Re: [xmca] LSV- Dynamic Assessment

[Gordon Wells <gwells@ucsc.edu>]

I have been following the discussion of Poehner and Lantolf's paper  
on dynamic assessment with interest. but discussion on xmca goes so  
fast that by the time I have read a message there have been many  
responses and the thread switches to some other (related?) topic.  
However, I'll risk going back upstream to comment on three issues.
SCT v. CHAT. I suspect that one of the reasons that Lantolf and his  
colleagues choose SCT (apart from publishers' preferences) is that  
their work is somewhat restricted in scope when compared with the  
range of topics that CHAT proponents address. While second/foreign  
language learning is of great importance in today's world, it is  
nevertheless a small part of the learning that we all engage in in  
the course of a day, month, year or 'stage of development'. And when  
this topic is addressed largely from a psycholinguistic perspective,  
there is less likely to be a concern with the activity systems and  
communities of practice in which using a second/foreign language  
plays a part beyond the classroom. Activity in the sense of A in CHAT  
is not brought into question; rather, it is taken for granted.
That being said, I really appreciated the examples of DA that P&L  
included and the discussion of guaging the level and kind of support  
that each student seemed likely to benefit from. Important, too, was  
their recognition that there is no single best answer, since every  
learning-teaching event is unique. But I think this point can be  
extended to recognize that learning is always multidimensional and  
that, therefore, there are many ways in which a learner can be  
assisted, but which may seem tangential if the focus is restricted to  
the task in hand. This is perhaps where the wider perspective  
provided by CHAT is relevant.
P&L raise the question of how to incorporate a DA approach when a  
class of 20 or more students is involved. Assuming that DA is  
applicable beyond language learning, this is an issue that is  
relevant in all learning-and-teaching situations in schools and  
universities. Here the current attempt to focus on formative rather  
than summative assessment is asking similar questions and leading to  
some interesting attempts by some schools to use the analysis of  
students' answers to district 'benchmark' tests to make teaching more  
responsive to the needs of individual students or groups of students  
who might benefit from similar supportive assistance. Might this be a  
move in the direction of DA?
In one of his posts, David suggested that P&L are blurring the  
distinction between learning and development, adding that much of  
what students learn in school remains inert and does not lead to  
development. This is certainly true but at the same time it is  
important to recognize that an event that may result only in inert  
knowledge or skill for one student may lead to an important  
breakthrough for another student, making possible development that  
the teacher could not have foreseen or planned for. In my experience,  
this is more likely to occur when the topic being studied is  
approached through inquiry. When what is being discovered/learned by  
one student or group of students is discussed by the whole class,  
someone (student or teacher) may ask a question that shifts the  
inquiry to another level for all concerned or may lead a previously  
unengaged student to become more self-directed in her or his  
participation. In either case, what started as simply increasing  
understanding of the selected topic may become truly developmental  
for one or more of the participants.  Would you agree, David?

Gordon Wells		<gwells@ucsc.edu>			http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/
Department of Education
University of California, Santa Cruz.



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