It is a matter of how personsand their social and cultural worlds are inseparable, thoroughly
Continued onto the next page. This the definition of distributed cognition: "Their thinking is irreducible to individual properties, intelligence, or traits.
First of all, it facilitates acritical redefinition of these children's households as settings thatcontain ample cultural and intellectual resources. These householdsare not intellectually barren, socially disorganized, or part of somesort of apathetic and passive, if not pathological, "underclass";norare they lacking in cognitive resources or in the family's capacities todevelop, acquire, or use knowledge
This is, as indicated above, a move against "deficit" based education ideology for non-white students from lower class backgrounds. Instead, we must see value in the interactions of the household, and use them to inform classroom practice.
This lesson, and this classroom, represent acomplex, and collective, zone of proximal development, to use Vy-gotsky's (1978) metaphor
Zone of proximal development theory applied here. Therefore, is this the only theoretical lens that Moll, et al's distributed cognition can be used in?
hrough their studies, the childrenused their developing knowledge about wars of the past to understanda war of the present
I can see this viewed through an LPP lens too. Here is the (re)production of a community of practice in many ways.
In particular,it illustrates how children form a social network wherein they ex-change funds of knowledge within a classroom context in a mannersimilar to, although much more concentrated than, that in the house-holds in our study
This is the connection they are going for. Does it work?
The classroom is physically organized to facilitate the distributionof activities and the use of multiple resources, especially books, aspart of the activities
There is a materialism to distributed cognition. The artifacts matter, as a part of the fabric of the socially shared learning/thinking process.
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?
Households depend on their social networks in order to cope withcomplex and changing circumstances
And these networks help comprise their shared "funds of knowledge"
These mundane exchanges takea variety of forms, such as labor services, access to information, in-cluding help in finding jobs or housing and knowledge about dealingwith government agencies, and various forms of material assistancebesides money such as sheltering visitors.
Examples of Funds of knowledge. In the classrooms that I study, these could be shared norms of interaction, historical views of schooling and classrooms, etc.
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?
Vygotsky, 1978, 1987
Right away, this citation is important, fits this piece into a socal development theory lens.
The primary purpose of this work is to change or improve classroomteaching by drawing on the knowledge and skills found in local house-holds
Important distinction here. Purpose is change or improve classroom teaching based on researching local households. What does that mean, and how can those two be linked?
along
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?"
Specifically, it makesthe case for a treatment of learning and identity that considers them to be intimatelyrelated to one another but also to be distinct processes. Thinking about learning andidentities in schools in this way might support a clearer conceptual understanding ofthe relation between learning and identity that does not conflate them or view themas unrelated.
This article, as I understand it, provides arguments that identity and learning are intimately related, but not that they are distinct processes. While I agree with this statement that I highlighted, I wonder in what ways we can look to studies like this one to provide the nuance Nasir and Cook are looking for and claiming. It seems that Holland et al.'s description fits more with an understanding that identity and learning are not distinct processes.
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?
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?
We conceive this step as devaluation, rather than diffusion, as Schwartz and Merten call it
Interesting to move away from diffusion, which implies moving across a boarder, as a solution does across a membrane in diffusion, to devaluation which implies possible further connection;
Telling AA personal stories also helps members identify with one another in ways that are harder to document. As a public event, one that is not only observable but material and co-participatory, the telling encompasses body practices, including vocalization, that realize structures of affect and disposition. Not only social theorists, from Durkheim and Mauss to Bourdieu, but any participant in such performances would tell you that the fellow-feeling born in these ceremonies is a powerful means of identification.
The personal story is a force in many directions for the figured world of AA, especially in creating and shaping identity of members.
This context of flux is the ground for identity development. It sets the conditions for what we called in Chapter 2 the authoring self-what in Chapter 8 we will expand to call the "space of authoring."
Within the theoretical frame of figured worlds, this looks to give space for individual/shared agency.
Because of its roots in Marxian analyses of capitalism and other historically specific modes of produc-tion, activity theory pays more attention to the articulation of activities within larger syste_ms_<.>f power and prlvilsge
This connection is important. Figured worlds can also be viewed as produced by structural systems of power and privilege. Could this a view of figured worlds be grounded in Critical Theory as well as Marxist theory?
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."
Artifacts "open up" figured worlds. They are the means by coUec-nveiyuevelopea, individually learned, and made sociaUy power
Thinking about this with a science study lens: Artifacts are both the material instruments scientists use to study the world (in figured world of being a climate scientist, for instance) and the produced narrative for more encompassing figured worlds of united states citizens (within it, both climate change deniers and people who understand the impact humans have had on the climate and support action)
Inacoffeeshop,unlikeaclassroom,itdoesn’tseemlikeanyoneisworriedaboutminimizingtheanxietyfeltbycustomers/”students”
What about the staff? What about other participants in this social setting/ this culture?
Theteachersinthisinstancearethestaffbaristas,cashiers,managers..
What makes them teachers?
Ifacustomerisn’tanexperiencedcoffeedrinker,theymighthavetoaskthebaristaforhelp
Did you witness anyone doing this?
Ipersonallyfeelliketheydon’tgooutoftheirwaytobeoverlynicebutthat’ssortoftheirvibe
What about their demeanor, etc tells you this? Paint me a picture.
t was interesting to note that many people observed others instead of risking looking “dumb”by asking for help or doing things
Great point. Verbalizing ignorance is a risk
students were confused by the machine and some techniques they used were asking a fellow student or watching to see what others would do, or making the long line atthe help desk instead.
Nice! Strategies for learning how to navigate.
books. I include myself, as I tried to swipe my NYU card a couple of times, then finally giving up and using the other machine, which finally acquiescedmy desir
What does this say about the learning process? What needed to be learned?
space.If they were able to arrive safely without making a beeline for a mug emblazoned with TISCH or STERN, they were m
Haha Love it! What do you mean by chaos? Describe it to me. Reading the next few sentences does not give me that feeling (yet!).
you
Nice! also use second person above!
one
Personally, I think its much more powerful if you write these descriptions in the first or second person.
"As I cross the busy street..." Or "As you cross they busy street to arrive at teh bookstore, you..."
to do so. However, in my observations people often used their friends as tools, following their lead and even getting their guidance, as was the case with the young woman who attempted to open the locked doors.
Nice connection with observation!
each person’s success depends on how well other people can navigate the entrance
GREAT connection!
This entrance was definitely not designed to accommodate people with disabilit
Great observation!
ither the person would speed up and enter the door quickly, usually with a little skip hop, or more usually they would play it safe, wait, and enter in the next compartment of the door. This timing reminded me of the rhythm and timing needed to play dou
Nice! good Connection!
a giggle. It seemed that they knew they were going against the intended purpose of the
What indicated this?
saw two instances of a pair of young women get into one compartment together, each time they did this with
What happened when they did? Did it slow down the cue? What was the reaction of other people around them?
For the majority of my time observing, there was a large amount of people using the left door, a moderate stream of people at the center door, and only a few people using the right
Interesting. I would love to hear your analysis on why this was true.
The generalgoal of learning to use the revolving doors seemed to focus on entering and exiting smoothly without disrupting the stream of people.
Like this! How do you know this? Give brief outline of some observations
mocro
micro
corrected by other members of the community,when Felipe moved the door the “wrong way”and someone immediately corrected it for theirown use, and through failure and possible humiliation, when the group of two tried to engage in the door activity together.I was witnessing the generative practice of being in a community; a community of revolving doorusers at Kimmel, which involved the construction of identities,even if just a small partof the identitiesof individuals that are part of it.This community had important social understandings and physical requirements that needed to be learned, through legitimate peripheral participation, not just through practice.
Forced. You mean community of practice. LPP is a way of looking at how people learn, NOT a method of learning
ep
Keeps
think
TYPO!
probably taught them to enter the door individually next time.
evidence? How do you know this?
r behumiliated as an indication that you are new here and don’t know how to use these doors.
Clarify
When people did use the revolving door, it moved faster as more people used it(to a specific point),
Is this a confusing point? Does this make sense?
Everyday Activities Field Notes9/15/15Colin Hennessy Elliott1|PageKimmel Revolving Door:Field Notes: Everyday ActivitiesI
This is just annoying me, its a diff font...
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.
Instead, they invent new methods specific to the situation at hand
Works
Efforts to play this enabling function are likely to result in new forms of schooling that are also our best hope of preparing the next generation to participate knowledgeably and effectively in the civic functions of a technologically complex democratic society.
The goal of education must be centered around being an informed citizen as well. This will not just be a byproduct of a system formed to help people with future jobs. The prescribed goals of education in the united states have oscillated between the two for the past 150 years. The focus cannot be on just job preparation.
The process of schooling seems to encourage the idea that the "game of school" is to learn symbolic rules of various kinds, that there is not supposed to be much continuity between what one knows outside school and what one learns in school.
Interesting to continue to describe the abstraction of school curricula and pedagogy as "symbols" and "symbolic rules." Does this mean that symbolic and modeling relationships to "real world" are still too much abstraction to be taught in schools? Is Resnick merely calling for "authentic learning" to be focused on in school?
In school, the greatest premium is placed upon "pure thought" activities-what individuals can do without the external support of books and notes, calculators, or other complex instruments
In a lot of ways, I see this changing in Science Education. As it does, we still need to continue to investigate how the tools we use to learn, and to investigate the world scientifically, effect what we learn.
In contrast, much activity outside school is socially shared. Work, personal life, and recreation take place within social systems, and each person's ability to function successfully depends on what others do and how several individuals' mental and physical performances mesh
This point is hugely in contrast to the analysis of Becker. However, social life of school is important to learning, it just is not always assessed/assessed correctly.
People learn, in spite of the obstacles our analysis suggests, because the schools and job situations in which they Jearn seldom approach the extreme conditions of these ideal analytic types.
I wonder then, what type of hybridized learning Beker would suggest from this analysis. Knowing there are faults with both "ideal" types of learning, doesn't that mean we need to find ways to incorporate both when we attempt to structure learning environments?
They assume that what they know, the student needs to know
It is important to continue to question this assumption as educators and researchers. Why is this a driving assumption of school, shuttering the possibility of the learning process as a dialogue?
Does anyone else see this?
HI everyone
hey!