My main idea about where we go from here is how do we identify specific instructional elements as cognitive or situative or socio-culturalist, and so on. I feel equipped to examine these theories in the abstract, and when the buzz words are present they become much more identifiable- but I still feel I’d have a hard time looking at an assessment a teacher gave and seeing those theoretical elements for what they are. I understand where AST lies within these different broad theories, but I wouldn’t be sure about too much else being honest. And AST in and of itself is more a framework than anything, but I’m talking about knowing how to examine and identify specific instruction choices we make and link it to certain theories. Like when a teacher utilizes mock interviews, what kind of framework are they leaning on? Or when a teacher decides to have students teach other students about a topic they are personally interested, what does that fall under? I would like to know these things so when I see other successful educators doing assessments and techniques, I can identify where to place them within the theoretical frameworks I know and then use that to help me consider if I will bring them into my teaching and how so.
Speaking of AST, its good that now I can situate that within the greater teaching elements and theories that have led to the development of education- specifically science education- as it is today. It’s nice to see what family of ideas its in, because now as a teacher I can go look in that same category of ideas (legitimate peripheral participation) for more methods and instruction ideas to benefit my students in the classroom. Legitimate Peripheral Participation is definitely something I believe in- I’ll spare space on that here in this blog post and save it for my essay- but knowing where to look for things that are similar to what I know works is going to be something I definitely utilize in my future teaching career. Because of this class, I feel more equipped to look at all of the different ways people view knowing and learning and how to interact with such loaded ideas as the theoretical frameworks have presented over the course of the semester.
I think I am very unclear about the notion of transfer and I think recapping that would be a good thing. I noticed this in writing my final framework that I am not certain about a lot of different elements concerning it. I definitely could use a transfer for dummies or something, cause I understand the basic notions, but talking about it at a deeper level than previous in my framework made me realzie that I still have a lot of confusion. What dictates transfer? How does transfer work from a situated perspective versus a cognitive one? Anderson and Greeno talked about that a little, but msotly ended up aruging about the way the questiosn were worded instead of specifics.
What you said about transfer is the reason why in a previous class I kept asking Scott: ” what do situated kids have in their mind?” because I got that transfer was a cognitive idea and not a situated one. For what I understand the cognitive idea of transfer means that you learn an idea and then you apply it, which means that you transfer it to a situation. The situated theory does not consider a transfer that happens after you learn something, the situated theory talks about students using practices that become part of their identity. So in the situated theory when a student in a different following situation is using a practice like asking questions is not asking questions because he leanred in theory that he has to ask questions in a real situation (a cognitive kid would do that) but asking questions became a practice that is part of his identity. He had so much experience of asking questions in the community that this became his attitude, part of who he is. So he does not need transfer, asking questions is part of who he is, it is what he leanred to do in investigations.
Tom, I really enjoyed reading this response, because I feel the same in many instances. I feel like I could identify each theory using my words, but being able to identify them in the world might be more difficult. Honestly, even identifying them using my words might be tough, and I say that because if Scott reads this he might make me do it. I also think transfer is a bit tricky. I think a fundamental difference between a situated theory of learning and a conceptual change model comes down to transfer. Conceptual change thinks knowing means having concepts in your head, so you can carry them around with you: transfer. Situated folks don’t think about knowing this way.