In response to Mike's request to propagate the experience of alternative
interactional forms, I'd like to shift the focus to patterns I see occuring
across several fronts. "in vitro" / "in vivo" is a useful distinction for
some curriculum development work conducted in several places - here at terc,
at edc, harvard, illinois state and northwestern that attempt to integrate
science and technololgy. It would be good to view these through a positive
critical theory lens.
Presently one paradigm for writing curricula involve pilot and field testing.
The traditional distinction being that pilot testing occurs with 'talented'
teachers who can implement a curricula fraught with imperfections, while
field testing occurs with larger numbers of instructors who are more
representative of the population that curricula is intended to address.
Before pilot testing occurs, developers may even bring in students and do
teaching themselves with a small number, truely in vitro. This is very
difficult to do in a curriculum writing project with the goals and timelines
necessary to ensure successful funding. Yet to the extent that we have been
able to do them, they are highly illuminating and usually point to more
research that would seem necessary for writing the curriculum!
The progression from in-house testing to pilot and then field testing seems
to be a shift along the in vitro/vivo dimension. Many developers have a
practical knowledge of curriculum adoption, school capacity building, and
professional development dimensions that emerge as one moves from in vitro to
in vivo. Allan Collins notes in "Toward a Design Science of Education" the
problems with developers of educational innovations either working entirely
in vitro or without an underlying theoretical framework and argues the need
for a design science methodology, which seems similar to Mike's description
of positive critical theory. I have been attempting to think through the
development and adoption of innovations, including curricula, with activity
theory, but have not tried to push it to the development of a methodology.
Aside: I believe Allan's proposal for a design science methodology is
infuenced by the organizations and individuals with which he has worked and
in which a few developers have been guilty of either or both charges Allan
makes. He argues against the pursuing in vitro experiments. While Allan
does not directly acknowledge activity theory, his attention to motive,
innovation artifacts, and learning, classroom and systemic variables are
highly consistent with it.
When we develop an educational innovation, we often envision a new system of
interaction around the innovation, which often emerges and evolves during in
vitro work. Mitchel Resnick from MIT has shared his at a recent conference
for the star-logo program - I have the talk on tape. ( See also Resnick, M.
(1994). Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively
Parallel Microworlds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.) Paul Horwitz and I describe
one in Designing and Using Open-Ended Software to Promote Conceptual Change,
The Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 3, No. 3, . A lot of
climate variables, I think corresponding to routines and school systems, are
ignored in the envisioning process. The analysis may be primarily at the
action level and can be heavily microgenetic.
Moving the innovation in vivo seems to mean paying attention to other levels
of analysis and, at best things are never the way they are envisioned. The
innovation, materially an artifactual curriculum or piece of software, and
the system into which it is introduced are mutually reconstituted. A recent
field test report of a curriculum developed at another institution was
'eye-opening'.
Time constraints prohibit further description, and this seems to be an
interesting area to explore further.
Bill B.
--------------------------------------
Date: 7/24/97 8:30 PM
To: Bill Barowy
From: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
Bill--
Has there ever been a writeup of your experience trying to create alternative
interactional educational forms? It seems worth propagating the experience
beyond the xmca discussion.
My colleague Peg Griffin, who was very involved at the start of this work,
like to speak of "in vitro" vs "in vivo" stages of research. Create a new
cultural organism (David Feldman's term) in vitro and then see if it can
survive out in the wild and wormy world. Seems like you found, as we did,
that
creating the right medium "in vitro" can be trickier than anticipated, but
informative. Getting from their to in vivo is another matter. This may
be a useful alternative way to think about transfer issue, unless my
ontological glasses are on crooked, which is hard to tell, vision being
a relational matter! :-)
mike
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