Paul wrote:
>This is also a place where I see externalization as important. If an
>interpsychological perspective means that the isolated atomistic individual
>is not tenable, that the person, even alone on top of a mountain with no
>cultural artifacts in sight, is socialized, then it also means that an
>abstract, disembodied social is not tenable, that the social, both in terms
>of on-going activity and in terms of sociohistoric artifacts/practices, is
>personalized.
What are the pedagogical implications of individual differences
from an activity theory perspective? I gloss the
issue as one of "goodness of fit" between the individual student
and the instructional setting & activities - a problem of ensuring
there be multiple entry points for students in the activities I
set up, and where I notice problems in participation, addressing,
interactively with the student, that "lack of fit" (recognizing the
student as the pedagogical resource that I was lacking when I set up the
activity - I didn't understand in advance the effect the activity
would have on him or her, the resources he or she had available for
participation, etc.).
How do others deal, practically & theoretically, with individual diff's?
Judy
At 11:09 AM 4/4/96 -0600, you wrote:
>Gordon wrote in part:
>
>> But at the same time, I would want to add, individual
>>contributions also issue from the individual's position with respect to
>>the joint activity, and do not make sense without taking into
>>consideration the individual's unique life trajectory, including his or
>>her previous participation in related activities, both similar and different.
>
>I agree. I find Bakhtin useful here in his insistence that utterance and
>speech genre (as concrete situated, specific interactions) are the
>fundamental source of "language" and, as I read it, culture. He emphasizes
>the particular influences of *a* family history, of an occupation, of the
>historical moment, of particular persons. Also, useful is his notion that
>the person is responsive, is selectively appropriating (as
>authoritative-internally peruasive discourses) and responding to such
>particularities.
>
>If the character of joint activity or a functional system is shaped by
>technologies, like whether I am writing with a pencil and sending a letter
>or with a computer and posting an email message, then it is also shaped by
>who is involved in the joint activity/fucntional system and what practices
>and orientations they have come to embody through their life trajectories.
>
>In this sense then, I also agree with Gordon's point below. Forms of
>participation in communities of practice (to use Lave & Wenger's terms) are
>certainly interactive and social-political issues, but they also have to do
>with learning--the historical production of particular persons.
>
>
>
>
>
>________________
>Paul Prior
>U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
>p-prior who-is-at uiuc.edu
>
>
>
>
Judy Diamondstone
diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
Rutgers University
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