Here is the page on the LA Times website that deals with the teacher investigation there.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/teachers-investigation/
Monthly Archives: September 2010
27
Sep 10
Lave and Wenger
As I was reading the first couple of pages of this article, I was reminded of the concept of Zone of Proximal Development. The writers’ term “legitimate peripheral participation” has some similarities to ZPD. I think that they are both similar in that an already knowledgeable person is required for the student to learn.
A lot of this paper also reminds me of Vygotsky in that society teaches us (the student), we internalize, and then become the teacher.
“Learning itself is an improvised practice: A learning curriculum unfolds in opportunities for engagement in practice (pg 93).” I thought this sentence was interesting. Cause if you think about it, learning is improvised and not set in stone. You aren’t going to move onto a new thing until you have learned the material you are focusing on now. For example, you aren’t going to move onto learning multiplication until you have mastered addition.
“The effectiveness of the circulation of information among peers suggests, to the contrary, that engaging in practice, rather than being its object, may well be a condition for the effectiveness of learning (pg 93).” I also found this to be quite interesting because it suggests that being part of a society helps our learning and that discussing information with other learners helps aide learning. As a future teacher I will try to encourage my students to discuss the material with others. I believe talking about the material can help you make sense of it and talking with other learners can help you understand what you thought was confusing and to maybe see something that you didn’t.
27
Sep 10
Lave
“To begin with, newcomers’ legitimate peripherality provides them with more than an “observational” lookout post: It crucially involves participation as a way of learning- of both absorbing and being absorbed in- the “culture of practice.” (pg. 95)
The authors go on to say that apprenticeship “offers exemplars (which are grounds and motivation for learning activity), including masters, finished products, and more advanced apprentices in the process of becoming exemplars.”
To think about learning outside of the context of school really helped me to get some understanding of what apprenticeship is and to gain some insight into their definition of learning, though my understanding is far from complete. As an education student embarking on her middle field experience, I can truly relate to the authors definition of apprenticeship. Apprenticeship requires that the participant engage in their learning in a way that the classroom setting truly does not, at least on the surface. When you are thrust into what is essentially an unfamiliar, new, and scary environment you are motivated in a real and serious way to learn. Figuring out the school culture, teaching style of your mentor, lay of the land, student behavior, and so forth are key to success as a student teacher and the quicker you learn these things the better. This is true, I would assume, of most apprenticeship experiences.
As I said before, this is kind of a different experience than the kind of learning that goes on in the classroom. I say “kind of” because this article made me think more about school culture and the kind of learning that does take place. Just as an apprentice in the field learns what he/she needs to know to be successful, so to does the student in the school. This raises some questions regarding what students need to know in the classroom to be successful? It seems to me that buying into what these authors are saying about learning and apprenticeship would require us to drastically rethink the assessments that we generate to evaluate learning in the classroom.
27
Sep 10
Situated Cognition: Lave & Wenger
According to Lave & Wenger, Communities of Practice involves a set of relations among persons, activity, and world over time. They include the idea of apprenticeship in learning and the idea of Legitimate Peripheral Participation. LPP attempts to describe how newcomers take on the role of an apprenticeship and learn the ways of the community. Through these various stages, newcomers eventually become the masters and thus support the incoming newcomers. As I understand it, LPP is only a part to Lave & Wengers whole of their Communities of Practice idea.
These ideas correspond with the ideas behind Cognitive Apprenticeship, as discussed in our previous readings from TSS and others. In fact, it’s interesting to see how many of the ideas/comments in the Lave & Wenger readings correspond with the chapters in TSS. For example, the comments in both regarding the need to “make visible” the learning. For example in TSS, discussing the “need to make visible and inspectable the norms and patterns of thinking that constitute the rules of the game in the science classroom” (pg. 192) and in Lave & Wenger, the “way of organizing activities that makes their meaning visible” (pg. 105). Lave & Wenger’s comment about the [black box can be opened, it can become a “glass box” ] (pg. 102). So they were apparently challenging Skinner’s behaviorist ideas and the fact that we need to figure out how to “see” learning?
I also was struck by the statement on page 29; “It was evident that no one was certain what the term meant”. I feel this way in some of the readings to date. Everyone wants to coin their own phrase, or slightly modify existing ones to mean something different. Another example is the term Inquiry. There are some many varies of inquiry that it causes much confusion in the field. However, I’m beginning to wonder if these issues of confusion over terms will ever be clarified? Is learning theory so complex what we are unable to create terminology consistent with research which both the newcomer and master can speak under a common understanding?
Lave & Wegner’s idea is that LPP is a way of understanding learning. They are challenging the ideas that learning is “absorbing the given, as a matter of transmission and assimilation” (pg. 47). They also refer to Vygotsky and his work on with the Zone of Proximal Development. Rather than focusing on the “processes of social transformation” as so many others due, their emphasis is on “connecting issues of socioculture transformation with the changing relations between newcomers and old-timer in the context of a changing shared practice” (pg. 49). They state that others concentrate on the processes of social transformation, yet their work does talk about social transformation in the sense that there can be conflict during the apprenticeship process and the apprentice challenges the master, and thus changes in the practice can occur as new ideas are developed. Is this not socioculture transformation?
So, I guess after all these random comments, I can agree on the ideas of a community of learners and how newcomers can learn from the master and the importance of setting up an environment in which this can happen effectively. However, this is only a part to a much larger whole!
Personally, it’s exciting for me to begin seeing the connections and similarities between various works, and beginning to learn how to question their ideas. Of course, I’m still a newcomer and have much to learn from the masters!
26
Sep 10
We don’t need no education…
For some reason, Lave and Wenger struck me as considerably more radical in scope than Brown et al, even though many of the ideas presented seemed to be elaborations of the ideas presented there. This seemed largely a result of my (self-interested) sense about my role as a teacher, and how that image would survive each of the theories. After reading Brown, I could see myself acting as something of a cultural interpreter: giving students some sense of what the culture of science would look like. But Lave and Wenger left me doubtful that this type of role would work.
One passage stuck out in particular in this aspect (p 93):
The central grounds on which forms of education that differ from schooling are condemned are that changing the person is not the central motive of the enterprise in which learning takes place (see the last section of this chapter). The effectiveness of the circulation among peers suggests, to the contrary, that engaging in practice, rather than being its object, may well be a condition for the effectiveness of learning.
The idea that it might not work to learn something for the sole purpose of learning it rings true to me, which brings up the same kind of defensiveness I felt after reading Brown et al.
This view stuck out to me again later in the reading (p 112):
When central participation is the subjective intention motivating learning, changes in cultural identity and social relations are inevitably part of the process, but learning does not have to be mediated — and distorted — through a learner’s view of “self” as object.
This all focused on the perspective of the learner, but they then moved to focusing on the teacher (p 113):
Learning understood as legitimate peripheral participation is not necessarily or directly dependent on pedagogical goals or official agendas, even in situations in which these goals appear to be a central factor (e.g., classroom instruction, tutoring).
This is enough of my personal reaction to the reading — in terms of where this fits in with the rest of the theories of learning we’ve looked at, it seems to be an extension of the ideas outlined in the Brown et al piece. Where that seemed to be more of a suggestion of an idea, this was more developed. While I do see the connections between these theories and Vygotsky’s work (in terms of looking at social factors when analyzing learning), I still see a big difference between them — Vygotsky seemed to be much more in the mind when talking about learning, where these pieces seem to have the community as their natural unit of analysis.
26
Sep 10
Lave
This reading says that in order to full engage ourselves in the learning process, we have to fully involve ourselves with the society around us. Why does this even need to be said? Was there some point in time where this was thought to be otherwise? I consider myself a pretty strong individualist, but even I can admit that society is necessary for certain things, especially the type of learning about which this article is written.
I desperately need class this week to clear this reading up. I’m really not understanding what I’m supposed to take from this. I am able to understand what is implied by situated learning. But I am having a very difficult time figuring out what the difference is between this and legitimate peripheral participation. Does this just mean we view what people in our environment are doing in order to learn? That’s the best I can come up with.
“learning is not merely situated in practice – as if it were some independently reifiable process that just happened to be located somewhere; learning is an integral part of generative social practices in the lived-in world.”
This sort of confirms what I believed. We need to keep our eyes open to social practices in the world around us. This could be a fancy way of saying what I said…maybe…I feel like this stuff would be so much easier to understand if the authors didn’t use so much darned jargon. Why the term legitimate? Is there illegitimate? This article claims there isn’t, so why include the term legitimate anyway?
As I continued reading the article at least the term “legitimate peripheral participation” received explanation. But it doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable with the term. I don’t want to say I disagree with or disapprove of the arguments made in this article, because from the bits and pieces I’ve understood I actually find it pretty sufficient.
However, I am not sure of how I feel about their decision to exclude schools from their discussions. I get what they mean by describing it as a multi-layered system, but doesn’t that mean that this theory should at least be included or considered in schooling theory? If it is an “analytical viewpoint of learning,” doesn’t that imply its necessity in schooling theory?
26
Sep 10
Lave and Wenger
The theory concerning legitimate peripheral participation was presented in a thought provoking manner that was carefully defined by Lave and Wenger. From my understanding, Lave and Wenger suggest that the sociocultural practices that take place in a community foster the mastery of skills and knowledge for new learners. The learner becomes part of a community, and through different connections the skills necessary for learning to occur are brought forth. In our past reading by Brown et al, we discussed how an apprenticeship is an integral part of situated learning. After that reading I was not truly satisfied with how apprenticeship and situated learning came into play together, except that apprenticeship usually took place in a certain context. In this reading, Lave and Wenger made note that the term apprenticeship has not previously been properly defined, and rather it had the potential to become meaningless. I believe that after reading Lave and Wenger’s work, the term has been much more thoroughly described. Lave and Wenger also have defined the term situated in a very comprehensible manner. Lave and Wenger allude to an explanation of situated by stating, “learning is an integral and inseparable aspect of social practice”(p.31). I found it very interesting that Lave and Wenger made reference to the fact that situated learning can be a bridge which connects together the ideas of cognitive learning and social learning in both aiding to a primary learning style.
Lave and Wenger make it clear that the theory that is presented is not meant for direct application into the classroom setting. They also noted that schools themselves are places with a context to cultural learning. In class two weeks ago we made reference to the fact that when reading about these theories, it is important not to only think about them in relation to how learning takes place in a classroom. Learning happens all the time, whether it is consciously or subconsciously derived. I find myself struggling not to try to relate everything I read in this class to classroom learning, and I always seem to be looking for a direct application. After I read this, it reminded me to take this theory for how it is offered, rather than trying to apply it to a future classroom activity. However, it makes me wonder, what makes a theory effective and appropriate for teachers to think about? Is it just that it can be explained and argued for, or that it has real world application?
Lave and Wenger do suggest that the teacher/student relationship does not exist, rather other relationships allow for the learning to take place. The relationship that is created between peers help to derive more meaningful learning. The dynamics of the cultural context continuously changes, and learners who were once new-comers become old-timers. Although old-timers may have more experience, it is not only their knowledge that makes the new-comer learn in this scenario. An example that came into my mind when I was reading this was the medical residency program that doctors must complete after they are done with medical school. The first year consists of an internship, and then numerous years of a residency, and finally a fellowship. All of these types of work environments allow for these doctors to learn from their peers, themselves, older doctors, and their patients. Over time the doctors develop their own knowledge by practice. Most doctors will learn similar methods no matter what program they are placed in, yet the quality of the doctor is largely determined by the environment that they are placed into. Medical programs are all very different, and therefore they are based off of different contextual cultures. The vigor that correlates to one medical program, may not translate in the same way to a different program because it contains a different culture. This example also demonstrates Lave and Wenger’s suggestion that there is a division of labor within each community. When you first become a intern, you are not going to be performing the surgeries that are granted to the doctors who have more experience. The medical example also demonstrates that the manner of how this practice is learned does not allow for the loss of the heritage (for example: what can cure what types of diseases). The interactions between practitioners allows for everyone to keep learning, based off a common centralized community culture.
Overall, I think that this theory of legitimate peripheral participation has a lot of insightful concepts to take away from it. I agree that the social world and interactions around us play huge parts in the learning that develops, no matter what type of learning it actually is.