Ilias,
Thanks for the comments they were thought provoking.
Personally, I just see constructivism as demonstrating how transmission
works. It doesn't matter if we our talking about a teacher-adult giving
children the scientific concept or they (adults) are constructing an
activity, environment etc. for that transmission to occur. Even Cobb
putting cubes in wrappers is very much an adult organized and I would add
cultural activity which students have become rather accustumed to. Some
kids in their meaning making will find it challenging (construction) and
others as my son in his kindergarten assessment (with similar activities)
with a realization (construction) of how stupid teachers are. Not
necessarily disagreeing, but just aiming to point out more "informal" (what
ever that is) environments have signs, concepts etc that foster-constrain
modes of transmission and action. Too often, we see environments in which
the teacher or adults are decentered as less transmission based because the
environments are implicit, silent, or ignored. As teachers "what we give"
can take many forms collaboration, lecturing, or constructing environments
which are all various tactics of transmitting the past and facilitating the
future.
Nate
> My position (based on my reading and interpretation of Vygotsky's work
> on concept formation) is that part of the process of internalization
> necessarily involves the transmission of something (be it knowledge,
> information, skills,
> strategies etc - please forgive my use of those concepts in an
> objective way). Everything
> is transmitted and passed down from one generation to another: we need
> not discover all
> over again that the earth revolves around the sun; we are simply told
> that that's the way it is and celestial observations are unecessary.
> Considerable time and effort is saved in that way and that's
> how progress is possible: future generations can draw on the work or
> earlier ones. Every generation does not have to reinvent the wheel or
> put forward relativity theory. That's already been taken care of by our
> ancestors so
> we can focus on other things, among which is improving what they endowed
> us with.
>
> My guess is that because traditional schooling was founded on the idea
> of transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the student we
> are having trouble accepting the concept of internatlization.
> After all, according to the popular trend, knowledge is not transmitted
> from teacher to student; knowledge is activly constructed by the
> learner. Students are not empty
> boxes and passive recipients of knowledge and information. Teachers are
> not supposed to
> instill knowledge in the heads of the learners anymore. According to
> this new
> learning paradigm (constructivism), in the course of the learning
> process teachers are
> supposed to be coaches, assistants, and facilitators. They are not
> supposed to
> present the students with the new material, i.e. merely transmit
> knowledge to the students. It is the students themselves who are charged
> with the
> construction of this knowledge. Students are supposed to discover or
> construct quite a
> lot, under guidance of course. Now, whether that is attainable and to
> what extent
> is a matter of interest.
>
> Why do I emphasize the importance of transmission? Because without it
> there is nothing to work with as Mike noted in discussing Gordon's dance
> example. Something has to be provided by adults, be it a sign, a word, a
> gesture,
> an algorithm, a mnemonic strategy etc. Unless of course we expect the
> young society
> members to develop something themselves. That is also a possibility, but
> history shows that it takes a true genius to e.g. put forward relativity
> theory.
> We cannot expect the same from every society member (or can we?).
>
> For example, take the development of a scientific concept such as
> momentum. Vygotsky was very explicit about what is transmitted/given by
> the adults: a name, a definition, and a host of relationships to other
> concepts. These are directly provided to the children by the teacher,
> they are
> *not* constructed by the children. Children are given signs and they
> populate them with
> meaning. This process of meaning making is what I see as an actual
> construction.
> But again, it is not an individual matter; nor is it a solitary effort.
> It is a guided construction, which is heavily influenced by adults.
> Even though Vygotsky's work on concept formation was very important,
> I think that Bakhtin's work fills in some very important gaps.
>
> It is usually the case that Vygotsky is cited as being one of the very
> first constructivists, typically falling into the cateogry of social
> constructivism. Even though I think of theories as tools, I am inclined
> to see this type of citing as absurd.
>
> Uh...let's hope this makes sense.
>
> regards,
> Ilias
>
>