[Xmca-l] Re: Luria/Leontiev as inspirations for design

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

I am glad the paper as a whole still has relevance for you, Phillip. And it
is very interesting to know that reciprocal teaching/learning has spread.
Its a good practice implemented with some "feeling for the organism."

There may be various social ecologies for QAR. I have used it to great
effect in distance
classes where we share some reading and students take the various roles,
slightly modified to make them age/ability appropriate.

My local reason for posting the note was to point to what I think are
pretty clear expositions
of the key idea of the combined motor method and how it can be used, along
with the method of dual stimulation, both to provide an environment in
which pretty good diagnostic info comes to the instructor in the process of
teaching/learning that is the putative object of the activity.

For us at the time, the issue of Leontiev's "two kinds of motives" that
could be recruited in classrooms were part of the design of QAR. The
overall daily script stated with snacks and chatter about "what do you want
to do when you grow up" based on everyday news stories and popular culture.
The ensuing discussions provided merely understandable motives for engaging
in our somewhat bizarre game/stage play.But the reward for passing several
session-ending quizes with a perfect score and you could graduate and
become a Wizard's assisant and "help with the computers." That was a really
effective/proximal motive.

It seems reasonable or at leas "pragmatically justified" to assume that the
kids are not motivated to sit around reading during the afterschool hours
after failing at reading for the previous 6+ hours because they want to
grow up to be a fireman or a press agent.

I *think* this is a good early example of a theory and practice version of
chat. Or maybe
a prehistoric relic except for the old timers.
:-)
mike


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 4:40 PM, White, Phillip
<Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>wrote:

> the paper, "A Model Systems Approach to Reading Instruction and the
> Diagnosis of Reading Disabilities", is, for me, a pleasing cultural
> artifact.
>
> the conclusions at the end of A Model Systems Approach regarding the
> Question Asking Reading activity are strongly supported by what i see as
> daily reading practices at the elementary school i'm placed in.
>
> in fact, the reading program employed by all teachers at my school
> utilizes reciprocal reading activities as originally worked out by Brown
> and Palincsar - and this program is in fact a fairly mainstream reading
> program which is grounded in socio-cultural activity theory.
>
> this also bears witness to the supposition that it takes about thirty
> years for research in education to finally impact the practices within the
> classroom.
>
> at the same time as this work was being done in your part of the world,
> Mike, Marie Clay was doing her work in New Zealand, which emerged as
> reading recovery - in fact, it was in the mid-1980's that Ohio State
> brought reading recovery to the states  -  Clay's theory was also a
> socio-cultural activity based practice - and her goal was to develop the
> practices of reading from an intersubjective social activity to an
> intrasubjective activity -  and in my own experience is strongly effective
> both one-on-one (for which it was developed) as well as within small
> groups, as illustrated in your Q R A activity.
>
> i wish that the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition had had the
> research connections with Ohio State - it would have been a stronger, more
> widely communicated approach to successfully teaching reading to all
> students.
>
> thanks for the article.
>
> phillip
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of mike cole [lchcmike@gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 12:09 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Luria/Leontiev as inspirations for design
>
> I have been looking for text where Peg Griffen wrote about the Leontiev
> discussion of understanding and motivation.
> While looking, I checked out our old, never published monograph on the
> organization of reading instruction. There is a section there, beginning on
> about p. 25, that has our application of the combined motor method and
> Leontiev's
> ideas as well.
>
> Perhaps raw material to rip up and throw away, perhaps of use to current
> discussion on these issues.
>
> Here is the url
> mike
>
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/People/NEWTECHN.pdf
>