zpd and new form of activity

From: Wolff-Michael Roth (mroth@uvic.ca)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 15:25:31 PDT


Hi,

In Chapter 3, Yrjö articulates zpd as "the distance between the
present everyday actions of individuals and the historically new form
of societal activity..."

You may be interested in the new forms of praxis that we (Ken Tobin
and I) created in order to enhance the opportunities for learning to
teach: coteaching/cogenerative. Coteaching involves two or more
teachers taking COLLECTIVE responsibility in assisting students
learning; in cogenerative dialoguing the teachers and student
representatives sit around the table and talk about their experience
in order to COLLECTIVELY expand the possibilities for actions and
thereby bring about changes to existing teaching/learning situations.

In our experience, this new form of COLLECTIVE activity sets up
opportunities for learning in new and different ways--in coteaching,
a lot of Level 1 (non-articulated) learning is going on as the two or
more teachers experience different possibilities in the concrete
actions of others. In cogenerative dialoguing, difference in
experience are addressed explicitly and brought to consciousness--the
understanding created in cogenerative dialoguing is "praxeology" from
praxis and logos (talk), talk about praxis. We see praxis and
praxeology as dialectically related, and contradictions inherent as
drivers for change.

In our AERA paper CHAT-sig
(http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/CONF2001/), we describe the
change from the teaching of individuals to COLLECTIVE teaching in
terms of CHAT and expansive learning.

Also, we described the new, different roles of supervisors and
researchers in terms of activity theory in two other AERA papers (now
already in press). Here, the roles change in what Yrjö, quoting Klaus
Holzkamp, describes as the "exceeding of limits of individual
subjectivity through immediate cooperation in the direction of
realizing general interests..."

Michael

-- 

---------------------------------------------------- Wolff-Michael Roth Lansdowne Professor Applied Cognitive Science MacLaurin Building A548 Tel: (250) 721-7885 University of Victoria FAX: (250) 472-4616 Victoria, BC, V8W 3N4 Email: mroth@uvic.ca http://www.educ.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/ ----------------------------------------------------



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:01:57 PDT