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  1. Oct 2015
    1. Where and When Did He Practice Amateur Astronomy?

      Given everything we are reading, this heading gave me pause -- after all, is he really "practicing" amateur astronomy or is he an amateur astronomer? (A brief search through the text reveals they get into issues of identity -- i searched some keywords and found the quote below -- but I haven't gotten here yet)

      "Another prominent preference emerging in Mitchell’s narrative regarded his developing identity in amateur astronomy."

    1. During this same practice, Octavia and anotherstudent took responsibility for leading the practice of the elementary school "club"team that practiced with them.

      We discussed in our group the following: are you still learning if you are now teaching? We decided yes, as you are learning to take on a new identity of "teacher." Additionally, is the ability of being able to display your knowledge the final step in learning? If you can't prove you've learned (in this case by teaching) then have you really learned what you were supposed to learn?

    1. Dolores observed that adults made room for youth input and ownership by de-taching themselves from the project and letting youth make key decisions.

      Does this change the goal of the group? Rather than foster activism, they foster collaboration and decision making? If so, who's goal were they meeting, the adults or the youths?

    2. Vanessa, the executive direc-tor of Youth Rising, said that she felt pressure for groups like hers to appear“youth-led,” but that this was sometimes unproductive because youth need supportto develop certain skills necessary for political action.

      How is political activism being modeled for these youths? Was there intent participation from which they can observe and learn until they built confidence to proceed independently or were they expected to figure it out on their own with minimal guidance? This is a departure from the examples we have been looking at until now.

    3. the fact that people in TRUE expected me to contribute along with every-one else to planning the conference gave me insight into the shared division of la-bor among adults and youth there.

      What caused the author to be considered part of the community (at least as a newcomer) and gain full access to participation?

    4. argued that in the 1990s, the category “youth” gainedsymbolic meaning “as apolitical identity, a shared worldview that provided the ba-sis for collective action”

      Does labeling youth as a political identity, take away from the agency actual youth who are not political active have?

    5. Adult neutrality extended to decisions about the content of the project. Adultsrefrained from directly teaching a particular political stance or from voting on thechoice of campaign topic.

      I wonder how this student centered (adult out) model supports and encourages Nasir and Cook's Ideational Resources? Does this freedom allow for more exploration and maturation of ideas about oneself and one's relationship to the practice and the larger world?

    6. An analysis of teaching practices outside of school must deal with a basic problem:One rarely encounters “teachers” there, at least in the conventional sense of author-ity figures who develop curricula, implement lesson plans, and assess studentknowledge

      This is an interesting frame, because up until now, many of our readings focused on "learning" and not "teaching."

      I wonder how this difference in viewpoint could affect research? How would many of the cases that we've already looked at be different if the subject of analysis was the "teacher" (old-timer, parent, museum curator, etc) instead of the "learner"?

    7. he principal limitation of joint work, therefore, is that youth with less experi-ence or knowledge in the domain are given little support or assistance. Althoughadults modeled expert strategies for novices, this modeling was usually tacit. Theresult was that novices played more peripheral roles throughout the planning pro-cess. This contrasted with YELL and Youth Rising, where activities were designedto foster novices’ participation.

      This made me think about LPP with respect to a time-horizon. Clearly the student above felt that this approach was rather suboptimal, but what if it had gone on for a longer period of time? Would that have been sufficient to turn that limited peripheral participation into a truly legitimate peripheral participation, and slowly allow the student to have a more central role?

    8. Adultsrefrained from directly teaching a particular political stance or from voting on thechoice of campaign topic. Instead, they facilitated discussions in which youth wereexpected to initiate and evaluate one another’s ideas with limited input from adults.

      At what point do things like this add to the legitimacy of the process and at what point does it detract?

      (I'm going to be really ineloquent right now, but please bear with me)

      begin lack-of-eloquence In virtually all of the examples we saw so far (the midwives, A.A., the hurdlers, etc.), the "legitimate" in "legitimate peripheral participation" seemed to be really present. One of the things which seemed missing from those examples was a sort of fakeness, an artificial situation created solely for the benefit of participants/learners.

      Here, however, a lot of the discussion (like the passage highlighted) is about the adults and students being overly concerned about these issues around what participation ensures that the project is still "a product of youth's labor" instead of something thought up by adults. It just seems really artificial to me. Its almost like in their attempt to guarantee legitimate participation on the parts of the students, they go to such lengths to create this environment that it becomes clearly an artificial exercise and compromises the very goals they set out to promote end lack-of-eloquence

    9. One conversation revolved around the shared observationthat youth deferred too much to the adult facilitators in small groups.

      A consequence of several years in a assembly-line model classroom?

    10. Second, unlike either facilitation or apprenticeship, joint work rarely includedelements of a youth-centered environment, such as skill-building workshops or ef-forts to foster group belonging. Aside from periodic check-ins at the beginning ofmeetings, there were no team-building activities. The TRUE project resembledwhat one might expect a planning process to look like in a workplace or commu-nity group, in which the primary goal is to complete the project successfully ratherthan to teach, mentor, or counsel certain members.

      This paragraph has me rethinking the pros/cons of joint work. It does seem arguable that by" throwing them" into a context that most resembles what an adult activist group would look like/how it would run, TRUE is treating youths as full participants without the youths having to do any apprenticing. Looking at it like this makes the other two forms feel more like the youths are "learning what it would be like through supported simulation" - kind of a schooling of youth activism, where as in joint work they are "learning by being treated as an activist".

      Might the type of guided participation lead to a different formation of 'youth as political' identity?

    11. One unique aspect of youth activism groups, however, has to do with an em-powerment discourse that assigns political significance to the distinction betweenyouth and adults.

      So being a part of "youth activism" is partially about or results in developing a particular identity? Maybe even an identity that will impact future identity development when they age out of the youth bracket?

    12. Observers often de-scribe this process as a form ofscaffolding, which implies temporary assistancethat will be withdrawn gradually as the learner assumes greater mastery (in con-trast todistributed intelligence, in which collaboration among actors and tools isan ongoing feature of an activity; Pea, 2003

      Kirshner contrasts scaffolding and distributed intelligence, could we also contrast it with Hutchins' "distributed cognition"? They seem very similar.

    13. I define jointwork as a form of collaboration whereby adults participate alongside youth, likeapprenticeship. But, unlike apprenticeship or facilitation, in joint work the envi-ronment is not youth-centered. During this phase of the project there appeared tobe little effort to position youth as leaders of the project, distance adults from theproject, or operate as if one group or another were supposed to be in charge.

      I think the lack of wanting to make the youth members hold leadership roles, hinders their identity development. On the one side, I like that the environment is not altered to be youth-centered, but on the other I do not like the clear cut lines that is created when thinking about leadership roles. (By me, I am referring to how I have understood Kirshner's lens)

    14. adults sought to hand over progressively more re-sponsibilities to youth organizers. Although adults did not fade from active moni-toring to the same extent as those in YELL, they did invite youth to help shape thedirection of the campaign and play a variety of leadership roles.

      Is this more along the lines of what time of mutual involvement Kirshner was referring too? I feel like this is almost the perfect middle point in aiding in identity development of youth.

    15. Instead,adults shared political views with youth, pitched in to complete campaign tasks atkey points, and participated in most decisions. I describe this form of guidance asapprenticeship: Adults were veteran activists who participated in the same en-deavor as novices, while nevertheless structuring activities in ways that were sensi-tive to youths’ skill levels.

      Sometimes I read this and think of mutual involvement, and other times I read it and think more of leadership from the adults. I also don't know if I agree of the term apprenticeship as it makes me think of lpp.

    16. Through interaction with public officials and community members, such groupschallenge social constructions of youth of color as apathetic or uninvolved

      This includes mutual involvement from the individual and their social partner, but does this limit minority youth to only thinking they can be involved in youth activism at this level?

    17. On the other hand,they lack access to the venues where policy decisions are made and are rarely takenseriously as legitimate participants in decision making

      Because of this lack of real life observation of that workforce, correct?

    1. Third-party observation is especially understudied, although the research onlanguage learning and learning from the media makes it clear that it is power-ful. Third-party observation appears to be especially important in some culturalcommunities. For example, learning through eavesdropping was emphasized inan African-American community where toddlers participated in daily communityevents and spent hours sitting still and listening to adults converse (Ward 1971).Similarly, in Kaluli language learning in Polynesia, little speech is directed to tod-dlers, but they are surrounded by people talking to each other and commentingon the toddlers’ activities within earshot (Schieffelin 1991). Inuit men of ArcticQuebec reported that as boys they learned to hunt from just watching the menand learned vocabulary and many other things by listening to stories that were notintended for them, staying as inconspicuous as possible (Crago 1992). Maori (NewZealand) adults reported that they were “sure that their parents and grandparentsdeliberately turned a blind eye to them hovering on the fringe of adult conversationsas adolescents, allowing them to pick up information” (Metge 1984, p. 10)

      This just came to my attention as a follow-up of a conversation on drugs, but... aren't teenagers third party observers of porn?

    2. Learning in European-descent NewZealand children who had participated directly in an event did not differ fromlearning in those who only observed, when children showed their learning byenacting the event (Murachver et al. 1996).

      I wonder if there is any comparison with explicit account of the initially-involved kids performing roles different than the ones they did when they were involved the first time

    3. Efforts to transform the structure of formal schooling have encountered chal-lenges related to adults’ difficulties in learning to engage in radically different par-ticipation structures.

      I think this is exactly why young people (or whoever the learners are) need to participate and be given a platform in thinking about crafting and organizing education, learning, and curricula.... What might it look like for adults (or "the teachers") to practice intent participation?

    4. For example, children are able to learn new vocabulary wordsafter exposure to television stories that contained those words (Huston & Wright1998). Watching violent television in early childhood predicts later aggressivebehavior (Huston & Wright 1998, Bushman & Anderson 2001). Similarly, evenshort-term exposure to video game violence is associated with higher aggression(Anderson & Bushman 2001).

      I want to problematize the conviction with which Rogoff is citing this evidence. Is there any other literature or theories that nuance this causal inference between observing and learning?

      I wouldn't dispute the fact that media and TV play a role in cultural production, reproducing hegemonic structures, etc. But does that mean observing in this way produces "highly effective" learning?

    5. young children learning theirfirst language and continues in importance throughout life. However, it has re-ceived relatively little research attention

      How much can this be intentional? How much does this fit into an understanding as "accidental learning?"

    6. n communities in which children engage regularly with adults in mature activi-ties, they may seldom be involved in specialized child-focused instruction (Morelliet al. 2003; Rogoff 1990, 2003)

      How about the opposite? We often here popular commentators on education mention things of the order that "schooling is killing creativity" or things of that nature.

      Is there some basis for this? Is the assembly-line model of instruction curbing instincts that children demonstrate of careful observation of adult activities and a propensity to want to participate?

    7. The aide later commented that the Yup’ik way of instructing is aconversation in which students] speak to each other freely, helping each otherout on a subject:::. They build on each other.

      As in most of these examples, a high level of autonomy and initiative is demonstrated by students. How does one promote this kind of participation if that initiative is lacking?

    8. in the face of enormous growth instudent populations.

      Very important point! If we take the "intent participation" example of language acquisition, maybe there is an average of one adult per child in the home? If we take schools, what does that ratio drop to? What are the implications of that for creating opportunities for intent particpation?

    9. As industrialization spread, schooling was made compulsory and the amount oftime spent in school increased. This further limited U.S. children’s opportunities toparticipate in the mature activities of their families and communities (Chudacoff1989, Hernandez 1994).

      Do these two sentences necessarily follow? Is schooling necessarily an environment which "limits children's opportunities to participate in the mature activities of their families and communities?" Isn't that one of the assumptions that this course is asking us to challenge?

    10. Children in many communities begin to participate in work and other matureactivities from age 3 or 4 (Chamoux 1986, Martini & Kirkpatrick 1992). In afarming community in East Africa, 3- and 4-year-old children spent 25–35% oftheir time doing chores, whereas middle-class U.S. children of the same ages spentonly 0–1% of their time doing chores and 4–5% of their time accompanying othersin chores (Harkness & Super 1992)

      Are U.S. children substituting that time for other times of activities in which they are active participants, or do they spend more time being casual observers? What are the consequences if the latter?

    11. For example, af-ter exposure to models who were reading aloud, preschool children spontaneouslypicked up books and imitated the adult’s reading (Haskett & Lenfestey 1974).

      Interesting to think about later life outcomes for children who live in households where these behaviors exist for them to model versus households where they don't.

    12. Instead of doing exercises out of the context ofthe productive use of skills and information, young children’s integration in familyand community activities allows them to become increasingly deeply involvedthrough their intent participation.

      This reminds of LW's example using the meat cutters apprenticeship to which journeymen had assignments not relevant to working at a supermarket and the specialization of tasks they had once on the job.

      Is Rogoff stating that the step to becoming full participants is to observe and eventually participate in the full range of activity (via intent participation)? Do children achieve a holistic view by becoming more deeply involved?

    13. We see the two traditions as descriptions ofprocesses, whereas the infor-mal/formal dichotomy is often applied toplaces.

      Important distinction between intent participation/assembly-line production as processes while formal/informal as places.

      Is Rogoff saying then, that either process can happen in either place? Do we think that one place is better suited for a particular kind of process or vice versa? What does it all depend on?

    1. adly, suchaesthetic exhaustion has now become relatively rare

      Is this type of response always the desired outcome of artwork?

    1. Although Oppenheimer’s educational model was complex andnonprescriptive, the basis of his approach to exhibits was compatible with that of Dewey,giving central importance to the role of direct experience of phenomena, and trying to presentthe learner with a problematic experience from which he/she could conduct genuine inquiry.It is also compatible with the Piagetian notion of disequilibration as a driver for learningthrough change of existing knowledge schemas

      I wonder was this a consequence of his design or did these learning theories underpin what he put together?

  2. Sep 2015
    1. individualistic understanding of behaviour and experience in museumsand galleries

      I wonder if this might be a generational thing. I recognize that Heath is contrasting the individual experience with someone visiting a museum with others but I'd like to focus on the individualistic interpretation. Meaning, before the internet and mass access to information, maybe this for exhibits to appeal to every single type of individual didn't exist. On the one hand, accessibility is important and on the other, what does art lose by having to be accessed by/appeal to a person with no knowledge of art and an expert at the same time? How does this relate to learning? Accessibility is a huge factor in education broadly speaking.

    2. It is relatively rare in galleries and museums – even those which houseobjects and artefacts designed to facilitate co-participation and collaboration– to find strangers coming together to explore and discuss particular exhibits.

      ...but lonely visits to a museum are rare. How did this culture of quiet, monastic contemplation arise in museums?

    3. It is interesting to note,however, that certain aspects of the piece that were designed to encourageindependent viewing and collaboration – for example the ability to remove andhold the mirrors – are rarely exploited or even discovered unless shown topeople.

      How is the context that the display is in perhaps affecting this kind of behavior? Are there roles that people take on as "museum goers" which pose a challenge for this exhibition? For instance, removing part of the installation from the wall might break from established norms about how one should behave in such a setting. How do you deal with this without, at the same time, specifically prompting the behavior?

    4. When exhibited we decided not to give any written instructions,rather to let the participants discover for themselves, or others, the nature ofthe work. Occasionally, however, there was some verbal encouragement anddemonstration.

      What prompted the encouragement in some scenarios and not in others? Is there something to be learned from instances where participant exploration was completely organic and instances where they needed facilitators?

    5. seen to witness the activities of others, to responding to their action andhaving them respond to yours.

      LPP connection. In LPP is there a specific moment of motivation and thus participation?

    6. how long they spend withan exhibit, and how they look at and experience particular objects andartefacts may well arise in and through interaction with others – not justthose they may be with but others who happen to be within ‘perceptual rangeof the event

      I'm curious what these authors would say about Allen's discussion of "museum fatigue" and cognitive overload

    7. In particular, we wish toconsider the ways in which we can take ‘low-tech’, tangible objects andrefashion or augment them to engender interaction and co-participation

      Interested in doing this for what purpose? Is it to see how the viewer will change their participation? Is it to see the difference in participation among object that do not encompass this augmented fashion?

    8. It renders the referent, the object, at which Susie is laughingproblematic; it poses a puzzle for Julia and encourages her to figure out whathas happened.

      Is the underlying premise for crafting participation about creating a space for curiosity?

    9. The active spectator becomesengaged with a sequence of moments portrayed in asingle image.

      Important point. However, I wonder what denotes someone as an "active" spectator...

    10. In recent years there has been a growing commitment amongst artists,designers, curators and educationalists to enhance the ways in which peopleparticipate and collaborate with and around installations, exhibits and artworks.

      I find this so interesting. Has there been this increase because of new technology that allows for it? (E.g. Video). Maybe the desire was there before (Thinking of installments in cities all over the world where artists sit or have people sit to be watched). What else might have caused this shift besides technical availability?

    11. here’s an eye” – as Vanessa returns her gaze tothe monitor. A few moments later they exchange places and he then seeswhat Vanessa saw, or at least sees where he appeared.

      but what will happen if they are by themselves? Would they have learned the same things?

    12. We are particularlyinterested in the ways in which people experience exhibits in and throughtheir interaction with others, both those they are with and others whohappen to be ‘within perceptual range of the event’

      Interesting. So not just looking at how people respond to the art, how their interactions with others might affect that response. I wonder how often people going alone rely on the reactions of strangers to guide their experience?

    13. Despite the burgeoning body of research concernedwith language and with gesture (see, for example, McNeil, 2000), studies ofsocial interaction remain curiously dislocated from the material circum-stances in which it is accomplished

      So, there is a lack of research on interaction with artifacts? Is that what is being said here?

    14. Indeed, whatpeople choose to look at in a museum or gallery, how long they spend withan exhibit, and how they look at and experience particular objects andartefacts may well arise in and through interaction with others – not justthose they may be with but others who happen to be within ‘perceptual rangeof the event’ (cf. Goffman, 1981).

      How has the guided audio tour changed this experience? Do users follow a particular trajectory? Does this enhance or interrupt the experience?

    15. urprisingly perhaps,these aspects of conduct and experience have remained relatively under-developed in research concerned with visual communication in the socialand cognitive sciences.

      I wonder how the internet and social media have affected this relationship as art can be seen "out of context" intended by the artist. How does where we see art affect how we experience it?

    1. “museum fatigue,

      what versions of "fatigue" do we see in other learning settings (in or out of school)?

    2. department of visitor research and evaluation withinthe museum, with a research agenda at the intersection of the academic and practitionercommunities. For us, research and practice are deeply linked.

      really important. This also happens to some degree in universities (course evaluations, surveys, etc) -- what about other school settings? I think this is particularly important for practitioners to keep in mind. Often we think it's outside of our role to conduct research while simultaneously teaching but sometimes it might be necessary.

    3. Curiosity was used as the driving force that nudged visitors through-out this cycle a step at a time,

      using curiosity as a strategy to keep learners hooked is interesting - don't we see this outside of museum settings, too? I feel like we saw this in the Moll piece as well -- students were encouraged to pursue projects based on their own interests.

    4. To the satisfaction of our exhibit developers, the results showed that visitors who sawone of the live, interactive versions of the exhibit stayed longer, rated the exhibit as moreenjoyable, and were able to reconstruct more relevant details of their experience, than the

      But this is not synonymous with higher attainment of the learning goals of the exhibit itself. How did those compare?

    5. The effort it takes to negotiate a museum is apparent throughthe common phenomenon of“museum fatigue,”in which visitors can only engage deeplywith exhibits for a limited period (typically about 30 min) before they lose their focusedattention and begin to“cruise,”looking for anything particularly compelling before movingon (Falk et al., 1985). Museum fatigue is an important factor that limits the degree to whichvisitors can effectively learn any form of science.

      Telling here is the assumption that a museum visit will necessarily last longer than 30 minutes. Why is that so? How would museum visits change if very short, targeted visits were encouraged/the norm?

    6. More research is needed to determine whether our instantiations of narrative havesimply beenflawed, or whether perhaps the chaotic, high-energy environment of a sciencemuseum and the nonanecdotal nature of science combine to make storytelling an ineffectivestrategy for learning in these settings.

      I'm curious if there is a way to broaden the notions of narrative to be effective in "phenomenon-based" exhibits in science museums? I feel like narrative based learning can extend much further than just basic storytelling.... Is that what the author is saying though?

    7. “people appreciate being given information that will help them makeintelligent choices”

      Is that true when they are not aware of receiving the information? Reasing implies it is, but I still think it is not so clear

    8. On the exhibitfloor there is no accountability, no curriculum, no teachersto enforce concentration, no experienced guide to interpret and give significance to the vastamounts of stimulus and information presented

      Why are all these needed? What makes us think learners must be "held accountable" to learn?

    9. Perry and Tisdal suggest that one factor in accounting for the long holding times at APEexhibits is that, unlike the traditional exhibits studied, the APE exhibits were designed tosupport the use of exhibits by more than one member of a social group. This is compatiblewithfindings by Borun and Dritsas (1997) that exhibits that allow for multiple simultaneoususers facilitate family learning, at least in the absence of the kinds of interference problemsthat Allen and Gutwill (2004) describe

      Is this a kind of FoK?

    10. It de-emphasized many other aspects of science, including anything requiring mem-orization (e.g., detailed vocabulary, quantitative relationships), or anything requiringlong chains of inference or effortful thinking (e.g., designing experiments to discrim-inate among competing models, arguing the relative merits of two explanations).

      And then the question is on the importance of those facts or inferences, in order to decide if and how to teach/show/facilitate them

    11. “affordances”to refer to the di-rectly perceivable properties of objects that determine how they could possibly be used.

      I don't think Allen is just talking about physical resources as affordances, but there aren't other examples. Could we think of "ease of access" or "user-friendliness" as affordances?

    12. In a school setting, a teacher can use a variety of strategies to regulate her students’progress, ensuring that they all arrive at the rewarding or significant climax of a lesson. Bycontrast, if an exhibit has a boring or effortful or confusing component, visitors have no wayof knowing whether the reward for persisting will be worth the effort

      Do people agree/disagree with Allen here? Do students enter the classroom thinking, "Hey, this might be so boring, but if I stick it out I know there are rewards/benefits on the other side."?

    13. the exhibits should facilitate science learning, yet they also need to supporta diverse visiting public in making their own personal choices about where to attend,

      Okay, first sentence so it may be premature but I am thinking that another way to state this dilemma is: What happens when CoP collide? And how do we support more than one CoP with the same physical resources?

    14. alternative to a school science classroom: hands-on exhibits are novel, stimulating, evidence-rich, multisensory, and fun

      this passage reminds me of "It directs our attention towards the idea of an ‘active spectator’ who constitutes the sense and significance of objects and artifacts." from crafting participation piece. So is the use of a hands on approach the same as an active spectator in the Heath piece?

    15. On the exhibitfloor there is no accountability, no curriculum, no teachersto enforce concentration, no experienced guide to interpret and give significance to the vastamounts of stimulus and information presented.

      so as an out of school occurrence, is it necessary to have a set curriculum or is it sufficient to have students explore and create their own unique understandings of what they are encountering?

    1. Because families must deal with several government agencies andinstitutions, they constantly mobilize funds of knowledge about theseinstitutions distributed in their social network.

      Is there possibly a perverse effect to this "fund of knowledge"?

      The examples cited mention how instrumental it is in helping the family navigate social services and how to stay afloat. But what if the wisdom in the "fund of knowledge" also contains advice and suggestions which, for better or for worse, prevents them from improving their circumstances. In a community like this, how do you police against bad advice, or incorporate knowledge from outsiders?

    2. It is by studying individuals, as we do, within the social networksthatmake up these settings that it becomes clear how, as Cole andEngerstrom (Chapter 1, this volume) put it, "cognition is complexlydistributed in all forms of human activity

      From the preceeding paragraph, the authors explicitly state that they chose this setting because it exhibited specific social and cultural characteristics. Is it valid to then, based on these observations, to support a conclusion pertaining to "all forms of human activity?"

    3. It is specific funds of knowledgepertaining to the social, economic, and productive activities of peoplein a local region or community, not "culture" in its broader, anthro-pological sense, that represent a strategic resource for classrooms

      How are you defining culture? Do people not bring in their own individualistic styles in a community, that are influenced from somewhere (i.e. culture)?

    4. These funds of knowledge are sociallyinherited and culturally reproduced and developed (or discarded),and their distribution is a constant and dynamic characteristic ofhousehold life

      Are these mostly reproduced through social interaction, through the social network?

    5. thinking as distributed dynamically in inter-personal relationships among people, their artifacts, and their envi-ronments

      Thinking as distributed. When I think about what that means for a classroom I immediately go to the understanding that learning happens through dialogue and interaction (between people, artifacts and the environment). This means a focus on those interactions is necessary to see/develop classroom thinking. How does that fit into a theory of communities of practice and LPP?

    6. Such formal rituals, however, are but onemechanism through which social networks are maintained. As impor-tant, or more so, are visits – informal rituals themselves. Not only dothe Sanchez family often have guests, but they visit their friends andrelatives almost daily. This frequent contact helps them both to main-tain important social ties and to renew and update funds of knowl-edge in this social world on which they depend constantly.

      I think this is really interesting, the kinds of things we might do to maintain our social relations and in turn our FoK. How much of this is a conscious effort beyond just "keeping in touch"?

    7. she has three brothers and two sisters living nearbythat she can turn to

      I heard once about a study of why low-income families grow large in numbers and one of the reasons was this kind of group-strength. Has somebody else heard abut that kind of studies?

    8. "unemployed,"

      Why the quotation marks? Is it because of the band gigs in Mexico? If so, the author's understanding of the whole issue of the band is very limited

    9. While very important, this historically accumulated knowledgealone is insufficient to help families cope with difficult economicconditions and the unpredictability of employment

      it is interesting that the acquired knowledge is only useful for recreational activity and not for assisting the family out of poverty. How could the children's fund of knowledge benefitted from the mistakes of their parents?

    1. The resources were made available to athletes by virtue oftheir presence in the physical space and through one-on-one interactions with CoachJ. Additionally, ideational resources were often conveyed as students were explicitlypositioned into particular roles with respect to the events at which they wouldcompete in meet

      Coach J is the gate keeper, the mentor, who needs to provide the resources for a student to engage in building the identity of a track athlete. Therefore, he is the identity gate keeper. Why, therefore, examine this through the lens of resources instead of merely habitus or "cultural toolkit?"

    2. He conceptualizes learning as an aspectof identity and identity as a result of learning.

      I am a little confused about this statement; it feels incomplete. He says learning is a part of identity and that identity is a product of learning. I feel like there are other things that produce identity (and if we pull in LW and Holland of course there are - culture, society, context, LPP, etc). Yet here they leave those out.

    3. Within these figured worlds,identity is constructed as individuals both act with agency in authoring themselvesand are acted upon by social others as they are positioned (as members, nonmembers,or certain kinds of members).

      This answered some of my questions from the previous two chapters on how and by who is identity constructed. However I still question if there are any conflicts between being within a figured world and how others socially construct and position ones's identity.

    4. a reason to learn

      Is this the first mention of motivation in relation to learning?

    5. These are (1) material resources, (2) relational resources, and (3) ideationalresources.

      Are there other kinds of resources? And, if so, any of those apply to this situation?

    6. We consider learning to be shifts in use of artifacts (both cultural and cogni-tive) for problem solving, sense making, or performance. We consider identity to beone viewing participation in the practice as an integral part of who one is; what we call"practice-linked identities" (Nasir and Hand 2005,2008)

      Is therefore learning somehow a subset of identity?

  3. newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
    1. He does not figure his life in AP!s terms. He views AA as a measure to take when things get really bad. He does not share the set of values and distinctions that unites other AA members. The identity of "alcoholic" does not affect his actions, or his perceptions of self, beyond his drinking behavior. Andrew has never stayed in AA for more than one year, although he has been in treatment for alcoholism four times and in and out of AA at least three times

      Andrew's identity did not contain Alcoholic in the AA terms yet. Therefore he was not engaged in the figured world of AA. Is this the only way one can be considered a part of a figured world in this analysis?

    2. Apparently the story was consciously developed from the beginning as a vehicle for presenting an experience or person with whom the prospect could identify

      How is this different from and/or the same as other socio-historical. cultural forces that drive the reproduction of this figured world of being an AA alchoholic? What about other figured worlds? Is this conscious social step, prescribed in literature that all must read and listen to in order to be part of AA figured world, truly indicative of the forces of reproduction behind other figured worlds?

    3. These individuals have decided to stop drinking because they have come to understand that "alcohol is controlling their lives."

      I have to admit, like every single reading that precedes this, our analysis begins when the individual is already in the community. When we say "they have come to understand that 'alcohol is controlling their lives'", there seems to be a lot of learning that has already happened. Similarly, all the other cases we have addressed study how the individual interacts in the community of practice, but say nothing about how they got there. To me, that is a fundamental question which we have so far not really devoted any attention to.

    4. The findings suggest that, over time, the individual develops his drinking history according to the AA structure, and as the AA identity is formed, the life story narrated comes to resemble the prototypical AA story more and more closely.

      So did the AA steps get developed from the comparison of other people?

    5. It is a transformation of their identities, from drinkil1KJ1on-alcoholics to rion-drmldng alcofiO!ics·, a_�n:::d:_,:lt:.:a::l�le::;c:.:-ts::__. ���-�"--·--�·-'-" ·-----��.�-=---�----���·�� . --how they view and act in the world.

      Why does it need to be that way? Why label something that is unnecessary, especially when it will not produce positive result for the individual's identity?

    6. this transformation of identity, from a drinking non-alcoholic ("normal drinker") to an alcoholic, requires a radical reinterpretation of who he is, of "self." lt requires a new way of figuring the activity of drinking, those who drink, and the place of drink­ing in a broader social and personal context. This process of reinterpreta­tion of self, the formation of a new identity, is a major component of Alcoholics Anonymous.

      Throughout this chapter I couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable by all of the talk of transformation. AA clearly does good and important things in the world, but in order to benefit from it, the participant needs to "radically reinterpret" him/herself. Alcoholism is definitely deviant and harmful behavior, but I also wonder how our discussion would change if we replaced AA with a cult (or with any kind of radical group) that requires reinterpretation and transformation as the basis of membership.

    7. Even should he accept this interpretation of his drinking behavior, so long as the interpretation remains unassimilated to a figured world such as that created by AA, he need not see it as an aspect of himself that carries over into other areas of his life.

      How can one prevent an interpretation of a behavior or an identity from being assimilated into a figured world. Is the association with a figured world only through one's recognition and acceptance? That gives membership to a figured would a level of agency that I didn't expect.

    8. AA has constructed a particular interpreta­tion of what it means to be an alcoholic, what typical alcoholics are like, and what kinds of incidents mark a typical alcoholic's life. This cultural knowledge about alcoholism and!!!� alc<l,!J,olic shared byE::"...mbers of AA differs both from the cultural kn(tWkggl'::<Lhl�sm shared�e outside of AA and fron:_ilie self-und�rstawling of most po!:!;_ntial_'E:�m­bers before they enter AA

      Can AA as an institution be viewed as implementing a a teaching curriculum to newcomers in AA? But then what is the role of a learning curriculum in AA's community of practice?

      Or am I totally looking at this weirdly?

    9. This is why, as members often say, "AA is for those who want it, not for those who need it." AA members must agree to become tellers, as well as listeners, of AA stories.

      Entering into the AA figured world as a "non drinking alcoholic" must be an intentional choice.

      I'm curious though what the authors would say about close family and friends of "non drinking alcoholics" - do you need to form an identity as such to enter (struggling with word choice here) a specific figured world?

    10. Alcoholics are a labeled group of people who behave inappropriately after drinking alcohol.

      I don't understand this - labeled by others after acting "inappropriately" AFTER drinking? I feel like the label is more contingent on the act or habit of drinking, rather than only after... Guess this speaks to the disagreements and lack of a clear definition of alcoholism

    11. In this sense AA has created a cultural world, albeit a limited one, which is its institutional reason for being.

      I'm curious about the role of institutions in figured worlds and identity formation - I wish they could explore this further

    12. S�the defi!lition of an alcoholic is not agreed upon in the wider society, arriving at this i�t�;:pretatlon -�revent�-is-a process negotiated between the drinker and fhose arouncrller-:1\A stories provide a set of_c:riteria by which the al�o­lioliccailbeTclentified.

      Who defines these criteria?

    13. A successful writer who finds she writes better with a few drinks, a college student who only gets drunk on the weekends, a businessman who drinks to loosen up in social situations-these people may not consider themselves alcoholics, but those around them may consider them so.

      This goes back to my comment from the previous chapter. Who decides what the boundaries for these groups are?

    14. Our identities are not just shaped by our knowledge and interpretations, but how our knowledge plays off of cultural knowledge. The reading claims that for some "self-understanding" is transformed. Is this creating prototypical members of this group?

    15. What happens when an AA member fails to compose this new under­standing of himself and of his life?

      What happens when a person is forced into a figured world they do not want to be in...a Holocaust victim, a prisoner? Does their identity reflect their reality, thier former lives, or their aspirations?

    16. He does not figure his life in AP!s terms. He views AA as a measure to take when things get really bad. He does not share the set of values and distinctions that unites other AA members. The identity of "alcoholic" does not affect his actions, or his perceptions of self, beyond his drinking behavior.

      Andrew seems conflicted by his figured worlds. Though he acknowledges his alcoholism it is not how he identifies. For Hank, AA became a surrogate family (by way of his descri[tions of "Who am I?"). Andrew, though lonely, does not allow AA to serve that purpose for him. Is it a self fulfilling prophecy of lonliness that he is holding on to? An identity he wants to cling to?

    1. Each is a simplified world populated by a set of agents (in the world of romance: attractive women, boyfriends, lovers, fiances) who engage in a limited range of meaningful acts or changes of state (flirting with, falling in love with, dumping, having sex with) as moved by a specific set of forces (attractiveness, love, lust)

      "figured worlds" definition. This definition leads me to ask where the foundational "specific set of forces," come from. I would assume they are cultural forces (re)produced by cultural interactions throughout and within different figured worlds. This is indicated in the next sentence by the word "sociohistoric."

    2. These socially generated, culturally figured worlds, many linguists believe, are necessary for understanding the meaning of words.

      I read this and I think, "what came first the chicken or the egg?"

      Can you have worlds if you don't have words to define them? Can anyone have an identity if we have no words to use to describe our identities?

    3. institutionalized "stl'_ll_<:_t:':'Ees" _ofp_<'-\lle.': .. .. i' .. landscapes .. the .. lu:unedia.te D.I<i<;r_oLinll:J-action.

      This section on power and privilege is a bit confusing. And how it relates to Bourdieu's concept of fields.

    4. lt. Discourse (or discursive) theory emphasizes many of the aspects of cultural resources that we discu

      Cultural artifacts don't need to be material - pronouns as artifacts (example of ta/you). I'm thinking more about pronouns as artifacts, I'm curious what the authors would have to say about communities creating their own gender neutral pronouns in response to the gender binary (examples: ne, ve, ze, xe). Imagining and creating artifacts into being, learned within social interaction

    5. tools of liberation from control by environmental stimuli.

      Can someone give me an example of an artifact being a tool of liberation?

    6. The conceptual importance of figured worlds has been emphasized in anthropology for some time. Hallowell (1955a) argued that individuals live in worlds that are culturally defined and understand themselves in relation to these worlds. In a classic article, :'The Self and Its Behavioral Environment," he n

      Can you live any other way?

  4. newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
    1. to be a choice between becoming a "socialite" and becoming a "hippie." She was inclined to reject the upwardly mo-bile, upper-middle-class lifestyle that she felt pressured-perhaps by her family-to embrace.

      How did she "become inclined" one way or another? Again, the discussion seems to center around an identity that is or isn't assumed, but there is little discussion about why it is or isn't - which seems to be the most interesting/important part! How did she "learn" to distaste socialites?

    2. But 30 years old, that's old. I mean I'm 18 years old. I don't want to go out with someone who's 30. It's not that bad but-shucks, I don't want to go out with anybody but Howard. He's worth the wait. "7

      I think she uses and reacts the situation differently depending on the context she is in. When she wants to still have her freedom she will act in ways that show she is not too interested, but when she wants to stop someone from talking to her, she will act the opposite. She has learned how to use her relationship to her advantage...maybe?

    3. women came to col-lege proud of having done well in high school and then got upset when their university grades were not as good. They gradually became less involved with their schoolwork and switched their attention and time to romantic pursuits. Romance became an even more important world for them.

      Do they do this because they are better at romance than school? Do they make this switch to feel fulfilled?

    4. Notice that the emotional involvement or identification comes only after a certain degree of competence is reached and that this degree of emotional involvement is necessary for further mastery

      I don't understand where confidence or self-assessment plays a role in this? What one may consider an expert, someone may consider a novice.

    1. ʨ ʨ" ʨƦʨ +ʨ"ʨ ʨ ʨ ʨ   1ʨ ʨ™ ǀ)ʨ ʨ# išʨ"!ʨ"#ºʨʨ Tʨ ʨ# ʨʨʨ ʨ ʨ"! ʨ ʨ  +ʨ"ʨ .+ʨ WʨXʨ0ʨʨI ʨ ʨ{ƍ !ʨ )Sʨ0ʨ"# Tʨʨ ʨ ʨʨ ʨ

      Can someone give me an example of an artifact being a tool of liberation?

    1. Unlike Starbucks or other popular coffee chains, it appeared that patrons needed a high level of beverage knowledge before they walked in. The menu (in the blurry photo shown here) was not descriptive at all, and the rapid-fire exchange between customers and staff was different than a more “casual” beverage establishment

      Learning about how to 'use' the shop is required then, not so much novice-friendly. Out-of-school situation-specific?

    2. Unlike Starbucks or other popular coffee chains, it appeared that patrons needed a high level of beverage knowledge before they walked in. The menu (in the blurry photo shown here) was not descriptive at all, and the rapid-fire exchange between customers and staff was different than a more “casual” beverage establishment

      Learning about how to 'use' the shop is required then, not so much novice-friendly. Out-of-school situation-specific?

    1. apprenticeship has been treated as a historically significant object more often than most educational phenom-ena

      Similar to the comment below, what is apprenticeship as an educational phenomena? Why is it different than what most of us understand apprenticeship as? I agree that it this term has taken on too many meanings in educational literature.

    2. Usually, unless the intetpretation runs counter to A. A. beliefs, the speaker is not corrected. Rather, other speakers will take the appropriate parts of the newcomer's comments, and build on this in their own comments, giving parallel accounts with different interpretations, for example, or expanding on parts of their own stories which are similar to parts of the new-comer's story, while ignoring the inappropriate parts of the newcomer's story.

      I found this to be a fascinating account of how very specific customs or practices can emerge that facilitate Legitimate Peripheral Participation, even being crucial to their success. How did such a "policy" or "rule" or "custom" come into being?

    3. This development in-volved a transition from domestic production in which chil-dren learned subsistence skills from their same-sex parent, to learning part-time specialisms in the same way, to learning a specialized occupation from a specialist master.

      How does the apprentice find his way to his specialist master? Resnick challenges the usefulness of the kind of "generalized learning" that people claim goes on in school. But would it make sense as part of a model of career/life choice?

    4. Any given attempt to analyze a form of learning through legitimate peripheral participation must involve analy-sis of the political and social organization of that form, its historical development, and the effects of both of these on sus-tained possibilities for learning

      So what will the generalizable lessons be from LPP? Won't every community of practice have its own historical development, social organization,and political structure?

    5. [Where there is high volume] a division of labor among a relatively large number of workers increases efficiency. . . . In this situation, not only apprentices but journeymen, too, seldom learn the full range of tasks once proper to their trade

      Lave and Wenger seem to suggest this is problematic, but I'm not sure that it is. If the "full range of tasks" is no longer economically relevant to their trade, than why is it important that they are learned?

    1. They share our interest in extending the study of learning beyond the context of pedagogical structuring, including the structure of the social world in the analysis, and taking into account in a central way the conftictual nature of social practice

      "Beyond the context of pedagogical structuring" Are the authors claiming that pedagogy is exclusive to schools? I'm curious if pedagogy can be conceptualized and applied in out-of-school contexts as well. I feel like pedagogy is a really broad, and potentially radical concept to be only assigned to schools. Perhaps they aren't saying this though?

    1. Notions like those of ''intrinsic rewards'' in empirical stud-ies of apprenticeship focus quite narrowly on task knowledge and skill as the activities to be learned. Such knowledge is of course important; but a deeper sense of the value of participa-tion to the community and the learner lies in becoming part of the community.

      And when participation in the community is not valued by the learner? Schooling would look a lot different (and I'd argue it does look a lot different) if it were restricted to those legitimately invested in the endeavor.

    2. Observing the span of de-velopmental cycles is only a beginning to such an analysis (and a rough approximation that sets aside consideration of the transformation and change inherent in ongoing practice -see below), for each such cycle has its own trajectory, bench-marks, blueprints, and careers (Stack 1989)

      This is just one dimension in which the communities which exhibit legitimate peripheral participation are wildly different from one another. What are the implications of this for "designers" like ourselves? It is also noteworthy to consider the sharp contrast between the difference in cycles established by these communities with the incredibly uniform "cycles" that we have settled upon in traditional schooling.

    3. In the process, newcomers learn how to make (some-times difficult) repairs, they learn the skills of war-story tell-ing, and they become legitimate participants in the community of practice.

      This makes me believe that story telling allows apprentices to gain social knowledge on/about that community. Would this not be considered cultural learning?

    4. Finally, we explore contradictions inherent in learning, and the relations of the resulting conflicts to the development of identity and the transformation of practice.

      Are there social conflicts as well that should be explored? Old timers vs. new comers?

  5. Jul 2015
    1. I have asked this question all my life. I have sought the answer through my reading and writings, through the music of my youth, through arguments with your grandfather, with your mother. I have searched for answers in nationalist myth, in classrooms, out on the streets, and on other continents. The question is unanswerable, which is not to say futile.

      (I know this is an aside... but maybe it isn't.) Just in case anybody needed a definition of "inquiry," these sentences would do just fine. I know it can seem like too much to ask of youth, but I think we can find ways to help them to find the question they have been asking all of their lives, just like Coates's question here: "unanswerable, which is not to say futile." How different that is from finding a "researchable question."

  6. May 2015
    1. Also, it does not safeguard against tampering of headers or body.

      Doesn't TLS mitigate tampering and replay attacks?

  7. Mar 2015
    1. 5’-TGCAGGTTCACCTACGGAAAC-3’

      This is the annotation text! This+is+a+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fgenome.ucsc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2FhgTracks%3Fdb%3Dhg19%26position%3Dchr4%253A111538580-111563279%22%3Etestlink%3C%2Fa%3E

    2. 5’-TGCAGGTTCACCTACGGAAAC-3’

      This is the annotation text! This+is+a+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fgenome.ucsc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2FhgTracks%3Fdb%3Dhg19%26position%3Dchr4%253A111538580-111563279%22%3Etestlink%3C%2Fa%3E

    3. 5’-TGCAGGTTCACCTACGGAAAC-3’

      This is the annotation text! This+is+a+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fgenome.ucsc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2FhgTracks%3Fdb%3Dhg19%26position%3Dchr4%253A111538580-111563279%22%3Etestlink%3C%2Fa%3E

    4. 5’-TGCAGGTTCACCTACGGAAAC-3’

      This is the annotation text! This+is+a+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fgenome.ucsc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2FhgTracks%3Fdb%3Dhg19%26position%3Dchr4%253A111538580-111563279%22%3Etestlink%3C%2Fa%3E

    5. 5’-TGCAGGTTCACCTACGGAAAC-3’

      This is the annotation text! This+is+a+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fgenome.ucsc.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2FhgTracks%3Fdb%3Dhg19%26position%3Dchr4%253A111538580-111563279%22%3Etestlink%3C%2Fa%3E

  8. May 2014
  9. Apr 2014
    1. facilitate the global conversation on every scholarly work

      How will facilitating the global conversation "strengthen the Internet for free expression and innovation"?

    2. which leads into our key step in creating a more collaborative and open scientific community.

      By "key step" here do you mean "goal"? This might be more clearly written as something like "which enables our goal of creating a more collaborative and open scientific community"?

    3. Users can choose to keep their highlights and annotations private, or to share them with the world, which leads into our key step in creating a more collaborative and open scientific community.

      Expand on this more to explain how sharing highlights and annotations is key to more collaboration and openness. What do you imagine PeerLibrary will make possible for the scientific community that they cannot do now?

    4. A framework built for collaborative real-time annotations on articles.

      By "framework" do you mean an API and associated libraries?

  10. Jan 2014
    1. Data represent important products of the scientific enterprise that are, in many cases, of equivalent or greater value than the publications that are originally derived from the research process. For example, addressing many of the grand challenge scientific questions increasingly requires collaborative research and the reuse , integration, and synthesis of data.

      Who else might care about this other than Grand Challenge Question researchers?

    1. Questioning and examination are the tools of reflection: Hear an idea, ponder it, question it, modify it, explore its limitations. When the idea is presented by a person, the audience can interrupt, ask questions, probe to get at the underlying assumptions. But the author doesn’t come along with a book, so how could the book be questioned if it couldn’t answer back? This is what bothered Socrates.

      This is what bothered socrates.

    1. Qualitative statements describe in a yes/no manner for example, which tissues a gene is expressed in or if two groups of cells move relative to one another. This basic information is insufficient, though, to address many fundamental questions in developmental biology.
    1. Information exchange requires (and can contribute to) mutual understanding; e.g., empathy.

      What is the essence of empathy? Is it mutual understanding? What else is there?

    1. Instead of cheerleading, people in my profession should think of themselves as businesspeople. What’s good for the company? How do we communicate that to employees? How can we help every worker understand what we mean by high performance?
  11. Oct 2013
    1. Nor will the preceptor be under the obligation merely to teach these things, but frequently to ask questions upon them and try the judgment of his pupils

      Questions, a sign of deeper understanding and investment

  12. Sep 2013
    1. ABIGAIL ADAMS, REMEMBER THE LADIES, 1776

      What does this exchange tell us about John, Abigail, and Mercy? About expectation for the day?

      How revolutionary was the exchange? How typical was this kind of relationship? How much impact might it have had

    1. Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is which he professes and teaches

      Socrates wants ask Gorgias questions about rhetoric.

  13. Aug 2013
    1. I want to know how this stigma developed. Why can we look at a person with a broken arm or chicken pox and wince when we do, but then carry on with our lives when, on the flipside, someone mentions that they have a psychological disorder of some sort causes us to look at them with big eyes and then scoot away?
    1. Is Alexander arguing that African American women are defined more by their race than by their gender, whereas white women are defined more by their gender than their race?

      Why does Alexander suggest this? How might this approach affect the history of Women?

    2. When Castañeda talks about how women of color are ignored, I wonder if there's a detriment of calling all women that aren't white women of color. Wouldn't that lead to lumping them all together, making stereotypes about them, and ignoring the vast diversity in that group? Just like the experiences of white women can be different from those of women of color, can't the same be said for Hispanic women, Asian women, and black women since they also all have different experiences.

      Discuss.

    3. What I do not understand is what she means by women of color writers looking to "third world liberation movements" for some aspect of history to write on.

      So, what is Castaneda referring to here?

    4. As a women and gender studies major and a Hispanic woman, I find myself realizing more and more that most of my classes only assign one class to talk about women of color. I wish to understand more why we still ignore women of color when talking in the context of women's history and how we would fix this problem.

      Why is this and how might we fix it?

    5. I wonder how this idea that ‘wages define real work’ applies to today’s society in regards to pay inequality among different races and genders.

      Can we think of examples from today of the impact of this distinction?