Re: Patrick Dias <INAD who-is-at MUSICB.MCGILL.CA>

Carolyn Kennedy (ckennedy who-is-at cadvision.com)
Sat, 27 Jan 1996 12:08:33 -0700

>I teach at McGill University, Montreal, Canada in the Faculty of
>Education. My work is primarily in the area of reader response to
>literature, the development of writing abilities, and teacher
>education. I have written mainly on adolescent response to
>literature. Recently I have studied how readers from four
>different cultural settings read and respond to the same poems. I
>am also working with a team of three other researchers studying
>the relationships between writing in academic and related
>workplace settings. I am excited by the work of Vygotskian
>scholars such as Jim Wertsch and Mike Cole, and the applications
>of Activity Theory as explored by Engestrom. Also
>Situated/Distributed Cognition, Lave and Wenger, James Britton,
>Shirley Bryce Heath, Michael Polanyi, Wm. Labov, and Barbara
>Rogoff come to mind. I see my work moving primarily in the
>direction of examining how collaborative small group inquiry can
>empower students as readers and writers. My major goal is to
>promote what I call non-directive teaching, a radical shift in
>teacher roles and classroom relationships, as a powerful means of
>enabling learning.

Hi, Patrick,

I'm glad to see your interest in collaborative learning experiences. I am
teaching in a graduate school and seminary setting in which I often have my
students work in group settings to accomplish their immediate tasks. I find
that after the first blush (we are really programmed to be competitive, not
collaborative), for the most part they find collaborative experience to be
rewarding. I'd be interested in hearing how you are examining the
collaborative work on your end.

Carolyn

Carolyn Kennedy, Ph.D.
Professor of Linguistics and TESOL
Prairie Graduate School
1011 Glenmore Trail S.W.
Calgary, Alberta T2V 4R6
Canada
e-mail ckennedy who-is-at cadvision.com
Phone 403-777-0150
Fax 403-640-2761