[xmca] Theories of Learning and Studies of Instructional Practice

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Tim Koschmann recently published an edited collection that may be of interest to xmca-ers:

Theories of Learning and Studies of Instructional Practice, published by Springer. <http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/learning+%26+instruction/book/978-1-4419-7581-2>

The chapters are based on a short, small conference that Tim organized, in which all of the participants shared videos made by Rich Lehrer and Leona Schauble that were made during an innovative math curriculum. Our debate centered around how best to conceptualize and investigate learning so as to make it visible in these videos. Overall, three perspectives were explored: situated learning, dialogic theory, and Deweyan transactionalism.  I have a chapter, in which I respond to the perspective that Jim Wertsch brought to the material. I think the book is unique in the degree of interactive discussion and commentary that Tim was able to foster, first in the conference itself and now in the published record. 

Here is the book description:

Theories of Learning and Studies of Instructional Practice Timothy Koschmann, editor 
Though there have been numerous calls for educational researchers to attend more closely to the details of how teaching is actually done, instructional practice remains an inadequately studied topic. Theories of Learning and Studies of Instructional Practice seeks to remedy this by helping construct a foundation for a practice-based science of instruction. It focuses on the fundamental question, what roles should theories of learning play in the study of instructional practice? In educational research, learning theories represent alternative conceptualizations of what we take learning to be. This volume examines three contemporary theories of learning with particular relevance to the study of practice, namely, situated learning, dialogic theory(or dialogism), and Deweyan transactionalism. Drawing upon a panel of internationally-prominent social scientists, psychologists, philosophers of education and teacher educators, the book critically evaluates the potential contributions of each to a science of instructional practice. Rather than considering these matters in the abstract, chapter authors illustrate their positions by applying the different treatments of learning to selected samples of instructional practice. The data analyzed come from a particular fifth-grade classroom in which an innovative way of teaching math was being tested. Extensive transcripts, images and exhibits are provided, enabling the reader to follow and evaluate the analytic arguments being presented. The volume, therefore, delivers precisely on its title—it provides both an articulation of current theories of learning and a series of carefully constructed studies of instructional practice, seeking to explore the relationship between them. In so doing the book offers no easy answers. Its purpose instead is to bring areas of controversy and confusion to the surface. For researchers and graduate students in the learning sciences, this provocative volume opens the door to the next crucial round of dialogue and debate.

Martin

 
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