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RE: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
This is a great discussion. I am also waiting to see what clarifications are
made on these questions. Especially on the question of formation--is the
learner objectified in both of these models? What about student agency?
Will? Motivation?
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 5:01 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
Fascinating discussion - but could someone provide me with some
clarification of the 'production' model (of schooling? of cognition?)
and the formation model (of knowledge? of the learner? Bildung)?
And is the claim that learning science is hegemonic with respect to
other perspectives (such as Piaget or LSV), or wrt schooling
(curriculum)?
And 'dissipation' of situative perspectives... In the sense of being
dispersed and lost? Seems to me everyone in cog sci is jumping on the
situated bandwagon. More co-opted than dissipated?
hanging on to this thread for dear life...
Martin
On Sep 15, 2009, at 7:29 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
> David,
>
> Your message is powerfully corrobarative.
>
> It arrived as I was preparing documents for inclusion in the web
> page I'll be posting in response to this thread. One of those
> documents is a very slightly expanded version of a proposal for AERA
> this year on Learning Sciences / Science of Education as a hegemonic
> project.
>
> In terms of HOW PEOPLE LEARN, Piaget, Vygotsky -- and how Dewey,
> Lave, etc. get contortedly forced into that framework, see my
> "Curriculum & the post-(cognitivist) synthesis,"
> at http://wp.me/p1V0H-1O . (If you vaguely remember having seen this
> before, it's because I skipped ahead to this page when you appeared
> in my classroom a couple years ago.)
>
> I find this article very helpful for understanding what's happening
> here:
>
> Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In
> L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on
> socially shared cognition (1st ed., pp. 63-82). Washington, DC:
> American Psychological Association.
>
> I will include that in the page for tonight.
>
> Emily, my own answer (obviously not speaking for David) is that
> David nails the problem with his reference to the production model.
> The difference between production and formation is absolutely
> crucial. I think Cognitive Science is generally oblivious to that
> difference. Some Cog Sci is clearly productionist. There's nothing
> to preclude Cog Sci from recognizing formation as distinct from
> production, but often in its obliviousness it remains equivocal and
> ambiguous at best. Given that in U.S. English discourse education as
> formation has pretty much disappeared from the language, writing
> must be done deliberately to preclude texts from being read as
> productionist texts, and I don't see that happening in the Cog Sci
> literature, even where the author(s) might be themselves thinking
> that they're writing about formative activity.
>
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Duvall, Emily wrote:
>
>> David,
>> When you stated:
>> " So the text is largely a promissory note for how a cognitive
>> science
>> approach encompasses all of these rich traditions, whereas inspecting
>> the actual contribution of cognitive science research leads to little
>> more than an unpacking of how
>> skills develop through repetitive practice."
>>
>> Is the latter part of the sentence (from 'whereas' on) your comment
>> on
>> the text or on cognitive science in general?
>> In either case, it seems to be a very narrow view on 'all' cognitive
>> science research. I assume it is based on some works in particular?
>> ~em
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
>> bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of David H Kirshner
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:45 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: RE: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
>>
>> Tony,
>>
>> I'm co-PI on a grant to replicate the University of Texas secondary
>> teacher education program, which is largely focused on the learning
>> sciences literature. This semester, I'm teaching an intro course,
>> Knowing and Learning, that uses How People Learn as its main text,
>> and
>> presents the orthodoxy of production systems as the organizing
>> framework
>> for thinking about learning and teaching--at the same time
>> extolling the
>> need for group work, project based instruction, and the like. What
>> becomes increasingly clear as I go through the literature is the
>> hegemonic character of the learning sciences, at least in relation to
>> educational matters. The insights into learning extolled in the
>> literature derive in large part from Piagetian constructivist
>> research
>> and from Vygotskyan sociocultural research. So the text is largely a
>> promissory note for how a cognitive science approach encompasses
>> all of
>> these rich traditions, whereas inspecting the actual contribution of
>> cognitive science research leads to little more than an unpacking
>> of how
>> skills develop through repetitive practice.
>>
>> The sociological process of hegemonic discourse is itself an
>> interest of
>> mine at this time. I'm recalling our discussion of a couple of
>> years ago
>> about the possibility of a new edition of our situated cognition
>> reader
>> organized as a response to the dissipation of situative perspectives
>> within the learning sciences. I'm increasingly interested in
>> understanding that process.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
>> bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Tony Whitson
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:07 PM
>> To: mcole@ucsd.edu; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [xmca] Learning Sciences / Science of Education
>>
>> This is something that I'm very interested in. I'm planning a paper
>> for
>> a
>> narrow audience this winter, and a more ambitious paper for a wide
>> audience in Winter 2011. If others would be interested in a 2011 AERA
>> symposium, let's talk.
>>
>> I'll see if I can put together a post tonight with some fragments &
>> bibliography that people might be interested in.
>>
>> Meanwhile, I think there is a short answer, which of course is not
>> the
>> complete answer:
>>
>> I think a good deal of the impetus behind "Learning Sciences" comes
>> from
>>
>> the political hostility to Education faculty in favor of
>> positive(istic)
>>
>> psychology, as in Reid Lyons' statement that "If there was any
>> piece of
>> legislation that I could pass, it would be to blow up colleges of
>> education".
>>
>> This has created an environment in which an Educational Psychologist
>> (like
>> John Bransford, for example) would lose out in the funding for
>> competition
>> to a Learning Scientist (like John Bransford, for example).
>>
>> Folks in Seattle, Nashville, etc. see little cost in a name change
>> that
>> keeps the dollars flowing. I'm not concerned about the name change,
>> so
>> much, but I have continuing concerns about the enterprise in general.
>>
>> On Tue, 15 Sep 2009, Mike Cole wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Em-- And I googled Goswami neuromyths. Also very
>>> enlightening.
>>> Goswami did early work with Ann Brown, former collaborator with us
>>> at
>> LCHC.
>>>
>>> Now if we go back a step and look at the people who created the
>>> label
>> of
>>> learning sciences, and their backgrounds, the shift from
>> "developmental
>>> psychology" to developmental sciences, the appearance recently of
>>> the
>>> handbook of cultural developmental science, ......... what a
>>> tempest!
>> Must
>>> be a teapot in there somewhere. Simultaneous, fractilated paradigm
>> shifts?
>>>
>>> Does anyone have the luxury of being able to organize a science
>> studies
>>> interrogation of these movements? Seems really worthwhile.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks Mike... :-)
>>>> In general I like Goswami's work; I find her discussion of
>>>> neuromyths compelling and have had my grad students do additional
>>>> research on some of them. I am also particularly interested in ways
>> to
>>>> try to negotiate across different fields. I've attached my favorite
>>>> Goswami and a nice intro to neuroeducation.
>>>> As a side note: Monica (Hansen, who frequently shows up on
>>>> the
>>>> list serve and is one of my doc students) and I took a neuroscience
>>>> journal club/ seminar last spring and found ourselves trying to
>>>> make
>>>> sense of the work that is done with regard to education. We are
>> taking
>>>> another seminar right now and some of the folks who were in last
>> year's
>>>> class are presenting journal articles in their field, but are
>>>> trying
>> to
>>>> make the links to human experience, particularly education. It's
>>>> been
>>>> interesting to discover how open minded the students and faculty
>> are...
>>>> one of the computational neuroscience faculty has taken up some
>> Vygotsky
>>>> reading as well as neuroeducation... of course Luria's work is a
>>>> door
>>>> opener and a point of mutual interest.
>>>> ~em
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>> [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>>>> On Behalf Of Mike Cole
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 9:41 AM
>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>> Subject: Re: [xmca] Neuroscience connections to learning and
>> relearning
>>>>
>>>> No one picked up on your interest in neuroeducation, Emily. A lot
>>>> of
>>>> what I
>>>> read in this area strikes me as almost entirely without any
>> appreciation
>>>> of
>>>> education, or human experience, as a culturally mediated,
>> co-constructed
>>>> process. Do you have a favorite general ref you could point us to
>> that
>>>> you
>>>> resonate to??
>>>> mike
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Duvall, Emily <emily@uidaho.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I thought some of you might one or both of these article summaries
>>>>> interesting. The first really speaks to the new field of
>>>> neuroeducation
>>>>> with regard to cellular learning... the nice thing about the
>>>>> summary
>>>> is
>>>>> it gives you an overview of learning at the cellular basis... very
>>>> clear
>>>>> and easy to understand. Plus an introduction to astrocytes... :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> The second piece actually discusses re-learning, which has been a
>>>> topic
>>>>> lately.
>>>>>
>>>>> What I personally find so interesting is the role of experience in
>>>>> learning and relearning... I found myself thinking back to Shirley
>>>> Brice
>>>>> Heath's work... it would be fun to go back to her work and look at
>> her
>>>>> study through a neuroeducation lens.
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. Star-shaped Cells In Brain Help With Learning
>>>>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911132907.htm
>>>>>
>>>>> Every movement and every thought requires the passing of specific
>>>>> information between networks of nerve cells. To improve a skill or
>> to
>>>>> learn something new entails more efficient or a greater number of
>> cell
>>>>> contacts. Scientists can now show that certain cells in the
>>>>> brain --
>>>> the
>>>>> astrocytes -- actively influence this information exchange.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. Forgotten But Not Gone: How The Brain Re-learns
>>>>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117110834.htm
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks to our ability to learn and to remember, we can perform
>>>>> tasks
>>>>> that other living things can not even dream of. However, we are
>>>>> only
>>>>> just beginning to get the gist of what really goes on in the brain
>>>> when
>>>>> it learns or forgets something. What we do know is that changes in
>> the
>>>>> contacts between nerve cells play an important role. But can these
>>>>> structural changes account for that well-known phenomenon that
>>>>> it is
>>>>> much easier to re-learn something that was forgotten than to learn
>>>>> something completely new?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ~em
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Emily Duvall, PhD
>>>>> Assistant Professor Curriculum & Instruction
>>>>> University of Idaho, Coeur d'Alene
>>>>> 1000 W. Hubbard Suite 242 | Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
>>>>> T 208 292 2512 | F 208 667 5275 emily@uidaho.edu |
>> www.cda.uidaho.edu
>>>>>
>>>>> He only earns his freedom and his life, who takes them every day
>>>>> by
>>>>> storm.
>>>>> -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>>>
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>>
>> Tony Whitson
>> UD School of Education
>> NEWARK DE 19716
>>
>> twhitson@udel.edu
>> _______________________________
>>
>> "those who fail to reread
>> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK DE 19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> _______________________________
>
> "those who fail to reread
> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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