Re: [xmca] Re: Expert / Novice [was POSSIBLE SPAM Copernicus]

Adding to this we could say that infants and babies have expertise in
learning BECAUSE they do not know that they are supposed to know anything.
Lois

> From: Tony Whitson <twhitson@UDel.Edu>
> Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:50:19 -0400 (EDT)
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [xmca] Re: Expert / Novice [was POSSIBLE SPAM Copernicus]
>
> I think part of the joy a parent experiences with an infant child is the
> child's ability to make things appear wonderful again, after the adult has
> learned to not see the wonder, having sedimented de-problematizing ways of
> negotiating in the world.
> In that sense, with repect to learning, maybe the infant could be
> regarded as having a kind of expertise in being able to see things anew
> -- which is the flip side of not yet seeing them in a more discerning way
> -- but could help the adult learn to see them otherwise, or differently
> (or even better).
> On the other hand, "expertise" does have an established meaning in
> Cognitive Science, and that meaning involves seeing things in a way
> characterized by automaticity -- which from another POV could be regarded
> as seeing them more opaquely ("chunking," etc.).
>
> What do you think?
>
> On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Paul Dillon wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>>
>> I haven't read your article yet I'm wondering whether you equate professor
>> with expert, student with novice? This clearly would make your statement
>> about expertise being up for grabs a bit circular, no?
>>
>> Often a student has insights into a specific problem that the professor
>> doesn't, but you are now at the graduate level, right? That is already
>> stratospheric in relation to the first year physics student being taught a
>> section by the grad student. It is unlikely that the freshman could
>> distinguish between the expertise of the professor or the grad student in a
>> conversation about physics.
>>
>> Paul Dillon
>>
>> Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> thinking from an ontology of difference----the hardest thing for many
>> Westerners subject to individualist ideology---means that we are
>> different from ourselves, that heterogeneity is at the hard of
>> sameness and Self. This also means that expertise is heterogeneous,
>> within individuals and across, and even within itself. This, then,
>> makes the ontological opposition of THE expert and THE novice highly
>> questionable. In a paper that David Middleton and I published not too
>> long ago, we show how this turns out to be the case in research
>> interviews conducted with respect to graphing by an undergraduate
>> physics students with professors in his own department, and who is
>> expert and who is novice with respect to a particular issue
>> continuously is up for grab.
>> Cheers,
>> Michael
>>
>> Roth, W.-M., & Middleton, D. (2006). The making of asymmetries of
>> knowing, identity, and accountability in the sequential organization
>> of graph interpretation. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 1, 11–
>> 81.
>>
>>
>> On 27-Jun-07, at 7:36 PM, Louise Hawkins wrote:
>>
>> I also find issue with the distinction between expert and novice, as if
>> the expert has something to give and the novice something to receive.
>> How many times is it the student who poses a question that raises a
>> point that the 'expert' learns from?
>>
>> Louise
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Michael Glassman
>> Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2007 04:37 AM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: RE: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus,
>> Darwinand Bohr
>>
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> Why this distinction between expert and novice? What does it really buy
>> us? And who gets to make the distinction? It seems to me in an
>> expert/novice scenario all power lies in the hands of those who get to
>> make this distinction on whatever level, and get to define the two
>> classes. Take a look at the political class in the United States, we
>> define experts as those who have the right cultural capital, wear the
>> right type of ties and suits, who speak in somber, modulated voices with
>> a weary sigh of resignation, suggesting "of course you cannot see what I
>> can see, but trust me."
>>
>> This is not to say every generation starts from scratch. Every
>> generation starts with the tools that they have, but then they figure
>> out how to use those tools to solve what invariably must be new
>> problems, or they develop new tools out of the old tools. Let's say we
>> have a set of spears we use to hunt food. There are great spear
>> throwers who use those spears and teach others to use them as well.
>> Their "expertise" in spear throwing gives them great power within the
>> community. But things change, and the spears that were once used on
>> larger animals are not as good for smaller animals. Are the spear
>> throwers going to give up their place in the community as "experts?" Or
>> are they going to say, well if we just wait, or if we use the spear in a
>> different way, or it is the fault of our lazy children who do not train
>> in spear throwing the way previous generations did. Meanwhile the food
>> supply dwindles for the community. A young person examines the spear
>> and says, hmmm, the arrow head pierces the skin but it cannot reach the
>> skin with these new animals that we hunt. Perhaps I can create
>> something else - a bow and arrow perhaps. But she is not an expert.
>> Who, in a hierarchical system of knowledge development would listen and
>> adopt the work of this young innovator? This is always the danger of a
>> heirarchical system of knowledge development.
>>
>> In a more lateral system of development information is everything. As a
>> species were are problem solvers, but our problem solving is based on
>> the easy access and flow of information. I just read the most
>> fascinating article by the economist Amriyat (sp?) Sen. In it he talks
>> about famine. He makes a really good argument that famine is almost
>> never about food. There is always enough food even in some of the major
>> famines of the twentieth century. It is about the lack of capability
>> for getting to the food. At its core the lack of information as a tool
>> in obtaining this basic human function. What else is there other than
>> information. When we define information as static and give it value
>> separate from the problems we are working on, isn't that when we find
>> the most trouble, have the most difficulties in problems solving?
>>
>> I watch my son play his World of Warcraft game. I wish I knew more
>> about it. But I see him adapting and recalibrating constantly,
>> developing strategies and processes that see incredible to me. It is a
>> virtual world in which there are no "experts." The world and my son and
>> the other players co-exist.
>>
>> I don't know if I've done such a good job trying to explore this.
>> Perhaps a problem that needs greater consideration.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Martin Packer
>> Sent: Tue 6/26/2007 2:04 PM
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> Subject: [Possible SPAM] Re: [Possible SPAM] Re: [xmca] Copernicus,
>> Darwinand Bohr
>>
>>
>>
>> Michael, you would have each generation start on their own, from
>> scratch? No
>> experts, just novices? That really is a post-apocalyptic vision!
>>
>> My point was there is more to life (and education) than "functioning"
>> and
>> "information." The danger with the tool metaphor, and the emphasis on
>> artifacts as tools, is that they reduce all of life to the production
>> process. That is not just a conceptual mistake, it is a political
>> agenda. To
>> argue that thinking is not important, only tool use, is not to argue
>> against
>> formalization, it is to promote a purely instrumental conception of
>> human
>> action and interaction. It is to promote an extreme version of the
>> division
>> of labor, in which only a tiny elite get to think about the nature of
>> thinking, and everyone else is simply using tools skillfully but
>> thoughtlessly.
>>
>> On 6/26/07 12:40 PM, "Michael Glassman" wrote:
>>
>>> But if this information is so important, and it exists as part of the
>> problem
>>> solving tools of humanity, don't we trust humans to discover it
>> through their
>>> own activities?
>>
>>
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>> ---------------------------------
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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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Received on Fri Jun 29 21:47 PDT 2007