carefulplanningandcoordination,preparatoryactivitiesinwhichstudentscanlearnaboutthesettingsbeingvisitedandtheeventsorprocessestheysymbolize,andpost-tripactivitiesthatallowstudentstodrawontheirexperiencesatthesites
does this help form islands of expertise amongst some students?
suggestions of how to encode evidence; highlighting individual causal links; offering simple anal-ogies; and perhaps introducing relevant principles and terminology
all of these help increase accessibility for the children
parent explanations observed were also more simple and incomplete than other forms of situated, informal explanation that have been described
object label and connections to prior knowledge were the only significant predictors of the younger chil-dren's identification scores.
interest driven
For example, if the museum has an operating steam locomotive (as many do), the boy may have been surprised to find out that they are much louder, larger, dirtier, and scarier than he might have imagined. Because their previous shared experiences have con-tributed to a shared knowledge base about trains, family conversations dur-ing the museum visit would have been richer and more focused. Similarly, the experience of the visit provides subsequent opportunities to extend!§: and deepen the on-going family conversation about trains as the boy and his parents wait later at a railroad crossing for a freight train to pass, look at snapshots from the museum visit, or read a new book about trains.
As Oscar pointed out above, the conversation between children and parents is a great example of Funds of Knowledge. But I also think the museum itself works to enrich the childrens' fund, that they will continue to draw on.
As Moll et. al. explained, the museum/train exhibit is functioning as a "cultural resource that mediates thinking as distributed dynamically in interpersonal relationships among people, their artifacts, and their environments" (Pg 139).
although gender differences are not a focus of the current study.
I kind of wish it was a focus -- I'm interested to learn more about those differences.
oice into a more excited and proud-sounding par-ent voice, implicitly praising the boy and asking how he knew what the ob-ject was
the discussion about language and tone reminds me of what we read in #littleleague. The coach uses conversation to influence his players in particular ways, teach them certain skills, behaviors, attitudes, values.
feet we did observe was consistent with the idea that explanations are associ-ated with greater learning during family museum activity.
as opposed to what? children touring the museum by themselves without their parents to mediate the experience? I wonder what results a study of that might reveal.
We propose that the learning conversation in the mu-seum, precisely because it is rare and thus fairly memorable, may become a particularly powerful example on which further learning can be built.
reminds me of what we consider immersive experiences -- because they're rare and intensive they are more impactful, learning is increased.
they trace these interests, looking for opportunities to collect and connect new experiences.
similar to Azevedo's "lines of practice?"
ately from her "teacher" voice into a more excited and proud-sounding par-ent voice, implicitly praising the boy and asking how he knew what the ob-ject was.
This would be intent participation, no? The mother is actively involving herself because the situation involves her son. Would the same type of engagement occur if it was a stranger?
The facilitative effect of explanation,(also holds for children, although they are less likely than adults to spontaneously generate explanations in the course of exploration, categorization, or problem solving.
Is this because of children's cognitive development not being fully developed? Who is to say that children who have been exposed to a particular problem more frequently than others and have become an expert at that situation are not able to generate a spontaneous explanation to a similar problem? Also what is defining spontaneous?
Similarly, Chi's (1978) earlier work demonstrated that children skilled in chess were better able to recall configurations of chess pieces than a group of college students who were chess novices
This only makes sense, right? Exposure to something is what creates for learning. Take into account the idea of mentorship and exposure to the field you want to become an expert at.
If the boy's position on the repeated reading of the same books and the repeated watching of the same videos is anything like that of a typical 2-year old, the boy (and his parents) would have soon memorized lots of domain-specific knowledge. They would have learned labels such as firebox, tender, boiler, drive wheels, sanding gear, and steam dome. They would have ac-quired at least some general knowledge about mechanisms of locomO-tio
I think this is related to intent participation. The boy may have not been paying attention to anything but just going through the routine of reading the book and watching the movie.
Their interaction and the quantitative analyses are consistent with our original claim that much of a child's early domain-specific expertise may be forged from relatively mundane moments where parents and children label, link, and learn througlLcollaborative activity and conversation.
The claim here is that parents have a large role in developing islands of expertise for younger children. What about as they grow up? Are the levels and layers of mediation too much to warrant investigation? Or does all of our subsequent islands of expertise build off of the first?
Their interaction and the quantitative analyses are consistent with our original claim that much of a child's early domain-specific expertise may be forged from relatively mundane moments where parents and children label, link, and learn througlLcollaborative activity and conversation.
The claim here is that parents have a large role in developing islands of expertise for younger children. What about as they grow up? Are the levels and layers of mediation too much to warrant investigation?
Their interaction and the quantitative analyses are consistent with our original claim that much of a child's early domain-specific expertise may be forged from relatively mundane moments where parents and children label, link, and learn througlLcollaborative activity and conversation.
The claim here is that parents have a large role in developing islands of expertise for younger children. What about as they grow up? Are the levels and layers of mediation too much to warrant investigation?
Finally, and most importantly with respect to the idea of islands of exper-tise, the mother makes an explicit connection between the exhibit and the boy's prior learning experience with his computer game which is appar-ently about different dinosaurs and their eggs.
Developing one island of expertise by using analogies from other islands of expertise. This relational form of learning and participation has been undertheorized in our study of Figured Worlds, Funds of Knowledge and LPP.
ISlANDS OF EXPERTISE
I couldn't really find a place in the text to throw this up so I just used the header :)
What is the connection between islands of expertise and "lines of practice" (Azevedo)?
Azevdo argues that, "A line of practice is a distinctive, recurrent pattern of "long-term" engagement in a person's practice participation" and continues on to add that it is mediated by preferences and conditions of practice. So then are "lines of practice" the process by which an interest develops into an "island of expertise"?
(Recall that, "preferences refer to the deep, long-term goals, values, and beliefs that a person develops in the practice, whereas conditions of practice refer to the constraints and affordances impinging on the person's practice")
In our work we have been interested in exploring the hypothesis that ~conversation, and parent explanation in particular, contributes to .. 1 ~. / building islands of expertise in informal learning.
This seems comparable to the Kirshner (youth activism) study where "adult volunteers" replaces parents and "youth" replaces "child". What kind of conversation might best support learning?
By the time the boy turns 3 years old, he has developed an island of ex-pertise around trains. His vocabulary, declarative knowledge, conceptual knowledge, schemas, and personal memories related to trains are numer-ous, well-organized, and flexible.
Can I then assume that this is all that constitutes someone's "island of expertise?" Because in that case, this seems like a similar frame as figured worlds, with a relational piece that incorporates funds of knowledge.
Trains were platforms for other concepts as well, in science and in other domains.
Islands of expertise can be used as tools of analogy to learn and discuss other things/knowledge/topics outside of its sphere. Interesting
The parents would probably make many more through explanations, descriptions, and questions intended to help the boy interpret the visit through the lens of their shared prior knowledge about trains
This is FoK in action, as parents provide their knowledge to help the boy navigate the basic concepts and ideas of trains.
he book reading has obviously been collabo-rative: The parents read the text, answer the child's questions, ask questions of their own, and point out interesting parts of the pictures that are notre-flected in the text
So far I've seen lots of connections to guided participation. The original interest--trains--was informed by the child, but further participation was structured by the parent. The child continues to show interest (at least for a while) and the parent provides a "facilitation approach" to guiding them, and much like the adult leaders in the youth activism groups, the parents provide guidance, resources, facilitate conversations, etc. The parents don't seem as likely to provide the apprenticeship or joint work method, probably because the interest is viewed more like a hobby--and a parent might not always see interest-based learning as quite as valuable as "highly specific forms of learning" (Azevedo) which is present in schools. So while the parent will support the child, it may not be at the level of apprenticeship/joint work method as discussed in Kirshner.
They are co-constructed through the ongo-ing negotiation of children and parents' interests, children and parents' choices about family activities, and children and parents' cognitive proc-esses, including memory, inferencing, problem solving, and explanation.
Does this contrasts intent participation as islands of expertise gives mutual agency to both parents and children to shape and construct knowledge?
he expertise of oth the inter-ested child and adult scientist reflect repeated exposure to domain-specific declarative knowledge, repeated practice in interpreting new content, mak-ing inferences to connect new knowledge to existing knowledge, repeated conversations with others who share or want to support the same interest, and so on.
Interesting because this contrasts with communities of practice a bit. Although I understand why the author does not consider interested children a community of practice, the adult scientists are because they are contributing to the goals of a community. It almost sounds like the author is arguing that in order to be an 'expert' you just need to know a lot about a topic, but not necessarily contribute to the needs of that community- just engage with a critical lens and be up-to-date with material.
the parents mig~t.\decide the boy would enjoy visiting a nearby train mu-. O,; 1 seum
Don't know if this is too farfetched, but could this be an example of guided participation? The parents have now developed a sort of 'lesson plan' where they can implement curricula of the boys' interest and he is 'engaging in practice'.
Even when a child ~~,.).Q..-( t:,V loses interest and an island of ex,Pertise begins to fade, the abstract and gen-(\...! 'f-A. <g \ era! themes that used the islands rich knowledge as a launching pa~ll re-4-iA ~~ . -\ , (_ IC main connected to children's otfler knowledge.
Connects to FoK because Moll et al describes thinking as a distribution of knowledge through social interactions. However, this takes FoK a step further by saying that though the content knowledge may be limited for a certain time depending on interests invested, the implicit learning that occurred will be carried over to another 'island'.
Tho/})aren~ \ ~decide what is worth noting, based on their own knowledg~ terests, their understanding of their child's knowledge and interests, and their current goals for the interaction. Children are making the same calcu-latio¥imultaneously.
I've been thinking of Islands of Expertise in relation to midwifery LPP. There are some similarities in these knowledge worlds are constructed through interaction and participation in a specific field, curated in some way by parents. This is pretty unique of midwifery LPP compared to other forms of LPP. However there are some pretty stark contrasts, in my understanding, LPP focuses on the process of identifying with and being accepted by a specific community. Whereas Islands of Expertise seems to focus on an individual's socially created knowledge of a certain domain.
through joint activity, guided by a combination of children's and parents' interests, fami-lies can build deep, shared domain-specific knowledge bases, which we re-fer to as islands of expertise.
The conclusion of this article discusses joint activity as the combination of children and parent's interests. Through joint activity, they can build deep shared domain specific knowledge bases (Islands). This made me think of Kirshner's article on youth activism and adult involvement - I'm curious how an Islands lens would have impacted the young people's active engagement and agency in the activist organizations.
First, it is fundamentally collaborative. Everything the boy knows about trains was learned in social contexts co-constructed with his parents.
The authors describe Islands of Expertise and this type of learning as "fundamentally collaborative" (pg. 336). This makes me think of Funds of Knowledge in relation to Islands. I understand Funds of Knowledge to be representative of social and community knowledges and Islands to be referring to an individual's knowledges. However, I think there is a connection in that these are created and shared socially. Especially considering that the authors say one of the most important forms of mediation is connecting knowledges back to shared family learning history (pg. 351)