Re: [xmca] someone or anyone

[deborah downing-wilson <ddowningw@gmail.com>]

All good questions - and to further muddy the waters... We have found that
there are times when the "more knowledgeable other" in the zpd has little or
no more knowledge of the subject being learned than does the novice.  What
they do have is experience learning.  Highly successful learners (like the
undergraduate student mentors in our programs) can do a great job of
modelling learning behaviors - and often this is far more valuable than
"teaching" a particular skill to the children.  I guess here the
relationship matters most of all.

Deborah

On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 6:52 AM, Armando Perez Yera <armandop@uclv.edu.cu>wrote:

> It is a very interesting position. The nucleus of development is in
> activity and relationships. The concept of Social Situation of
> Development,and its central organization, the vivence, put in the center of
> development of personality, the integtration of cognitions and affects. The
> activity, integrate the action. W




> hat more about Vygotsky?
> Armando
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf
> Of Serpil S Sonmez [sonmez@uwm.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 2:04 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] someone or anyone
>
> Carol,
>
> Thank you very much for taking the time to respond. In fact, I am quite
> curious about why quality of relationships has never been considered
> -particularly in cognitive developmental studies. Didn't Vygotsky observe
> that private speech increases in the presence of others but, particularly in
> the presence of familiar peers? Isn't social interaction at the heart of
> Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development?
>
> Intimate relationships may not be necessary for one's cognitive development
> but does it speed up the process with the most efficient scaffolding within
> zpd? I can't think of a more intimate relationship than a
> caretaker/mother-child relationship and a faster development than the
> child's.
>
> Is there a reason why quality of relationships has not been discussed in
> literature?
>
> I am working on adult language learners' private speech use when in
> interactions with native speakers during a competitive language task with
> peers. I would expect everyone to prefer native speakers. However, language
> proficiency doesn't seem to be a factor for neither native speakers nor
> nonnative speakers. They said they are more successful with someone familiar
> because they know what to expect and what not to expect from each other in a
> collaborative task.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carol Macdonald" <carolmacdon@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 5:36:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] someone or anyone
>
> Carol replied:-
>
> On 13 November 2010 11:40, Serpil S Sonmez <sonmez@uwm.edu> wrote:
>
> > I am wondering if anyone can advise me about this issue. I’m sorry if my
> > question sounds ignorant.
> >
> > I have very basic questions but I could not find their answers.
> >
> > What does “more knowledgeable other” mean? What does this person know?
> > Where does his knowledgeable-ness come from? Does simply having a skill
> > grant a person the "tools" to provide assistance to the other within his
> > zpd? If not, when can someone become a knowledgeable other?
> >
>
> I think that it is really part of the definition and certainly there is no
> explanation. It could vary from a child who cottoned onto the idea already
> to tutors and teachers who have a long learning/developmental history.
>
> >
> > Is it possible to provide scaffolding to someone without having any prior
> > knowledge about the person? What's the difference between scaffolding
> from
> > someone who is familiar with you and from a stranger?
> >
>
> Would you like to do your PhD on that? It depends on the age and the
> background of the child. When I teach small children it takes a few
> sessions
> to get used to me and then they start make contributions.I have one child
> who know regularly turns to me when he gets stuck, and it's not part of his
> nantal culture. But it is definitely culturally mediated.  In the Venda
> culture men don't talk to little children. So when one of my students was
> trying an experiment which included grade 1 children, they had to be
> carried
> either faint or screaming back to their classroom.
>
> >
> > Can we say that “knowledgeable other” means someone who is familiar with
> > the novice therefore “knows” how to provide scaffolding within the zpd of
> > him?
>
>
> No it doesn't naturally follow.  We found that technology teachers could do
> things (like drawing on a grid to make a bigger picture) but couldn't
> explain to the children. Pedagocically sussed people are what you want and
> they may not necessarily be teachers, as they need to see the deep
> structure
> of the task.
>
>
> > How does one know about someone’s zpd to provide appropriate scaffolding?
> >
>
> It's an ongoing matter of diagnosis, of building a model of what the child
> understands and then working with it.
>
> >
> > Also, does "someone" in the quote "addressivity is the “quality of
> turning
> > to someone” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 99), mean someone in particular or just
> > anyone in general?
> >
>
> Sorry I have no idea.
>
> >
> > I realized that I have been using these terms but did not have any
> answers
> > to these questions. Wherever I look, the knowledgeable other always has
> some
> > sort of intimate relationship and familiarity with the novice (i.e.
> > mother-child interaction, peer-peer interaction, tutor-student), not
> random
> > strangers.
> >
>
> Nobody writes about this stuff, so that's why you can't find the answers.
> Hope this helps, but in the best tradition of XMCA somebody will come down
> on me like a ton of bricks. :-)
>
> Carol
>
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Serpil
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
>
>
>
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-- 


Deborah Downing Wilson
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/
<http://lchc.ucsd.edu/>Department of Communication
http://communication.ucsd.edu/
University of California San Diego
http://www.ucsd.edu/
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