22 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2015
    1. identity formation

      aha

    2. In our ethnographies, we have document-ed cases of precocious expertise in such domains as athletics, technology, and design and building while we have also documented youth who regularly participate in such practices in more legitimate peripheral ways.

      I'm curious what impact this has on identity. Did they do any research on that?

      I'm also thinking about the diversity of the community on campus I work with and our value of pluralism. What do we do when certain practices within the CoP differ but pluralism is really important to achieve? Could we analyze that using this framework?

    3. outline a specific framework

      how do they measure this?

    4. We outline how power-related issues associated with privilege and marginalization are attended to in relation to the social, cultural, and ma-terial circumstances of learning within and across environments and discuss future re-search opportunities

      I haven't read all the way through yet but I wonder if this will touch on how this plays out in school settings (even though it seems like the focus of this particular article will be on outside the classroom learning). I imagine that privilege and marginalization come up a lot in school settings and that privileged students have far more learning opportunities outside the classroom than marginalized students. How does that play out?

      I guess we'll see!

    5. With the theoretical goa l of focusi ng on t he dy na m ica l ly evolv i ng scopes of possibi l it y or lea r ni ng i n l ig ht of diversities of structures for social practices, we focus on contextual dimensions of places, positions, and actions occurring in relation to the interests, forms of partici-pation, social relationships and varied identities tied to multiple social practices that make up the learning inf luences and outcomes.

      Utilizing the theoreitical underpinning of later Latour, the Bell, et al., are arguing for a theoretical framework that aims to interpret the reproduction of larger structures of inequity and heirarchy by examining the "social and material conditions" that surround interactions in everyday life. The focus on social-material is somewhat similar to the "multisited" theoretical lens described in the other piece. There they clamor for frames and tools to help with: "Understanding the ways material/intellectual borders function to shape and constrain young people’s experiences and developmental trajectories is also essential to recognizing the spaces available for generative transgression and remediation (Cole & Griffin, 1983; Gutiérrez, 2008)." (p.625 Vossoughi, S., & Gutiérrez, K. D., 2014)

      Both theoretical lens focus on how social-material contexts "shape and constrain" student identity and identity formation. However, Vossoughi and Gutierrez believe that this can be better understood by seeing similar groups in different contexts, and contrasting the phenomena that occur. While Bell, et al., and their cultural pathways, theorize stretching the specific phenomena across different spaces and time scales in order to get a better understanding of the different ways learner identity is shapes, can be shaped, and can shape contexts.

    6. Across multiple cases, we documented persistent attempts by youth to repurpose the local arrangements and activities of a setting to serve longer-term interests in domains or developing affili-ations with specific domain communities.

      The individual learning experience here (the "site") is repurposed by the student, to suit his interests. The idea, though, is that repurposing happens so that the student can mold that experience in a way where it then becomes useful to him/her in other situations, or with other communities

    7. In cultural and cognitive terms, extended learning of the kind accounted for by this framework should be viewed as occurring across contexts in the midst of con-nected constellations of situated events .

      The image of a complicated, multi-dimensional web comes to mind. Rather than just the focus on different sites, it seems to me that part of the argument here is that there are several different "situated events" that make up part of a learning path. These would be like nodes in a graph. Individuals learning trajectory, then, traces a path connecting these nodes. Each of these nodes represent a very specific context (time, place, etc.). Therefore, one way to think about learning is thinking about the connections that a learner makes between these situated events -- in other words, you can think about the web that he "creates" bringing all of these events together.

    8. Regardless, social practices are multifaceted human endeavors that span situa-tions and have complex temporal rhythms from moment to moment; they compete for attention with the range of practices present within specific settings, and at times come to be combined with other social practices in amalgams of activity. For these reasons, it is important to recognize that the work of individuals as they attempt to engage in coordinated participation happens within the context of diversities of structures of social practice.

      the multi-sited framework seemed mostly concern with how the different sites would contribute differently or help paint a more robust picture of the learner's development. It seems that here we are taking that basic idea and adding more dimensions to it, such as a temporal component. At any given time, then, a learner is inhabiting a specific space, but he is also sharing it with others. These practices have"complex temporal rhythms", and so at any given time the nature of the practice - even if in the same place and with the same people - may change.

    9. A learner in a science classroom may be trying to pursue a personal learning agenda while the teacher is facilitating a competing learning agenda. Negative perceptions of a learner’s ability to pursue or succeed in certain activities can restrict or completely eliminate his/her access to desired opportunities, as documented in cases of students with learning disabilities.

      interesting to see how learning differs for people in the same context. I would think that the meaning people would create in connected different sites of knowledge as being different, but not what is actually being learned.

    10. It is important to realize that persons can, and often have to, exercise agency in these settings as they construct, leverage, repurpose, and transform social and mate-rial arrangements in order to provide meaningful, cross-setting connections related to their goals and concerns.

      Apologizing for my rant I think this is what is missing from schools, the ability to take the knowledge they are learning in the classroom and apply it across settings. Which would make someone support LPP, but really learning in the classroom is just as useful as learning outside the classroom. I just think the connection needs to be made between the two. Which also references Vossoughi & Gutiérrez ideas about multisited learning.

    11. An interdisciplin-ary group of scholars following a similar line of thinking distilled academic litera-tures related to learning in and out of school environments within diverse commu-nities, and they advanced 3 central concepts and associated learning principles [Banks et al., 2007]. The 3 conceptual ideas – life-long, life-wide, and life-deep learn-ing – highlight the foundational inf luence of temporal, spatial, and value-driven di-mensions of learning and development, respectively.

      I like this because it is highlight all the learning that exists across an individual's life. Similar to Vossoughi & Gutiérrez idea of multisited.

    12. cultural learning pathways – connected chains of personally consequential activ-ity and sense-making – that are temporally extended, spatially variable, and cultur-ally diverse with respect to value systems and social practices.

      Very similar to Vossoughi & Gutiérrez's "multi-sited perspectives contribute to this discussion by urging us to pay equal attention to the practices and forms of human ingenuity that emerge in and through the connections/tensions/contradictions within and across various social spaces and activity systems—particularly for non-dominant youth"

      They both focus on the connections between activity and practice across space. They may differ in the sense of time of these connections last?

    13. n this way, the institutional constraints of places [Drei-er, 2009] have the power to invite or prohibit opportunities for action [Lefebvre, 1991], and therefore the power to position actors within places as having certain rights and duties.

      This is a really loaded sentence for me. First of all, it connects to the earliest discussed ideas of "schools as a lousy place to learn" by Becker and issues of access (ex. butchers) by L&W. Second, institutional could mean the physical place, or the less physical but more important power/control relationships (probably both). Next, "inviting or prohibiting opportunities" points at he impact these institutions (not just individuals like teachers or master butchers) have on who gets to be a part of a community. Finally, this sentence in the midst of the author's description of situated events as a constellation is really reminding me of the multisited paper in that there is overlap between systems (or communities of practice) for a person and that often what happens in one is not only connected to the happenings in another, but might literally overflow into and impact the other.

    14. Learners need to figure out how to adapt their abilities, interests, and identities across a diverse set of locations on a routine basis as they attempt to accomplish their goals or respond to the interests of other social ac-tors. When they are successful, this allows learners, sometimes in collaboration with other social actors in the setting, to create connected and thereby extended learning pathways that learners can benefit from

      This is similar to the multisited article in that it acknowledges that learning happens both within multiple setting and across them (and time). It also has me wondering something new that I didn't think of when I read the other paper and that is, how much of this "figuring out" is necessarily conscious? In what ways are we (in every setting) applying/adapting/repurposing knowledge from other settings (CoPs/islands of expertise) in order to be successful in the new setting (and thus to create new knowledge)?

    15. This particular instance demonstrates how self-perceptions and the perceptions of others interact and inf luence one another in complex ways in the midst of con-nected constellations of situated events.

      Here we see that while Vossoughi & Gutiérrez focus on research methods on what to evaluate, here the author suggests that the student's perception of themselves plays a role. The previous article discussed how to think of students in these situations as not having deficits, but it seemed like a unilateral viewpoint, whereas this author evaluates learning from both standpoints.

    16. Places are also unique in that group, organi-zational, and institutional activities often shape very specific social expectations for participation and learning. In this way, the institutional constraints of places

      This makes me think of our #posing reading and our reading on museum visitors. These places are shaped for specific visitor experiences- though the interpretations vary.

    17. These variations inf luence what positions people occupy and confront as they move from one social context to another, driving their participation in different ways in pa r t icu la r contex ts [Dreier, 20 09]. In ou r et hnog raphic work on students w it h d is-abilities, variations in life-wide supports greatly impacted how youth perceived their abilities and identified as learners, depending on their access to valued rights and opportunities

      This is similar to multi-sited learning, but at the same time there are varying characteristics. Pathways focusses more on the socio-cultural situations that students inhibit, whereas multi-sited focussed more on their settings of learning.

    18. Learners need to figure out how to adapt their abilities, interests, and identities across a diverse set of locations on a routine basis as they attempt to accomplish their goals or respond to the interests of other social ac-tors.

      This is very similar to the multi-sited learning article. However, this is interesting because it puts the emphasis on the learner needing to adapt these skills, whereas the other article was focussing on the lens in which the learner is assessed.

    19. Such learning is accomplished across develop-mental timelines, typically in a variety of locations that have shifting and enduring qualities. Learning is viewed as constellations of multimodal, discursive actions made in the midst of situational circumstances. Through their actions, persons express stances that relate to their developing commitments, concerns, and identities in the midst of unfolding events to the degree afforded by the context

      pathways extends the multi-sited ethnography by acknowledging the shifting stances of the learner based on events that unfold depending on the context.

    20. In the broad sense intended here, learning is accomplished across settings (i.e., translocally) by persons acting within diversities of structures of social practice. As summarized by Dreier [2009]:

      pathways situates learning in the setting with strong concentration on the learner and their understanding of the dynamics at play. This is a more complex view of learning as it considers the person, politics, setting and culture.

    21. That is, we need to account for how individuals and groups arrange or transform the conditions of their own learning in relation to their expectations, interests, concerns, and available resources, as well as how such acts of agency and activity within situations are im-peded, resisted, or even co-opted. We approach this theoretical goal from a situated learning stance, understanding that the social and material pragmatics of sense-making and action are paramount in learning.

      Where #multisited focuses on contexts, #pathways focuses on multi-cultural. It's not just how people learn from setting to setting, but what they learn from setting to setting and how sometimes there is support for that learning and other times it's devalued.

    22. Life-wide learning acknowledges that learners navigate across diverse social niches, or locations, as they routinely circulate through everyday settings, activities, and social groups – from classroom to home, from afterschool programs to neighbor-hood venues, from informal designed settings like science centers to interconnected, media-rich online spaces.

      This is similar to #multisited, learning in a variety of contexts, in and out of the classroom, and using that knowledge to transform in each context.