SCIED 552: Science Teaching and Learning Developing Models of Science Teaching

The great debate- with a little shade thrown in for good measure.
I fully acknowledge that the shade largely went over my head cause I was trying to figure out what they were talking about but they did get sassy… “For the life of us, we fail to see the differences” (Anderson 19)

I do appreciate that Greeno went all the way off. Anderson made a short statement and hit his readers with a mic drop- and Greeno came through like ‘what we won’t do today is this’ and dressed Anderson all the way down with double the words.

Anderson tells us that learning  is “bound by context depends on the kind of knowledge being acquired” (Anderson 6). I can totally get behind that and context always matter. Are you at the mall? The museum or zoo? Is the student in class at school or in a tutoring session?  This brings my thoughts  along to the situatists approach- they ask what is the situation and what is brought to the situation (influences, context, previous experiences, etc)? And again, it is hammered home  (for me) that “abstract instruction can be ineffective if what is taught in the classroom is not what is required on the job. Often this is an indictment of the design of classroom instruction rather than the idea of abstract instruction itself” (Anderson 8) (I’ll always pull  out the quotes that remind me/us that ‘school’ is not the best/ideal/awesome-est/most efficient way of  situating  many learning experiences).

Greeno clapped back- I don’t know if I fully agree with his thinking but he brought the energy. Greeno’s position that things I learned in school didn’t help me solve  future problems? I don’t follow. I learned to write cursive, basic math (I don’t use Trig/Calc when on Amazon,  but I definitely use Algebra when at the grocery store and trying  to stay under budget while buying multiple items of varying prices), and when to shutup (though my mom would say I’m still learning and may be on Greeno’s side with that last example). And I can also recognize the limitations of school- again I maintain my stance/side of school not being the best-est place ever for a variety of learning needs/moments.  But to dismiss it entirely? That doesn’t sit right. But Greeno’s overall point of students learning how to adapt to new problems does work for me. But then again (!), that concession feels like two sides of the same coin (which the authors eventually, kind of seem to acknowledge in the end).

What I mean by that is-

1. Constructivists are focused on the learner.
2. Situatists focus on the elements of the learning/interaction (who’s there, what tools, etc) around the learner.

But even with a change/difference in focus between these approaches, the end goal of learning is the same – is it not? Maybe it isn’t… because learning is defined differently between the groups…

Either way, for this lesson, I have to keep at the forefront of my mind that each theory/approach has different assumptions; and assumptions matter in how they shape the ideas that come forth. They are distinctly different (no matter how much I personally ascribe to my coin metaphor that I coined- ha). And each approach also focuses on different elements of learning (our main foci of discussion).

As with prior articles, I found this week’s readings to be interesting as well as inclusive of the many ideas we have been reading about and discussing this semester.  The perspectives presented in the articles came from two varying points of view; cognitive and siuative.  It was also helpful that prior readings from Dewey, Skinner, Brown, and Collins were referenced in these articles because it made it somewhat easier for me to make connections between all of the concepts we have been discussing.

The debate started with Situated Learning and Education by Anderson et al.  They critiqued situated learning across four domains with respect to education:  action is grounded in the concrete situations which it occurs; knowledge does not transfer between tasks; training by abstraction is of little use; and instruction needs to be done in complex, social environments.  In thinking about the fourth claim, I went back to my experiences as an undergraduate physics major.  Most of what I learned was done independently; which is a method I have always preferred over that of doing group work and projects.  In the classes that required group projects, I found them to be difficult and stressful.  As Anderson et al. pointed out “some students complain that others exploit the system and assume that other partners in the group will do all the work (and hence acquire all the knowledge and skills)” (Anderson, pp. 10).  With this said and taking into consideration the other three claims discussed by Anderson et al., I was in agreement with their cognitive perspective.

I got to thinking though, about my observations at PFMS and how I watched first- hand AST being implemented.  The context of the classroom was one of group participation, socializing, and discourse.  All of which clearly impacted, in a positive way, the learning taking place.  Which brings me to the Greeno article On Claims That Answer the Wrong Questions in which he writes a rebuttal to Anderson et al. (1996) stating that Anderson and his colleagues used a cognitive lens in framing their “claims of situated learning” (Greeno, pp. 5).  Greeno attacks the claims by providing a two question approach for each: a situative and cognitive.  Issue two of Greeno’s discussion relates back to my earlier comments about AST and my collegiate education.  Here, Greeno makes the point that “many people who are working on educational reform are exploring the idea, consistent with the situative perspective, that we should rearrange the sequence of learning activities to include more group activities earlier” (Greeno, pp. 10).

After reading the third article Simulative Versus Cognitive Perspectives: Form Versus Substance by Anderson et al., I had a relatively clear understanding of both perspectives, however, felt like both sides were trying to explain what they wanted to say in terms of what they meant not to say.  Finally, the perspectives seem to come together, and the debate ends, in the article Perspectives on Learning, Thinking and Activity.  The idea “we agree that it is essential to develop a better understanding of relations between what is taught in classrooms and the capabilities children have and develop in their present and future non-school lives” allows for us to see the potential for both sides to be used in our role as teachers and understanding of learning.  Finally, Chapter 6 of Greeno’s Handbook of Learning Sciences discusses what he describes as the “situational perspective” and how researchers can bring together the interactional structures and cognitive methods.  I think this combination would be very helpful in guiding the design of our classrooms, promoting best practices as teachers, and selecting effective resources.

Looking at all of what I read, and thought about, I am left with thinking about a combined situative and cognitive outlook on learning.  Although I would struggle to understand the research and foundation/framework of such a perspective, I do believe both have merit in how we organize our own thoughts and beliefs on learning.  I think both individual cognition and social interactions have a place in our learning environments.  I am interested in how the class feels about this thought, and what others see as the ultimate goal we have for our students.

This week’s reading was definitely interesting!  It was wild to see the back and forth between the cognitive and situative theories of learning.  However, I feel as if much of the first three papers (Anderson et al. 1996, Greeno 1997, and Anderson et al. 1997) could have been resolved much earlier if they had just sat down and spoken with one another, instead of resorting to false claims of the opposing side and accusations of “dehumanizing” language (Anderson et al. 1997, p. 19, in response to Greeno 1997).  Once the authors were able to hammer out the true differences in perspective within Anderson et al. (2000), it became clear that although the two theories differ in their approaches to understanding learning, the theories did not in fact exclude considerations of either the individual or the group, depending on the theory.  “The cognitive approach should not be read as denying the value of learning in group activity, and the situative approach should not be read as denying the value of learning by individuals working by themselves” (Anderson et al. 2000, p. 11).  Finally, they do acknowledge the fact that both of these theories have merit in their applications and approaches, and thus, are worthy of further delving into.  In addition to this, they note that a unifying theory of the two is what should be strived towards (Anderson et al. 2000, p. 13).  Specifically, a unifying theory “is scientifically important and… it will increase the usefulness of [their] findings for informing public debates about educational policy and practice” (Anderson et al. 2000, p. 13).  I appreciated that Greeno seemed to incorporate this idea of including cognitive aspects into situative theory in Greeno (2006).  This idea of extending the cognitive side’s reach “to include situations involving interaction between more than one person” was thus Greeno’s attempt at bridging this gap between cognition as it applies to the situative approach (Greeno 2006).

References:

Anderson, J. R., Greeno, J. G., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (2000). Perspectives on Learning, Thinking, and Activity. Educational Researcher, 29(4), 11-13.

Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1996). Situated Learning and Education. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 5-11.

Anderson, J. R., Reder, L. M., & Simon, H. A. (1997). Situative Versus Cognitive Perspectives: Form Versus Substance. Educational Researcher, 26(1), 18-21.

Greeno, J. G. (1997). On Claims that Answer the Wrong Question. Educational Researcher, 26(1), 5-17.

Greeno, J. G. (2006). Learning in Activity. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of The Learning Sciences (pp. 79-96). New York: Cambridge University Press

This weeks readings were really interesting to me – Anderson et al. (1996, 1997) and Greeno (1997), at first, are pretty set in their constructivist and situativist thoughts, but by the end have collaborated to encompass both situated and cognitive theories (2000). It was also neat to see what I am remembering from the readings we’ve had so far, as many of them were cited among these papers. As there were a lot of readings this week, I tried to skim through them all initially, before going back to read more deeply, to try and get the gist of what the “great debate” was all about. As far as academic debates go, though, this was pretty tame, and I’d also argue successful as the two main authors went on to collaborate. The two sides of the debate appeared to be about two types of learning that we have discussed this semester; cognitive (where the focus is on the individuals cognition) and situative (where the focus is on the social interactions that lead to learning).
In Anderson et al. (1996), situated learning was studied from a cognitive point of view, however, in the Greeno rebuttal (1997), claims that this cognitive lens is the issue of the paper. It seems to me that most of the disagreement came about due to the language used to describe their ideas. And this reminded me of class as we so often define something, but then sit back and say ‘well, what does that mean?’, and it sometimes feels like we’re all saying the same thing. I felt like that a few times while reading these papers. The general consensus, as Anderson et al. (2000) states, “we agree that the development of educational interventions should be informed by the growing bodies of research in cognitive and social sciences” (p. 13). To me this makes it almost a non-debate. Both cognitive and situative learning have a place in learning science. But I’m likely way oversimplifying it!

What I find most interesting in this is how people’s interpreations greatly shape what is supposed to be rigid, fundamental theory. I would argue there is more agreement between situative and cognitive learning than there is more theories (ex. I think both have a lot less in common than with behavioralism), so seeing this as the “Great Debate” suprised me. I don’t find either of these theories mutually exclusive, so I am suprised Anderson and Greeno found so much disagreement between them. I find these to be some of the move evolved forms of learning theory we have been exposed to in the class, so this took me by suprise. In some ways, I find this disagreement to be odd in that the debate is centered around how they framed their examinations more than the examinations themselves. For example, Greeno in his critique (the 2nd article presented) found qualms mostly with their framing of questions around the tenets of situated learning, not the situated learning theory itself. On a personal note, in some ways, I feel like the little girl in the El Paso commercials looking at these theories. “Why not both?” Can both of the authors be making valid points and can there be co-existence with these their statements? After all, theories have clearly proven to be open to interpretation- in some cases can one be more right than another? Reading both Anderson and Greeno’s points I feel like a lot of time they themselves recognized the other sides points, and potential situations in which their points would be absolutely correct. Maybe their earlier works just portrayed trying to find structure and rigidity in theories that work best in certain situations over others. Maybe I’m a hopeless optimistic that we can all be friends at the end of the day. I’m not entirely sure.

I don’t even really know what to write cause I do not find disagreement with any of the statements made, it comes off to me very much like they are focusing on a smaller area of disagreement than looking to a larger widespread area of agreement. Anderson tries to soften some of the rigid assumptions of situated learning (that theres limited transfer, abstract learning is useless, etc.) which I agree with. “Such observations call for closer analyses of the task demands and the use of the analyses to devise teachable procedures that will achieve a teachable balance between the advantages of generality and the advantages of incorparating enough situational context to make transfer likely.” (Anderson, Reder, and Simon 1996, P.2). I personally do feel situated learnings criticisms are overstated. In general, sometimes in practice certain users of these theories (or, their critics) try to incorparate too many absolutes into their use or criticism of a given theory, and situated learning is one of the prime examples of that. I feel that Anderson et al. 1996 is trying to argue against that more than even in defense of situated learning. And then I believe Greeno illustrates instances these questions fail to properly and accurate address, which he can be correct about, but he is treating these theories like a catch all instead of treating them like different lenses- some focused better than others in a given situation.

The articles this week really helped me understand more the fundamentals of situated theory and cognitive theory.  To me, it was also great insight into how progress is made when two models have ‘disagreements.’  I put disagreements in quotes, because I am not sure I would categorize this debate as one that stems from disagreement.  At no point did either response say directly, “I think you’re wrong!”  In fact, the first pushback we read directly states that they do not disagree with the evidence that is suggested by Anderson et al.  The debate mainly focuses using the same vocabulary in some cases, and whether or not differentiating between situated theory and cognitive theory when asking questions is helpful.  To me, I see merit to having a consensus on vocabulary, although this is difficult to do.

These readings also helped me to think more about all of the learning theories in general.  Again, it seemed that neither theory directly disagreed with the fundamentals of the other group.  I am trying to think back to when we talked about the phenomenon of a tree growing, and how a physicist will have a different answer than a biologist when asked to explain what is happening.  A similar thing is happening here, although behaviorism may be an exception.  In fact, in Anderson’s second paper (Situated vs. Cognitive Perspectives: Form vs. Substance), they equate one aspect of situated theory to sounding “like Skinner’s description of his behaviorist utopia.” (p 20).  To me, it seems like they are suggesting that the idea is bad because it sounds like a behaviorist, and we are way past that idea.  The point is, a physicist will not disagree with a biologist and vice versa.  The only difference is what areas each choose to focus on.

I also think the conclusion of this debate is interesting.  It seems as though both agreed that research should be done with both theories in order to better understand learning.  I am left to wonder, though, how a theory eventually gets to be like Skinner’s behaviorism.  If situated theory and cognitive theory are being grappled with the same way the cognitive theory and behaviorism were in the past (which was suggested somewhere, I just can’t find it), then what happened that made behaviorism less accepted?  Or, am I understating the importance/acceptance of behaviorism?  I have other questions as well, so I will list them here and see if they resonate with anyone.  Is this common to have researchers mention each other by name in papers like this?  Was this the best medium for a ‘debate?’

Funny how in the past many readings, I never felt tension between the constructivist and situativist learning theories, when that seems to be the crux this academic feud. After skimming the papers a first time to get an overview of this “great debate”, I was left thinking about the question Greeno posed in his 1997 response, “How is it possible to disagree with someone’s questions?” (pg. 5) Throughout this class, if I’ve learned one thing (besides learning is a process) it’s that theories focus on different parts of learning and there are many ways to unfairly compare theories by uisng them in ways they aren’t designed. In that way, I really appreciated this reading series, because it’s rare to see authors (i.e. Greeno) deliberately address the misaligned assumptions that lead to supposedly incongruous theories.

When you boil all the papers down, there’s no reason why learning can’t be situative and constructed. Situated learning is a top down view that what you learn is irremovable from the context where you learned it and constructivism is a bottom up view that learners build their own knowledge. What I notice (and we talked about in class and is mentioned in the readings) is that both of these theories involve a social aspect. Perhaps this is why the sociocultural models are presently taking over? Both groups of theorists come together to agree that “In our view, both perspectives, as part of the liberal tradition, can find, albeit with varying emphases and degrees of success, ways of paying respect to the importance of human individuality, the importance of social practices, and the importance of education to the development of individual identity and to the advancement of a fair, just, caring, and productive society.” (Anderson et al. 2000, pg. 11)

However, after all this reading, I still have a general confusion over the abstraction of learning, as this is where I really can’t resolve the two theories. One could argue that the situative perspective excludes “general knowledge” and the cognitive theory ignores the fundamental difference between learning at school and in the real world. Realistically though, no one is running around saying if you learn how to tie your shoes at school you can’t do it at home. Likewise, no one is claiming school is a perfect representation of the real world. Essentially, I’ve learned making these black&white comparison statements always ends out sounding naive (i.e. wow these smart and nerdy guys have thought about these terms for years I’m not going to write a single sentence or paragraph to poke a hole in a theory). If we go back to my (lol jk Greeno’s) original point – it’s all in the questions we ask and the assumptions we make. Once Greeno, Anderson, and co-workers come together to share some common goals, such as “develop[ing] a better understanding of relations between what is taught in classrooms and the capabilities children have and should develop in their present and future nonschool lives” (Anderson et al. 2000, pg. 12) they are able to talk about action items for teachers that include both situative and cognitive approaches.

After reading this entire discussion, I would like to end with part of a bullet point of part of an abstract of one paper (a real tl;dr) which is “educational innovations should be informed by the available scientific knowledge base and should be evaluated and analyzed with rigorous research methods.” (Anderson et al. 2000) Really, regardless of what education theory we’re talking about, it is our job as inquiry-based practitioners to inform our teaching methods with current scientific knowledge.

When I started reading about the debate I was trying to understand who was right and wrong and I had some difficulties understanding Greeno because it was easier for me to understand Anderson (but probably it is only because what Anderson talks about is what I am used in school). Later, as I kept reading and as Geeno tried to make a synthesis “it is valuable to develop ways to bring concepts and methods from the 2 programs together” I came to a realization about all the theories we have looked at so far. Even if I honestly still don’t have a clear idea in my mind of how I think learning happens, for sure I realized that I am not leaning toward only one theory. I think that all these theories have something true in them and that they consider different aspects of the person. When Anderson says “we expect that they will be better physics students at year’s end for having had a year’s study of calculus” I can see in my experience that there were things that I learned in a more “abstract way” that became useful later but I also agree with Greeno that “generality depends on learning to participate in interactions in ways that succeed over a broad range of situations”. I came to realize that it would be wrong for me to choose which theory is right because they are all attempts and sometimes they are partial. So, in making order in my mind I see that these theories are not in contrast with each other but they each underline an aspect of learning. For example, if I think about Vygotsky we know that our mind and our learning are influenced by the external world but I don’t agree with a deterministic way of looking at the human being as determined completely by the external world. I can see in my way of learning that the 4 criteria used by the cognitive theory play a role, even if it does not happen in a cold way and it is pretty unconscious as a process. Even the idea of knowledge negotiated in the community is of course important and true but it is not the only aspect of learning. In my experience, I also noticed that we can’t treat all the students in the same way. I am trying to understand how I think about learning putting what we have studied together.

This week’s reading was comprised of a set of articles in which Anderson et al. and Greeno initially debate some of the details and language involved in situated learning, but ultimately come together to argue for a more unified, yet still complex, perspective including both situated and cognitive learning theories. Anderson et al.’s initial critique of the interpreted educational applications from situated theory seemed useful and necessary to me. We’ve discussed in class how many researchers that we’ve read purposely chose not to address educational applications of theory, in part, as Anderson et al. allude to, because the application of theory is often extremely complex owing to the complexity of students, teachers and the learning environment itself. For this reason, I’m not surprised that some interpretations for application may have strayed from theory, and I think it’s valuable that Anderson et al. attempted to address these misinterpretations by emphasizing that we take into account the nuances and contingent nature of situated theory. 

Greeno’s response seemed to focus primarily on language – advocating for clearer or different language in Anderson et al.’s initial discussion. While I can see the value of language specificity, I found his response to be a bit petty, particularly since in the end I felt that, like Anderson et al., he argued for a synthesis of cognitive and “situative” perspectives. Anderson et al.’s response to Greeno ultimately asserts that the most effective future research and synthesis would stem from the cognitive perspective as it takes into account social and individual perspectives. This, interestingly, stands in contrast to Greeno’s chapter on “learning in activity” in which he places the emphasis on “activity systems” as a means to synthesize cognitive and “interactional” studies from a situative approach. Greeno’s introduction of the interactional approach which focuses on activity systems (“complex social organizations containing learners, teachers, curriculum materials, software tools, and the physical environment” p. 79) seems to offer a new, even more holistic perspective on learning. His discussion certainly seems to include bits and pieces of Lave’s legitimate peripheral participation and communities of practice, as well as threads from Vygotsky’s work on signs, language and discourse. 

In the final piece of the back-and-forth (the article published in 2000), Anderson et al. and Greeno join forces to offer a slightly different take on the ongoing theme by claiming that the field ought to work towards a less dichotomous and more coherent/inclusive theory of learning that involves both the situative and cognitive perspectives. One of the pieces of this week’s reading that I found most interesting was Greeno’s reminder of this debate’s place in the long history of learning theory. In his 1997 response, he states that “The situation we are in as a field resembles the one we were in some 30 years ago when the cognitive perspective was in an early stage of development.” (p. 15). He goes on to describe the early prominence of behaviorist theories and the resistance to the shifts in numerous realms of educational theory research that cognitive studies brought about. I found it salient to consider that debate and discussion are indeed primary means of scientific progress, and although the debate we explored this week seemed petty at times, the larger goal of moving learning theory and application forward was never lost on the authors nor on me, as a reader.

As we have seen each week in our readings, there are many views, positions, and studies on how learning takes place.   I have discovered that researchers in this field seemingly align with one of three overarching theories: behaviorism, cognitive development and sociocultural.  However, some of the views within each framework overlap as well as, crosscut.  With that said, this week’s articles brought together the larger pieces of the frameworks and filled in some of the smaller spaces on how they apply to strategies, goals, and activities in the classroom.   Extracting these strategies and their applicability to teaching is helping me to formulate ideas about teaching physics to high school students.  I will highlight the information from each article that stood out to me and which I believe will shape my strategies, goals, and activities in my classroom.

First from Constructing Scientific Knowledge in the Classroom, the excerpt of the teacher’s interaction with students really resonated with me.  Here, there are examples of scaffolding and teacher support that illustrate ways in which the students attach personal meanings in the social context of the classroom.  Interestingly, one of the experiences unfolding for the students was about air pressure.  This example was very much similar to my first lesson at PFMS which involved similar concepts.  Unlike the expert in the article’s scenario, I was myself, a new comer to engaging students.  “The teacher had carefully engaged students in activities and discourse to support them in constructing the science view, and yet we see students experiencing real difficulties in making those science models meaningful and appropriating them for themselves” (Driver, pp. 11).  As a novice, I do not think I was able to engage students in discourse enough for them to gain an understanding of the experience.  I do believe however, that these real-life teaching lessons are helping me to better understand my role as the teacher, which is essential if my students are going “adopt scientific ways of knowing” (Driver, pp. 11).

Secondly, I see teaching as learning process for both me and for the students.  In the article Distributed expertise in the classroom, two forms of collaborative learning are discussed: reciprocal teaching and the jigsaw method.  I believe that reciprocal teaching brings together several other research ideas that we have discussed and as such, I found it to be information helpful in shaping my teaching.  “Reciprocal teaching was deliberately designed to evoke zones of proximal development within which novices could take on increasing responsibility for more expert roles” (Brown, pp. 196).  Further, the authenticity of the task is maintained and remains the same allowing for consistency of the goal and desired outcome.  “There is little room for confusion about the point of the activity” (Brown, pp. 196).  Next is the jigsaw method, which is a collaborative learning structure I plan on incorporating into my next lesson at PFMS.   This uses small groups in which research on a part of a classroom topic is done by the students, and then they teach it to others.  “All children in a learning group are experts on one part of the material, teach it to others, and prepare questions for the test that all will take on the complete unit” (Brown, pp. 197).

The third article Beyond Cold Conceptual Change: The Role of Motivational Beliefs and Classroom Contextual Factors in the Process of Conceptual Change introduced me to the ideas of motivational constructs and how the characteristics of the classroom context can influence both student motivation and cognition.  The authors believe that students’ motivational beliefs specific to choosing to do a task and then the ability to perform the task are key components within the context of the classroom.   Their information more detailed, outlined the following beliefs and process of conceptual change: interest and value, self-efficacy, and control.  Unlike the other concerns and proposed remedies of the article, motivational orientations were a factor in learning I had not considered in my teaching.  To this end, I believe we are using AST and other strategies to restructure the classroom and ideally schools to “foster the development of a community of intentional, motivated, and thoughtful learners” (Pintrich, pp. 193).