Don,
Sorry I checked and its not covered in chapter 2. Davydov is mentioned in
one of the chapters but not in relation to Gagne.
Renshaw has an interesting piece on Davydov which can be found at,
http://members.home.net/vygotsky/renshaw.html. The reference to Cole - The
Construction Zone - is not entirely accurate though.
What I found interesting was the linking of theoretical/didactic/direct
teaching which I am not that sure about. What - at least in the Renshaw
piece - is emphasized is a certain language - mathematical language - which
I think is essential. Too often direct teaching does not include that
dialogic element that I see emphasized in Renshaw's reflection of Davydov.
Discovery learning in my view is a very ahistorical way of viewing what
actually occurs. It is or can be as systematic as direct instruction.
Teachers spend hours organizing, setting up classrooms so kids can have a
"community of learning" or so called "discovery" learning environment. For
me conscious or unconscious would be a better starting point - as with
Vygotsky's scientific / everyday concepts (conscious / unconscious).
I don't know much about Gagne, but problem solving seems not to have this
material aspect or is it more like the tin man - it was there all along. I
think the American answer has been the tin man answer and that is very
problematic for me.
Too often educational programs that come into schools that emphasize
problems solving classize, and racialize the classroom. Its still rather
mystical in many ways - we know some kids do rather well at it and for
others its frustrating. The CW of course is that this is process and
therefore inside the individual, which I don't find acceptable. The tin man
did not come into oz with a heart he got it from the journey.
YE talks about models and I assume problem solving itself can be modeled or
we can create educational settings / activities where that can occur. I'm
not sure Gagne would agree its almost as problem solving is needed to
express genius yet at the same time it can not be developed (discovery
learning in this case). I think Vera's "notebooks" is beautiful in this
regard and for me takes some of the mysticism but not the beauty out of the
process.
Which is to say I think there are some implications for education especially
to counter the dominant field of cognitive psychology.
Nate
Showing my ignorance here (perhaps I've already let that slip) but I have a
question concerning Davydov. In an article in the American Psychologist a
few years ago that was based in part of Davydov's work, I was struck by the
similarity between his scientific concept and Gagne's defined concept. The
authors of that article argued that while "guided discovery in a community
of learners" is fine for acquiring spontaneous concepts and certain
metacognitive skills of self regulation, theoretical/didactic/direct
teaching is necessary for acquiring scientific
concepts. Theoretical learning, it was argued, is a more effective (and
efficient) way of mediating students cognitive outcomes of linking student
declarative knowledge with procedural knowledge. This sounds to me at least
as reactive as Gagne's model.
Of course we haven't actually raised the issue yet as to whether CHAT is or
can be used as an instructional theory...........djc
-----Original Message-----
From: Stetsenko, Anna [mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 3:18 PM
To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu'
Subject: RE: who said?
Mike, one thing for sure - you never said or implied this. "OVER".
I think I reacted to this posting by Eugene Matusov:
"US Vygotskian school (or better to say a family of approaches) rejects the
Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky idea of one historical development of society and focus,
instead, on relations among cultures." Given that "the Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky
idea of one historical development" was meant to be the centerpiece of the
Russian school (in the same message), this did sound as a REJECTION, didn't
it? And rejection can't be done without this 'over' and this 'abandonment',
can it? And rejection is opposite to a dialogue, isn't it? -- this being my
main message, by the way. Or otherwise, I do not know what rejection is
about...
As to Davydov: I happened to see him giving talks in Germany, for example. I
was struck by how difficult it was for people there to make sense of his
words... I do blame the effects of being taken out of context (in many
senses of this expression, e.g., of him talking in an alien context with
often bad translation, of others not knowing his philosophy and
psychological framework etc) for this. As to 'a la Spencer', I think, in
essence, nothing can be farther away from Spencer's evolutionary thinking
than Davydov's cultural-historical view of learning as the pathway of
development and of mind as formed by cultural tools.
Anna
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 6:44 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: who said?
Anna--
Where did this appear in the discussion?
By the way, setting a clear preference of
the latter OVER the former, and claiming that the cultural-historical view
should be COMPLETELY abandoned in favor of the sociocultural view isn't
perhaps a best way to pursue diversity and dialogue?
About Davydov. He was speaking to an ethnically diverse group of people
at LCHC the first time I heard him speak this way. The second time was
at a developmental conference in Moscow where he took a strong hegelian
stance that primitive peoples indeed think primitively, a la Spencer/
Contextaualizing Vasilii Vasilievitch's view is a big help, thanks.
mike
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