xmca] mediational theories of mind: Suggestions requested

Don,

Sorry for the delay in responding to this -- but I think it's a useful
question for discussion in this group.

I want to respond quickly on another point before getting to your main
question about teaching CHAT.

First, you write:
> I've taught the usual suspects (behaviorism,
> Bandura, Piaget, cognitive information processing) for years and have a
> pretty good idea about them but would appreciate some help on CHAT.

Where I am, students have learned a story about how once upon a time the
world was ruled by the behaviorists, but they've been vanquished by the
(scientifically, pedagogically, politically, and morally) superior forces
of Cognitive Science. They think that's where the story ends (as in the
"End of History" celebrated since Daniel Bell in the early 60's, where
history completes itself with the universal triumph of capitalism).

I think it's important for students to learn about what's happening
"beyond cognitivism." For me, this is not just a matter of theory or
intellectual politics: My students just won't understand anything I'm
saying or doing unless they understand that I'm addressing an ontology in
which cognition cannot be understood except as it is embedded in the
broader (not only cognitive) projects and processes of being and becoming.
CHAT takes this stance against reductive cognitivism, and CHAT cannot be
understood (IMHO) without recognizing this. I think Wenger & the
Communities of Practice literature perhaps makes this point more directly
and accessibly, although details have not been theorized as extensively as
in CHAT. Curriculum theory -- my own home turf -- has always approached
education as a matter of ontology, not merely cognition (i.e., not just
Knowing, but Being and Becoming).

So, I would want to tell the story of behaviorist hegemony giving way to
cognitivist hegemony, which in turn is being challenged by a turn to the
broader perspective of social ontology. This is not to say that the
reductivist ideology of cognitivISM is replaced by an ideology of
postcognitivISM (see my post at http://postcog.net <http://postcog.net/> ); Nor is it a call for
hegemonic "postcognitivism" in place of hegemonic cognitivism.

One good source is Lave, Jean. "Teaching, as Learning, in Practice." Mind,
Culture, and Activity 3, no. 3 (1996): 149-64.
I think this particular point might come through more strongly in
Lave, Jean. "Learning as Participation in Communities of Practice." Paper
presented at the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco
1992.
(This paper is now linked from http://postcog.net/#Lave . This is the
paper Jean presented in the symposium that David Kirshner and I organized,
which grew into our book _Situated Cognition_, although a different piece
was used as her chapter in the book. The MCA article includes aspects of
the AERA paper, although its scope is broader and the social ontology
argument may be less central to the complete published article.)

With regard to your main question, you write:
> [I] was wondering if any of you would be
> willing to share with me (and other XMCAers) how you present CHAT. I
> mean, I don't think undergrads are going to be too interested in the
> distinction between action and activity or working out the concept of
> "object". Or am I wrong?

This could be a very interesting discussion for XMCA.
As you suggest, for an undergrad Ed Psych class, it might be best to
streamline CHAT a bit. However, I don't think the differentiation among
the three levels of activity, action, and operations is dispensable. I
think it's necessary to see activities and activity systems emerging on a
social/cultural level beyond consciously goal-oriented action, and to see
the role of routinized operational activity that does not require
conscious attention.

It would be helpful to develop introductory approaches for this audience.
Starting points could include the resources at
http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/pages/chatanddwr/
and
Roth, Wolff-Michael, and Yew-Jin Lee. ""Vygotsky's Neglected Legacy":
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory." Review of Educational Research 77,
no. 2 (2007): 186-232.
as well as
pp. 27-47 in Spinuzzi, Clay. Tracing Genres through Organizations: A
Sociocultural Approach to Information Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
2003.
and
pp. 29-72 ("Activity Theory in a Nutshell") in Kaptelinin, Victor, and
Bonnie A. Nardi. Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction
Design. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006.

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007, Cunningham, Donald James wrote:

> And in a week or so, I will begin teaching an undergraduate class in
> "Educational Psychology" for future teachers. It has been a few years
> since I taught such a class and was wondering if any of you would be
> willing to share with me (and other XMCAers) how you present CHAT. I
> mean, I don't think undergrads are going to be too interested in the
> distinction between action and activity or working out the concept of
> "object". Or am I wrong? I've taught the usual suspects (behaviorism,
> Bandura, Piaget, cognitive information processing) for years and have a
> pretty good idea about them but would appreciate some help on CHAT.
>
>
>
> Don Cunningham
> Indiana University
>
> Ancora Imparo!
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Mike Cole
> Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 6:13 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] mediational theories of mind: Suggestions requested
>
> Dear Xmca-ites---
>
> Toward the end of the month I will begin teaching a grad course on
> mediational theories of mind.
> I would love suggestions for interesting readings.
> We will be looking in a sort of "mcLuhanesque" way at the affordances of
> different kinds of mediators
> in human action/activity/mind.
>
> So, language and thought
> writing
> film
> music
> tv
> rituals
> games
> .........
>
> Starting with early 20th century writers of general familiarity to
> members
> of this list, I have been thinking about including
> such works as Cszikentmihalyi, "meaning of things," Turkle's recent
> "evocative objects," and perhaps something on mediated
> behavior in large groups such as "the wisdom of crowds."
>
> Any and all suggestions warmly welcomed. So much going on its hard to
> even
> think about how to begin to think about this
> upcoming fall!!
>
> mike
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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                   -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)

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Received on Sat Sep 8 00:10 PDT 2007