RE: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education

["Duvall, Emily" <emily@uidaho.edu>]

The joy of language Tony - it is all about the word, eh?
I'm not sure why they avoided the term development... but build it is...
perhaps it is more generic/less loaded. 

What I like best about this text is that while is it packed with a
wealth of experimental data, Berninger and Richards work throughout at
the nature/nurture argument and the role of the social in development.
It's as close as I have found... though I will check out your text. 

I balance it with two other texts:

Language Development: A reader for teachers 
Power, B. M. & Hubbard, R. S.	2002	Merrill Prentice Hall

The Ascent of Babel: An exploration of language, mind, and understanding

Altmann, G. T.	1997	Oxford University Press

The former used to have an article by Gorden in it, but he was cut in
the 2002 edition... 

~em

P.S. Virginia Berninger is on the Ed Psych faculty at UW with Bransford
by the way.

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Tony Whitson
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 5:26 PM
To: mcole@ucsd.edu; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education

Thanks, Emily,

I will look into this, trusting your familiarity with the literature in 
that area and your selection of this book.

Two things I see in the Table of Contents are a systems-theoretic 
approach, and repeated use of "Building" in the chapter titles
("Building 
a [Reading/Writing/Computing] Brain [Neurologically/Pedagogically].

"Building" vs. "Bildung" might indeed connote the Production/Formation 
difference. But I don't for one second doubt the actuality and the 
importance of production. What I have a problem with is the reduction of

human formation to nothing but production.

Likewise with systems theory. I'm wary of systems theory because so
often 
it is used reductively; but I certainly think it's a legitimate and 
important way to make sense of much actual order, change, etc. (Jay
might 
want to jump in on this.)

I'm not forgetting Martin's questions; I'll get to them later.

On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Mike Cole wrote:

> Wow!
> Match meets gasoline puddle.
> Thanks for additional refs David Ki
> Is it some other Keith Sawyer who is editor of the Handbook of
Learning
> Sciences? The guy i am thinking about writes about creativity,
> improvisation, emergence....
>
> share martin's questions, although I think I get the spirit of the
> distinction being made.
>
> Luria being cited as central to the neuro side of things is
encouraging,
> Emily. But then we have the interpenetration and co-constructive
actions of
> phylogeny and ontogeny from the get-go. What I have seen in the
brain-ed
> literature mostly goes from brain-->education, and not from
> culturally organized experience (read enculturation, of which
education is a
> subset) to the brain.
> mike
>
> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:00 PM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>
>> Fascinating discussion - but could someone provide me with some
>> clarification of the 'production' model (of schooling? of cognition?)
and
>> the formation model (of knowledge? of the learner? Bildung)?
>>
>> And is the claim that learning science is hegemonic with respect to
other
>> perspectives (such as Piaget or LSV), or wrt schooling (curriculum)?
>>
>> And 'dissipation' of situative perspectives... In the sense of being
>> dispersed and lost? Seems to me everyone in cog sci is jumping on the
>> situated bandwagon. More co-opted than dissipated?
>>
>> hanging on to this thread for dear life...
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sep 15, 2009, at 7:29 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
>>
>>  David,
>>>
>>> Your message is powerfully corrobarative.
>>>
>>> It arrived as I was preparing documents for inclusion in the web
page I'll
>>> be posting in response to this thread. One of those documents is a
very
>>> slightly expanded version of a proposal for AERA this year on
Learning
>>> Sciences / Science of Education as a hegemonic project.
>>>
>>> In terms of HOW PEOPLE LEARN, Piaget, Vygotsky -- and how Dewey,
Lave,
>>> etc. get contortedly forced into that framework, see my "Curriculum
& the
>>> post-(cognitivist) synthesis,"
>>> at http://wp.me/p1V0H-1O . (If you vaguely remember having seen this
>>> before, it's because I skipped ahead to this page when you appeared
in my
>>> classroom a couple years ago.)
>>>
>>> I find this article very helpful for understanding what's happening
here:
>>>
>>> Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In
L. B.
>>> Resnick, J. M. Levine & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on
socially
>>> shared cognition (1st ed., pp. 63-82). Washington, DC: American
>>> Psychological Association.
>>>
>>> I will include that in the page for tonight.
>>>
>>> Emily, my own answer (obviously not speaking for David) is that
David
>>> nails the problem with his reference to the production model. The
difference
>>> between production and formation is absolutely crucial. I think
Cognitive
>>> Science is generally oblivious to that difference. Some Cog Sci is
clearly
>>> productionist. There's nothing to preclude Cog Sci from recognizing
>>> formation as distinct from production, but often in its
obliviousness it
>>> remains equivocal and ambiguous at best. Given that in U.S. English
>>> discourse education as formation has pretty much disappeared from
the
>>> language, writing must be done deliberately to preclude texts from
being
>>> read as productionist texts, and I don't see that happening in the
Cog Sci
>>> literature, even where the author(s) might be themselves thinking
that
>>> they're writing about formative activity.
>>>
>>> On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Duvall, Emily wrote:
>>>
>>>  David,
>>>> When you stated:
>>>> " So the text is largely a promissory note for how a cognitive
science
>>>> approach encompasses all of these rich traditions, whereas
inspecting
>>>> the actual contribution of cognitive science research leads to
little
>>>> more than an unpacking of how
>>>> skills develop through repetitive practice."
>>>>
>>>> Is the latter part of the sentence (from 'whereas' on) your comment
on
>>>> the text or on cognitive science in general?
>>>> In either case, it seems to be a very narrow view on 'all'
cognitive
>>>> science research. I assume it is based on some works in particular?
>>>> ~em
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>>> On Behalf Of David H Kirshner
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:45 PM
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
>>>>
>>>> Tony,
>>>>
>>>> I'm co-PI on a grant to replicate the University of Texas secondary
>>>> teacher education program, which is largely focused on the learning
>>>> sciences literature. This semester, I'm teaching an intro course,
>>>> Knowing and Learning, that uses How People Learn as its main text,
and
>>>> presents the orthodoxy of production systems as the organizing
framework
>>>> for thinking about learning and teaching--at the same time
extolling the
>>>> need for group work, project based instruction, and the like. What
>>>> becomes increasingly clear as I go through the literature is the
>>>> hegemonic character of the learning sciences, at least in relation
to
>>>> educational matters. The insights into learning extolled in the
>>>> literature derive in large part from Piagetian constructivist
research
>>>> and from Vygotskyan sociocultural research. So the text is largely
a
>>>> promissory note for how a cognitive science approach encompasses
all of
>>>> these rich traditions, whereas inspecting the actual contribution
of
>>>> cognitive science research leads to little more than an unpacking
of how
>>>> skills develop through repetitive practice.
>>>>
>>>> The sociological process of hegemonic discourse is itself an
interest of
>>>> mine at this time. I'm recalling our discussion of a couple of
years ago
>>>> about the possibility of a new edition of our situated cognition
reader
>>>> organized as a response to the dissipation of situative
perspectives
>>>> within the learning sciences. I'm increasingly interested in
>>>> understanding that process.
>>>>
>>>> David
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
[mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>>> On Behalf Of Tony Whitson
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:07 PM
>>>> To: mcole@ucsd.edu; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
>>>>
>>>> This is something that I'm very interested in. I'm planning a paper
for
>>>> a
>>>> narrow audience this winter, and a more ambitious paper for a wide
>>>> audience in Winter 2011. If others would be interested in a 2011
AERA
>>>> symposium, let's talk.
>>>>
>>>> I'll see if I can put together a post tonight with some fragments &
>>>> bibliography that people might be interested in.
>>>>
>>>> Meanwhile, I think there is a short answer, which of course is not
the
>>>> complete answer:
>>>>
>>>> I think a good deal of the impetus behind "Learning Sciences" comes
from
>>>>
>>>> the political hostility to Education faculty in favor of
positive(istic)
>>>>
>>>> psychology, as in Reid Lyons' statement that "If there was any
piece of
>>>> legislation that I could pass, it would be to blow up colleges of
>>>> education".
>>>>
>>>> This has created an environment in which an Educational
Psychologist
>>>> (like
>>>> John Bransford, for example) would lose out in the funding for
>>>> competition
>>>> to a Learning Scientist (like John Bransford, for example).
>>>>
>>>> Folks in Seattle, Nashville, etc. see little cost in a name change
that
>>>> keeps the dollars flowing. I'm not concerned about the name change,
so
>>>> much, but I have continuing concerns about the enterprise in
general.
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Mike Cole wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  Thanks Em-- And I googled Goswami neuromyths. Also very
enlightening.
>>>>> Goswami did early work with Ann Brown, former collaborator with us
at
>>>>>
>>>> LCHC.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Now if we go back a step and look at the people who created the
label
>>>>>
>>>> of
>>>>
>>>>> learning sciences, and their backgrounds, the shift from
>>>>>
>>>> "developmental
>>>>
>>>>> psychology" to developmental sciences, the appearance recently of
the
>>>>> handbook of cultural developmental science, ......... what a
tempest!
>>>>>
>>>> Must
>>>>
>>>>> be a teapot in there somewhere. Simultaneous, fractilated paradigm
>>>>>
>>>> shifts?
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone have the luxury of being able to organize a science
>>>>>
>>>> studies
>>>>
>>>>> interrogation of these movements? Seems really worthwhile.
>>>>> mike
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
>>>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  Thanks Mike... :-)
>>>>>>      In general I like Goswami's work; I find her discussion of
>>>>>> neuromyths compelling and have had my grad students do additional
>>>>>> research on some of them. I am also particularly interested in
ways
>>>>>>
>>>>> to
>>>>
>>>>> try to negotiate across different fields. I've attached my
favorite
>>>>>> Goswami and a nice intro to neuroeducation.
>>>>>>      As a side note: Monica (Hansen, who frequently shows up on
the
>>>>>> list serve and is one of my doc students) and I took a
neuroscience
>>>>>> journal club/ seminar last spring and found ourselves trying to
make
>>>>>> sense of the work that is done with regard to education. We are
>>>>>>
>>>>> taking
>>>>
>>>>> another seminar right now and some of the folks who were in last
>>>>>>
>>>>> year's
>>>>
>>>>> class are presenting journal articles in their field, but are
trying
>>>>>>
>>>>> to
>>>>
>>>>> make the links to human experience, particularly education. It's
been
>>>>>> interesting to discover how open minded the students and faculty
>>>>>>
>>>>> are...
>>>>
>>>>> one of the computational neuroscience faculty has taken up some
>>>>>>
>>>>> Vygotsky
>>>>
>>>>> reading as well as neuroeducation... of course Luria's work is a
door
>>>>>> opener and a point of mutual interest.
>>>>>>      ~em
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>>>
>>>>> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>>>
>>>>> On Behalf Of Mike Cole
>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 9:41 AM
>>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Neuroscience connections to learning and
>>>>>>
>>>>> relearning
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> No one picked up on your interest in neuroeducation, Emily. A lot
of
>>>>>> what I
>>>>>> read in this area strikes me as almost entirely without any
>>>>>>
>>>>> appreciation
>>>>
>>>>> of
>>>>>> education, or human experience, as a culturally mediated,
>>>>>>
>>>>> co-constructed
>>>>
>>>>> process. Do you have a favorite general ref you could point us to
>>>>>>
>>>>> that
>>>>
>>>>> you
>>>>>> resonate to??
>>>>>> mike
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
>>>>>>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>  I thought some of you might one or both of these article
summaries
>>>>>>> interesting. The first really speaks to the new field of
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> neuroeducation
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> with regard to cellular learning... the nice thing about the
summary
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> is
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> it gives you an overview of learning at the cellular basis...
very
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> clear
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and easy to understand. Plus an introduction to astrocytes...
:-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The second piece actually discusses re-learning, which has been
a
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> topic
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> lately.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What I personally find so interesting is the role of experience
in
>>>>>>> learning and relearning... I found myself thinking back to
Shirley
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Brice
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Heath's work... it would be fun to go back to her work and look
at
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> her
>>>>
>>>>> study through a neuroeducation lens.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 1. Star-shaped Cells In Brain Help With Learning
>>>>>>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911132907.htm
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Every movement and every thought requires the passing of
specific
>>>>>>> information between networks of nerve cells. To improve a skill
or
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> to
>>>>
>>>>> learn something new entails more efficient or a greater number of
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> cell
>>>>
>>>>> contacts. Scientists can now show that certain cells in the brain
--
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> astrocytes -- actively influence this information exchange.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 2. Forgotten But Not Gone: How The Brain Re-learns
>>>>>>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117110834.htm
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks to our ability to learn and to remember, we can perform
tasks
>>>>>>> that other living things can not even dream of. However, we are
only
>>>>>>> just beginning to get the gist of what really goes on in the
brain
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> when
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> it learns or forgets something. What we do know is that changes
in
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> the
>>>>
>>>>> contacts between nerve cells play an important role. But can these
>>>>>>> structural changes account for that well-known phenomenon that
it is
>>>>>>> much easier to re-learn something that was forgotten than to
learn
>>>>>>> something completely new?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ~em
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Emily Duvall, PhD
>>>>>>> Assistant Professor Curriculum & Instruction
>>>>>>> University of Idaho, Coeur d'Alene
>>>>>>> 1000 W. Hubbard Suite 242 | Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
>>>>>>> T 208 292 2512 | F 208 667 5275 emily@uidaho.edu |
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> www.cda.uidaho.edu
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>> He only earns his freedom and his life, who takes them every day
by
>>>>>>> storm.
>>>>>>> -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> 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)
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>
>>>>
>>> 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)
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>

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)
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca