>Hi Kevin, Judy, David and everybody--
>
>I think all learning is essentially "informal" in a sense, as
Jane Lave
>argues, that learning is an aspect of any activity. It always
involves
>learner's social history. A student who is bored by a lesson
learns how to
>"kill time" without attracting much attention. Thus, "formal
learning" is a
>specially organized "informal learning."
>
>What do you think?
I guess I view informal as having a natural tension between
cultural, community, family goals and individual ones. Maybe
the dialectic of invention / convention would be a good way to
look at it. The type of learning enviroments that occur in
family or a community center environment. I see the force issue
coming into play in compulsary education because the invention/
convention tension is often destroyed. If in a family /
community setting I am trying to impart cultural knowledge there
is a natural tension I must respect - making the activity
interesting enough. If not the child will leave the activity
setting, and have that option if its informal. Maybe the
distiction I see is not formal - informal, but community -
school learning environment.
Nate
>
>Eugene
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu [mailto:dkirsh@lsu.edu]
>> Sent: Monday, January 18, 1999 2:39 PM
>> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
>> Subject: Re: evaluating the informal
>>
>>
>> diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu on 01/16/99 01:26:28 PM
>> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu@internet
>> cc:
>> Subject: Re: evaluating the informal
>>
>> I'll try my hand at that, Kevin. In "formal" learning,
systematicity
>> is accomplished in terms of the perspective of a teacher or
more
>> capable other,
>> whose reference is a conceptually consistent history of
ideas.
>> In "informal" learning, the systematicity is accomplished
within the
>> learner's social history -- that is, that which is learned is
consistent
>> with the learner's lived experience.
>>
>> So actually, both kinds of learning co-occur, but settings,
>> institutional arrangements are designed to effect formality
>> or not.
>>
>> whaddayall think?
>>
>> Judy.
>>
______________________________________________________________
>>
>> Judy,
>> Your thinking on this resonates with my own.
>>
>> I regard constructivism as providing a basis for theorizing
>> about formal learning in that it elaborates students'
conceptual
>> structures vis a vis mature competency. Such theorizing
enables
>> the teacher to develop specific plans for bringing the
student
>> along a "hypothetical learning trajectory" (Simon, 1995).
>>
>> Sociocultural constructs such as Leont'ev's notion of
appropriation
>> more often describe inadvertant learning ...how people
develop
>> through mismatches in conceptual orientation. Of course,
>> constructivists never quite get it right (and in fact, many
of
>> them recognize the impossibility of getting it right). So
even
>> in good formal instruction some degree of appropriation is
>> needed on the part of the student. But if the theories of the
>> constructivist-oriented teacher are "viable" the teacher will
>> be able to construe her or his intervention as successful. If
>> not, it's back to the drawing board to develop a better
>> conceptual model and/or a better intervention from which to
>> construct a better hypothetical learning trajectory. To teach
>> formally means to teach for advertant learning along the
lines
>> sketched above.
>>
>> Switching to the student's perspective, the clarity of the
>> teacher's presumptions about students' learning gives way
>> to a good deal of murkiness. Generally speaking, the student
>> is not in a position to judge, or even to know about, the
>> teacher's interpretations of what should transpire in some
>> learning activity. Indeed, there is no qualitative difference
>> in the learning that happens to follow the teacher's
>> intentions and that which happens inadvertantly through
>> appropriation. Constructivist analysts interested in
contributing
>> to the teacher's efficacy tend not to see the inadvertant
learning
>> resulting from appropriation. Sociocultural analysts may be
>> less attuned to the detailed cognitive models underlying
>> an instructional approach, and more attuned to the full
>> spectrum of the students' engagement in the learning
activity.
>> But learning does sometimes tend towards the plans of the
>> teacher. For such occasions, my preference is to substitute
the
>> dichotomy advertant/inadvertant in place of the more familiar
>> formal/informal.
>>
>> David Kirshner
>>
>> Louisiana State University
>> dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu
>>
>