Hi Leroy-- Sounds like you have found some neat ways to get students
actively engaged which is always a great thing.
About the term, Zoped. Its kind of an idiocyncratic term that great up from
our
practices at LCHC over the years. Perhaps it was pushed along a little by
the fact
that in the early 1980's we began to engage in educational/developmental
activities
after school where play is an important component.
Zo-ped.
So lets start with the ped part. That is easy enough. Shorthand for pedagogy
and as you note, e- for education and d for development are in there, maybe
p is for
promoting?
Zo has a different history. In the places I worked in West Africa, the
local shamans
were referred to as Zo's. In Liberian English the term Zo was translated as
"witch doctor." Powerful figures. They received a lot of respect in part
because of a belief
in the efficacy of what we would call magic and in part because of their
ability to read the local social order shrewdly to identify areas of
conflict that might usefully be overcome for people to achieve whatever it
was they came to the Zo for-- curing an
illness, gaining a lover, winning a soccer match.............
Now my belief about great teaching is that it is part systematic knowledge
gained from
a combination of prior education and experience. But when I encounter
someone like
Vivian Paley, or Alexander Luria, or.......... (all of us who are lucky have
had such
teachers) there is something more than prior education and experience
involved, something, well, something perhaps magical, ineffible, that makes
the interactions
really work.
This "something magical" certainly is very important in our afterschool
work. It includes not only the experience and good will of those involved,
but also strong emotional
bonds that grow between undergrads, kids and staff. -- almost a kind of
emotional
flow.
Zo, Vygotsky style, we brought these two streams of human experience, the
Ped and the Zo and used it to refer to zones of nearest (proximal)
development
as Zopeds.
We are constantly reminded in the course of people appropriating and making
their own these ideas that zopeds are not things, they are processes.
Hence, at one site where colleagues have started up their own 5thDimension,
it is normal to talk of people
zopeding. Nice evidence of the use of theory in practice.
Sorry I did not have time to answer followup by ed and others on this
thread, but have
a couple of seminars to run as the clock chimes.
mike
On 6/12/06, Leroy Clarke <lcclarke@rogers.com> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
> I have been lurking in the background (still within the zone though!)
> taking in this great discussion on zpd. This is a very simple question and
> possibly it has been clarified before but somehow I missed it. Mike, you
> mentioned that ZOPED is your terminology, does that mean 'zone of proximal
> educational development' or does it stand for something else and if so why
> have you included the 'e'?
>
> I am a high school science and computer science teacher and over the pass
> several years I have been intentionally incorporating zone of proximal
> development as a theoretical framework in my practice. I think it makes a
> lot of difference to the quality of my teaching and more importantly, to the
> outcome (student learning and competence.) These are some simple examples:
>
> - I would show new students how a breadboard (electronic circuit
> board) works, how to use it and how to strip conductors (wires) and then ask
> them (given the necessary instructions) to build a circuit to verify the
> logics of gates (AND, NOT, OR, NOR, EOR) and to jazz-up the circuit as they
> see fit. It is always amazing what these new but engaged students come up
> with far beyound my wildest dreams.
> - both in science and computer science, Instead of assigning
> projects, I would ask for proposals (of course, given some basic and
> necessary criteria) for projects. Again, far beyond my wildest dreams
> students constuct outstanding projects that never fail to amaze me.
>
> Sometime in the future I may be able to show some of this work at a
> workshop of some sort, others may have similar interests (maybe evidence of
> student learning based on zone of proximal development.) What are your
> thoughs?
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, June 11, 2006 8:46:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Playfully Answering Ana--
>
> Lois, Ed, the Ghost of LSV, and humpty dumpty---
>
> Here is how I read the current, really instructive and fascinating thread:
>
> Someone raises the issue of zones of proximal development (zopeds in my
> terminology) in a way that
> gets me to ask people to send papers of what they mean by this with
> empirical examples that support
> their views. Seth's survey from the Plenum volumes inspires this interest
> because he basically says that
> we Americans are badly mistaken in our interpretation of LSV and the
> meanings of learning and development (especially)
> and he offers a set of criteria for straight thinking about the issues. I
> post Seth's article and my own favorite example of
> what I think is a zoped from Paley. and something else I forget at the
> moment-- and I would happily post more!).
>
> Discussion begins. Its all there on xma web page.
> I conclude after a lot of discussion that so far as I can tell, if we
> adopt
> the Chaiklin (presumably LSV) criteria for what
> constitutes development, there are NO empirical examples of zopeds in
> EITHER
> teaching/learning offered by LSV or
> anyone else. I ask for examples that contradict me from the (distributedly
> assembled) group.
>
>
> .....................................................................................................................................................................................
>
> is what comes back.
>
> There are suggestions that perhaps LSV was only speaking metaphorically,
> that Paley is vague and Franklin's story is only an
> anecdote, that we should relax Chaiklin's criteria, that........... a lot
> of things. BUT, no one puts forward a claim that they have an
> example that illustrates convincingly anything that someone would call a
> zoped except LSV who took the story of two sisters playing
> sister as an example for play and some remarks from macarthy psychomotor
> scales (1930?) as examples. And no one says its
> a pile of crap-- that learning is development, that development is......
> etc
> again.
>
> Ed says no problem, LSV was a phenomenologist. I would say he was an
> empirical. philosopher, like Dewey or many of those on XMCA.
> According to Luria, he did little demos, pour voir (as Sylvia and I wrote
> in
> the intro to the 1978 volume). Don would probably quote
> humpty dumpty, with whom I have great sympathy.
>
> But this being, so to speak, empirical philosophy, it seems at least
> relevant to ask what consittutes empirical evidence relevant to the
> question.
> My own view is that Paley is a brilliant empricist whose methods are
> ecologically valid and hugely insightful, if not readily replicable (after
> all,
> you have to commit yourself to spending 40 years working in a preschool
> classroom, recording conversations, writing them down, etc and what self
> respecting academic researcher would was their time doing that?).
>
> Then there is the issue of practice. Given that we can all use words as we
> wish, or as big brother makes us use them, what difference does it
> make, other than getting published in a high status journal so we can get
> paid to gabble? For me, personally, the ideas appear to guide design
> of (excuse the term!) developmentally productive practices for kids and
> undergrads and post docs and old professors. But if I were to trot
> out a lot of examples I believe in, or evidence, or whatever, that would
> be
> playing big brother in the context of MCA. So I am trying to ask
> questions to understand what others think of the issues so that I can
> learn,
> and develop, as a result.
>
> That is the context for my imprecise remarks. Sorry to be so vague. It
> comes
> with my territory. Perhaps you could help us develop?
> mike
>
>
>
> On 6/10/06, Lois Holzman <lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, I have thought about this. As you, Vesna, know, I think of the
> zoped
> > as
> > something people create together, which is a view you and I share. Can
> we
> > see this in the examples that are the focus of this current
> conversation?
> > I'm going to look.
> > Lois
> >
> > > From: "zdravo" <zdravo@EUnet.yu>
> > > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 12:37:33 +0200
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] Playfully Answering Ana--
> > >
> > > Ana, thanks for your conversations. I will put some questions. Could
> our
> > > talking about Zoped from CHAT perspective, be or become Zoped in
> itself?
> > > Have you ever thought about that?
> > > Vesna
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Ana Marjanovic-Shane" <ana@zmajcenter.org>
> > > To: <mcole@weber.ucsd.edu>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> > > <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > > Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 11:36 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] Playfully Answering Ana--
> > >
> > >
> > >> Thanks, Mike,
> > >> I was not sure -- :-)
> > >>
> > >> I think you asked a very important question about play and zone of
> > >> proximal development. One of the problems we have is that "play"
> (even
> > >> if we talk only about fantasy play, or dramatic play, or role play,
> or
> > >> pretend play -- all various names for the roughly the same
> phenomenon)
> > >> is not understood the same by various people. Despite an extensive
> > study
> > >> by Elkonin which builds on Vygotsky, and a half a dozen people who
> > study
> > >> play from the CHAT perspective, there are still many unknowns.
> > >> For instance:
> > >> Is it ONE phenomenon that we are talking about?? There are many
> > >> definitions, some of them incompatible with each other.
> > >> Many episodes in literature, like the one by V. Paley of Franklin,
> are
> > >> impressionistic stories taken by teachers or even researchers --
> which
> > >> filter out many details thought not to be important for understanding
> > > play.
> > >> There is a large body of research on play in this country and in
> > English
> > >> in general, by people who have never heard of Vygotsky or cultural
> > >> historical activity theory. While they are fascinating in their own
> > >> right, it is sometimes clear that what the authors are observing
> misses
> > >> out features needed to be known by someone who would want to find out
> > >> weather there might be a possibility of the zone of proximal
> > development
> > >> taking place...
> > >> Fourth, the generally accepted definitions of the ZPD - and
> > >> interpretations like the one we have by Seth, are based on very
> > >> different type of activities (academic testing, or at least an
> academic
> > >> dialogue between an adult and a child) than play - weather
> spontaneous
> > >> or guided, weather by children only or including adults.
> > >> And finally, I think that looking at isolated episodes cannot is
> > >> insufficient. Since, by definition, ZPD is a construction zone, a
> time
> > >> of dynamic changes where everything is "up in the air", a longer
> period
> > >> of time and more play and non play observations should be made on a
> > >> child in order to be able to make any decisive conclusions about that
> > >> child's position in her/his ZPD.
> > >>
> > >> But this is definitely one of the most important areas of further
> > study.
> > >> We do need a solid theoretical connection between play and play like
> > >> activities on one hand and academic learning and development
> > >> (intellectual, emotional, personal etc) on the other.
> > >> Ana
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Mike Cole wrote:
> > >>> That was a chapter from Elkonin that appeared in
> > >>> Journal Russian East European Psych, 2005, vol 43, NO1
> > >>> All of Psych of play is there I think.
> > >>> mike
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > >>> xmca mailing list
> > >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> Ana Marjanovic'-Shane,Ph.D.
> > >>
> > >> 151 W. Tulpehocken St.
> > >>
> > >> Philadelphia, PA 19144
> > >>
> > >> Home office: (215) 843-2909
> > >>
> > >> Mobile: (267) 334-2905
> > >>
> > >> ana@zmajcenter.org <mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org>
> > >>
> > >> http://www.speakeasy.org/~anamshane
> > > <http://www.speakeasy.org/%7Eanamshane>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
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