Re: MCA Abstracts

Dewey Dykstra, Jr. (dykstrad who-is-at bsumail.idbsu.edu)
Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:24:51 -0700

>Volume 5, No. 1 of MCA is hot off the presses!
>Below are abstracts for the 3 articles appearing
>in this issue.

>-------------------------------------
>The Concept of Breakdown in Heidegger, Leont'ev, and Dewey
>and Its Implications for Education
>
>Timothy Koschmann
>Kari Kuutti
>Larry Hickman
>
>Heidegger, Leont'ev, and Dewey held surprisingly similar views
>on the role of breakdown or failure as a means of revealing the
>nature of the world around us. For Heidegger, the resources by
>which we conduct our day-to-day activities do not usually
>require our conscious awareness. If our ongoing activity is
>blocked, however, this "transparency of equipment" is dispelled
>forcing a more deliberate mode of action. Leont'ev's
>development of breakdown hinges on the analytic distinction
>he makes among Activities, Actions, and Operations. When the
>necessary conditions for an Operation are absent, the chain of
>Operations becomes transformed ("unfolded") back into a
>sequence of independent Actions. Dewey's notion of breakdown
>is related to his views on sensory excitation, stimulus and
>response, and the habit-formation function in the lives of
>complex organisms. Implications of these three models for
>learning and instruction are developed.

Just wondering....

Why these three "Heidegger, Leont'ev, and Dewey"? There are at least two
other examples of views which have "breakdown" as central factors in
explaining the production of new knowledge by and "in" people (education).
As I understand it, the central tenet for Piaget was disequilibration,
without this there is no change. ...likewise for von Glasersfeld in radical
constructivism and in one of the chapters of the book, Contexts for
Learning, which the list jointly reviewed Cobb, Wood, and Yackel refer to
the importance and influence of "breaches" of expectations in driving new
understanding.

Were H, L, & D the only ones of which the authors were aware? or
Is there a "de-facto" list of nominally approved and dis-approved people
about which to write? or
Did the authors simply wish to focus on a small number of examples? or
Maybe they are going to over several publications take up other examples? or...

Just wondering...

Dewey

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad who-is-at bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [their] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++