> All,
>
> This thread ties into a recently-discovered knot. I just finished reading two
> articles (one Brown, Collins, and Duguid) about "authentic situations" and am
> puzzling with the questions--what makes a situation or context authentic? What
> then is an INauthentic situation or context? I'm working with Chinese students
> in their efforts to understand management cases in their MBA program. The
> question of authenticity promises to take some interesting turns in my
> (in?)authentic situation.
>
> Donna Phillips
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
> Troy NY
Brown, Collins, Duguid write, in part, concerning apprenticeships. This
follows lines similar to Moll's work on Funds of Knowledge, in that the
apprentice draws upon the Knowledge of the Master, working in the setting
(context) in which the Master operates, but is not expected to fully
comprehend (cognate), to demonstrate physical competency (to be able to
create to sought-after artifact), or to have integrated these two domains.
In a sense, then, apprenticeship falls along a continuum from Novice to
Master as the Beginner learns and develops. The desired artifact lies
within a sociocultural context with all the tenticles that implies.
I recently tutored an undergraduate in the University's Management and
Policy major. He was expected to read "cases" and to do a written
analysis. His last paper was complex and involved the analysis of a
number of cases within the same paper. Some were reasonably detailed and
provided a considerable number of factors (all dealing with sexual
harrassment in the workplace); some, however, were reduced to a series of
"Bill" and "Mary" vignettes (Bill A/Mary A; Bill B/Mary B, etc.). In
helping this student with his paper, we argued that this series of
vignettes, several in particular, although distilled down to make teaching
points, was too reductionist (read inauthentic) as to provide sufficient
context for a comprehensive analysis. In reviewing a DRAFT, his TA (NOT
his professor) responded that his analysis should respond to the
(context-reduced) case as presented in the course' text. To my thinking,
this narrowing through the use of reductionist "cases" moves toward a
minimized authenticity. Additionally, the TA's position should have been
on the apprenticeship continuum somewhere beyond the undergraduate. In
this case, I believe this to be problematic.
For my disseration research, I examined a classroom where students were
supposed to produce INDIVIDUAL narrative videos. Despite insufficient
equipment for such a venture, the model the classroom teacher implemented
did not reflect the way "authentic" video (or film) production works (or
has traditionally worked) in the real world. The 10-step process yielded
a mean of 4.55, a median of 4, and a mode of 3 (based on last step fully
completed). Although the context provided was that of "schooling" and,
therefore, an "authentic" context from that perspective, it nevertheless
did not represent the "authentic" domain of "video production" with its
traditional division of labor. Only one student finished the
semester-long, teacher-directed curriculum project. Lacking the
collaboration/cooperation common in the video/film production domain
(authenticity), this lesser degree of authentic context failed to
materialize the desired artifacts. Hope these comments stir further
thinking on the matter.
+ Dan +
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