RE: [xmca] The Grip of "Direct Instruction"

["Denise Newnham" <dsnewnham@bluewin.ch>]

Dear Mike, and others. I am really interested in pedagogies but am still on
the other strand of Valsiner and pseudo concepts so have not wanted to
become involved. However you APA paper Mike interests me as well. I will
give my final comment on the other line although final is hard to say as it
is a pandora's box! And then make some comments on direct instruction.

Denise

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: 16 August 2010 01:03
To: Larry Purss
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Grip of "Direct Instruction"

Larry-- I know the abacus expert literature. In that case there is strong
independent verification of the existence of an internalized image of an
abacus because of experts' performance. When attributing a deep disposition
of the sort "lack of attention span" to incoming college students in the
case I have been discussing, there is no independent evidence, and, as a few
have commented, pretty good reason to believe that it is mythical.
So, your caution about reification is certainly warranted.

I am unsure of the empirical basis of Jaan V's theorizing about affect and
semiotic mediation.

Yep, threads turn out to be related quite often. Something about less than 6
degrees of separation!

mike

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike
> The phrase "willingness to make deep disposition claims" leads me back to
> Valsiner's U-shaped model and level 4 de-differentiation of
> overgeneralized/abstracted dispositions.
>
> [I wasn't sure if this is a new thread or just multi-voicedness on a
> theme???]
>
> Your phrase also caused me to reflect on "skilled abacus masters" and
their
> ability to create GESTALT cognitive representations which allow
calculations
> that are as quick as a computer. Is this also another example of a  "deep
> disposition" that is sociocultural and appropriated??
>
> I'm wanting to be very careful not to reify this line of thinking and
> making a "structural" cognitive reality claim.  However, phenomena that
can
> be labelled "deep disposition", may be explained as processes [and values
as
> Valsiner explicates at level 4], which cognitively become "implicit" and
not
> easily re-constructed and  reflected upon.
> Now I also want to emphasize that a huge caution must be emphasized not to
> explain these overgeneralized/abstract phenomena as "merely deep
> dispositions" and INTRApsychic.
> Is it possible to see that getting involved in active learning leads to
> deep dispositions and motivations for AGENCY-distributing
activity-centered
> participation.  Once the person develops this deep disposition the
> person will struggle to adapt to alternative direct instruction models of
> learning.
> In the edited book "The Development of the Mediated Mind" a chapter by
> Lucariello explores this notion of deep dispositions [hermeneutics would
say
> BIASES] that may be operating at Valsiner's de-differentiated 4th level of
> generalization and values.
>
> "Socialization experiences vary with respect to self-concept and language
> use. Socialization that emphasizes an interdependent self-concept and
> pragmatic-interpersonal language use is likely to foster social ToM
> development.  Socialization that accentuates an independent self-concept
and
> referential-INTRApersonal language use is likely to facilitate
INTRApersonal
> ToM development. Accordingly, children whose socialization was
predominantly
> of one form or the other would manifset differtial strenghts, hence uneven
> ToM development across social and intrapersonal ToM kinds....
>
> The theme of this quote as deep dispositions and values at Valsiner's 4th
> level of de-differentiation is what I'm trying to highlight. [not
> Lucariello's sociocognitive framework]  Interpersonal activity based
> motivations and values has its roots in situational development that
> emphasizes pragmatic-intersubjective language, concepts, and identity
> dispositions that develop intersubjective "communal" self-concepts". When
> persons with "communal" self-concepts are placed in social institutions
that
> value INTRApersonally REGULATED self-concepts the more "communally"
oriented
> person looses motivation because the person's IMPLICIT values are not
> recognized or responded to and the person either "adapts" [learns to be
> intrapersonally motivated] or withdraws.
>
> I'm aware of how "internalized" the above descriptions are and there may
be
> better frameworks to interpret the above phenomena, but it does bring in
> one perspective  for the perceived "tensions" of these various models of
> institutionalized learning.
>
> It also emphasizes how VALUES [human science] are central to cognitive
> accounts of learning.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 10:05 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'll send along the draft paper, Jerry.
>> My speculation concerning the "attention span" argument is the same as
>> yours
>> and Jay's: students who have gotten involved in active learning and been
>> successful doing it are badly turned off by transmission teaching in
large
>> classrooms with little feedback. They display "short attention" spans
>> which
>> at least one of their professors interprets is a deep disposition brought
>> about by the hidden failures of activity-centered, motivating, and
>> agency-distributing activity-based instruction (with the caveat from
David
>> K
>> not to lump all non-direct-instruction into a virtuous clump).
>>
>> It was primarily the willingness to make such deep disposition claims
with
>> the idea that it was now up to the college to teach attention span, that
>> were the focus on my amazement in the discussion I reported.
>> mike
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 10:30 PM, Jerry Balzano <gjbalzano@ucsd.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Hey Mike Coole,
>> >
>> > I for one would very much like to see a draft of your APA paper, if you
>> > please.
>> >
>> > I'm trying to figure out how your Canadian interlocutor comes to the
>> > inference that the collaborative learning per se, as it were, is acting
>> as
>> > "intellectual Borax", stripping students of their attention spans.  How
>> > could such a thing work, in principle, I wonder?  Seems more likely to
>> me,
>> > in any case, that having had first-hand experience with successful
>> learning
>> > using collaboration and other more activity-based methods gives
students
>> a
>> > healthy skepticism about the value of "direct instruction for its own
>> sake",
>> > especially when the latter is manifested in the form of a
>> > not-very-skillfully-executed lecture.  What, precisely, does my
>> inability to
>> > pay attention to a badly designed lecture say about my attention span?
>>  Did
>> > this woman, one wonders, really have her "scientific thinking cap" on
>> when
>> > coming to these conclusions?
>> >
>> > As for good ol' calculus, it just so happens that I have a personal
>> story
>> > -- a slightly sad one -- to tell.  I was as happy as a clam, learning
>> > calculus quite successfully as an "autodidact" during my senior year of
>> high
>> > school, and I entered college very much excited to take a "Real
Calculus
>> > Course" taught by a Real Calculus Professor so I could really go racing
>> > forward in this wonderful subject.  As it turned out, Direct
Instruction
>> in
>> > Calculus, in my freshman year in college, all but killed my love of
>> > mathematics; I barely survived the course, escaping with a C+, which
>> stands
>> > to this day as my lowest grade ever in a math course or any other
course
>> > (OK, I also got a C+ in an Anthro course, but that's it).  My love for
>> > mathematics survived, thankfully ... but it really didn't come all the
>> way
>> > back until I taught myself group theory approximately eight years after
>> my
>> > Freshman Calculus Direct Instruction Disaster.
>> >
>> > There does seem to be some very strongly entrenched pedagogical
folklore
>> to
>> > the effect that Some Subjects Require Direct Instruction, or at least,
>> Some
>> > Subjects Necessitate More Direct Instruction Than Others, but it's
never
>> > been clear to me what the provenance of this folklore is, or what the
>> logic
>> > of it is based on.  I certainly don't buy any of it; and in the case of
>> > calculus, a strongly favored example used to illustrate the folklore by
>> its
>> > advocates (I think of Al Manaster from UCSD lecturing me about this, no
>> pun
>> > intended), I have direct personal evidence strongly to the contrary.
>> >
>> > Jerry
>> >
>> > On Aug 14, 2010, at 4:01 PM, mike cole wrote:
>> >
>> > Thanks, David.
>> > If anyone is interested I can send draft of paper for APA. It is
similar
>> to
>> > my AERA address (but less interesting-- damned print!).
>> >
>> > Sure, crappy instruction can come from "we pretend to teach they
pretend
>> to
>> > learn" regimes. The examples I gave all have pretty good evidence in
>> their
>> > favor and in many cases detailed differentiation of what gets cut out
as
>> a
>> > coherent program enters the sausage grinder.
>> >
>> > While I am certainly willing to believe that people get into
>> Universities
>> > having acquired levels of learning that are very low ( I deal with
>> transfer
>> > students from California colleges, and direct admitees into UCSD who
>> cannot
>> > handle, for example, a book as complicated as *1984*, I do not believe
>> that
>> > it is a plausible account of the average Canadian university's entering
>> > classes.
>> >
>> > Apropos, however, of your point. Recent news reports concerning
>> > unemployment
>> > indicate that there are a couple of hundred pretty well paid jobs going
>> > begging in the US right now because there is a dearth of people who can
>> > handle the work tasks. Not a new story -- one which puts many
industries
>> in
>> > the business of paying new employees to learn a lot before they start
>> > working.
>> >
>> > I'll read your paper with interest.
>> > mike
>> >
>> > On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 3:44 PM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Mike,
>> >
>> > Thanks for sharing that anecdote.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately there is a mirror image in reform teaching to the
>> >
>> > dysfunctional portrait you presented of direct instruction of
procedures
>> >
>> > disconnected from meaning-making: engagement in activity with no vision
>> >
>> > on the teacher's part of what or how learning is to be supported. I
>> >
>> > think there is good evidence that the Math Wars in the US initiated not
>> >
>> > from ideological resistance (that came later), but from true horror
>> >
>> > stories of kids in dysfunctional reform classrooms, some of them
getting
>> >
>> > to college unprepared as learners (getting into college is not always a
>> >
>> > sign of a successful K-12 learning experience). As a community, I don't
>> >
>> > think we've done a good job of articulating what it is that makes
>> >
>> > activity-based learning environments effective.
>> >
>> > This was the topic of my AERA paper in May, "The Incoherence of
>> >
>> > Contemporary Pedagogical Reform," which I attach in case anyone is
>> >
>> > interested. (The meat of the paper starts about half way through at the
>> >
>> > section titled "Theoretical Analysis.")
>> >
>> > David
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> >
>> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
>> >
>> > On Behalf Of mike cole
>> >
>> > Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2010 2:39 PM
>> >
>> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
>> >
>> > Subject: [xmca] The Grip of "Direct Instruction"
>> >
>> >
>> > Yesterday I presented a longish paper at the American Psych Association
>> >
>> > meetings here in San Diego.
>> >
>> > A lot of it was about what here I would refer to as "activity-based"
>> >
>> > curriculum projects -- their virtues, problems, and apparent inability
>> >
>> > to
>> >
>> > gain traction against recitation scrips and direct instruction. A major
>> >
>> > general finding was that when implemented as designers intend, such
>> >
>> > program
>> >
>> > work, but they tend quickly to be undermined by teachers who strongly
>> >
>> > believe that direct instruction on elements not under control of a
>> >
>> > meaningful whole is THE only way to be effective.
>> >
>> >
>> > A person from Canada posed a question after prefacing her remarks by
>> >
>> > saying
>> >
>> > she agreed with all I said, and thank you, etc. She began by saying
that
>> >
>> > in
>> >
>> > Canada such approaches had gained a lot of
>> >
>> > traction in k-12 education, but they were causing a problem at the
>> >
>> > university level. She phrased the problem roughly as follows: "We get a
>> >
>> > lot
>> >
>> > of students who are great at collaborative learning, but it appears to
>> >
>> > strip
>> >
>> > them of their attention spans. And, doesn't a subject like calculus
>> >
>> > REQUIRE
>> >
>> > direct instruction?"
>> >
>> >
>> > These comments/questions knocked me over. I have long disliked the
>> >
>> > discourse
>> >
>> > of short attention span in school kids, which appears to masquerade far
>> >
>> > too
>> >
>> > often as a proxy for "the kids will not sit still and control
themselves
>> >
>> > doing stuff they do not understand and do not understand why they
should
>> >
>> > try
>> >
>> > to understand."
>> >
>> > But I never expected that the the charge of "reduced attention spans"
>> >
>> > would
>> >
>> > be attributed to college students (who have succeeded in getting in to
>> >
>> > college, after all) with the causal factor inducing this "deficit"
being
>> >
>> > that their former (successful) modes of learning engendered by
>> >
>> > activity-centered instruction). Moreover, I was surprised that anyone
>> >
>> > believes that calculus can be taught by "direct instruction" with no
>> >
>> > effort
>> >
>> > made to subordinate procedural knowledge to knowledge of the potential
>> >
>> > motives for learning.
>> >
>> >
>> > I think I was experiencing exactly the challenges confronting the many
>> >
>> > really interesting and successful innovators in education (we might
>> >
>> > start
>> >
>> > here with Dewey, but I have in mind modern scholars) who want to make
>> >
>> > education a meaningful process to students but who find that their
>> >
>> > efforts
>> >
>> > are rapidly deconstructed once they leave the home ground.
>> >
>> >
>> > Anyone else have observations of this kind?
>> >
>> > mike
>> >
>> >
>> > Two things struck me
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> >
>> > xmca mailing list
>> >
>> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> >
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>> >
>> >
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