Re: [xmca] university students in the zoped

From: Emily Duvall (duvalleg@adelphia.net)
Date: Sat Oct 14 2006 - 06:20:04 PDT


    Actually, I'm very interested in the zoped from the teacher
perspective. It's not an area that Vygotsky wrote on, but one that I
think needs to be explored within the context of development,
particularly as it influences teacher education. Part of my dissertation
work is focused on the connection between teacher learning and
development in the zoped and student learning and development in the
zoped. I'm currently conceptualizing these as intersecting zopeds and
bringing in Gadamers fusion of horizons. At any rate, anything
(articles, opinions, etc) that could contribute to thinking about this
would be welcome. The population I'm working with are elementary
children with learning disabilities.
    Reagrding the zoped at the university level I was thinking about the
work by Poehner and Lantolf in L2/dynamic assessment. I know the
population that Matt worked with were undergrads and, of course, DA is
all about the zoped. He's currently working for CALPER at Penn State and
would probably be happy to discuss what he knows re zopeds and working
with undergrads. There are some other folks doing similar work at Penn
State, as well.

~ Em

Carol Macdonald wrote:

> Hi Deborah
> Phill has obviously given you good references, but I thought I might
> give a
> little of my own experiences of supervision. I think they are very
> similar
> to teacher/child dyads. Leaving aside issues of power for a moment, the
> lecturer can point students to work that is too easy (going overy the
> top of
> the zoped) or too difficult, where they come in under the zoped; in both
> cases no genuine learning occurs.
>
> Then there are issues of mastery and appropriation/internalisation. Some
> students master the work for their thesis and then propmtly consign it to
> the trashbin. For others, the appropiation has been so deep that it
> affcts
> all their subsequent work, or maybe cause them to shift their paradigm
> for
> the foreseeable future.
>
> Then there are issues of power: some students will do what one asks,
> without resentment, assuming that the superviser has a bird's eye view of
> where they are going. Others may listen to instructions and then go
> off and
> do exactly what they want to do: they are either dying to do some other
> (covert) reading, or otherwise they assume the superviser cannot enter
> into
> their reality, but perhaps can be inducted.(Or that the superviser is so
> stupid that they are going to ask that s'he should be replaced as
> Internal
> Examiner.)
>
> Finally, there are students coming in from other disciplines, who have to
> learn the conventions of the new one, and may trip innumerable times in
> their writing (styles). They have to trust their supervisers, and have a
> sense of humour to survive, but since it is a matter of style rather than
> content, this is a secondary type of zoped.
>
> There are other varieties such as students who are extremely competent
> but
> very insecure, who come anxiously with more or less perfect work, for
> it to
> get a stamp of approval. Naturally we find them a pain, because they
> consume
> lots of our time--this might be a case of (lack of) confidence in the
> zoped. Too little might exhibit the case of obviating the zoped, with
> genuine learning taking place, presumably with the mediation from/with
> texts
> almost to exclusion of people-bound dyadic learning. Too much
> unwarrented
> confidence can lead to learning outside the zoped under discussion, or a
> poor performance within it.
>
> Actually I think these examples (which are all mine, but might be
> shared to
> differrent levels by my other honoured collegauges) are so interesting
> that
> surely somebody could write a paper about them, unless, of course,
> Phill's
> authors have already.
>
> Carol
>
>
> On 10/14/06, Phil Chappell <philchappell@mac.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear Deborah,
>>
>> Attached are two papers that may be helpful - both in language
>> teacher education and from the Modern Language Journal.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>> On 14/10/2006, at 11:20 AM, deborah downing-wilson wrote:
>>
>> > I'm just beginning to look at undergrad development in informal
>> > mentored
>> > service learning environments (Fifth Dimension After-school
>> > programs) and
>> > would like to use the ZPD model to evaluate the quality of the
>> > professor/undergrad relationship in contrast to the conventional
>> > lecturer/listener dynamic. There is some literature available on
>> > adult
>> > learners in zopeds, but neither this nor the work regularly done with
>> > children directly addresses university learning.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 10/13/06, Emily Duvall <duvalleg@adelphia.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Are you looking for something in particular as in dynamic
>> >> assessment or
>> >> a particular domain such as foreign language, ... ?
>> >>
>> >> deborah downing-wilson wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Can anyone point me toward literature or research applying the
>> >> zoped
>> >> > model
>> >> > to professor/university student relationships?
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> He only earns his freedom and his life, who takes them every day
>> >> by storm.
>> >> -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe
>> >>
>> >> Emily Duvall
>> >> Doctoral Candidate (ABD) / Graduate Assistant-Instructor
>> >> Language and Literacy Education (LLED)
>> >> Department of Curriculum and Instruction
>> >> College of Education
>> >> Penn State University
>> >> 256 Chambers Bldg.
>> >> University Park , PA 16802
>> >> 814-861-3315 (home)
>> >> 814-404-6175 (cell)
>> >> 814-863-4511 (office)
>> >> FAX: 814-863-7602
>> >> edd130@psu.edu
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Deborah Downing-Wilson
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > xmca mailing list
>> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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