Deb's notes from the rWeek 4 reading
Week 4 – Community-based organizations
Vocabulary: From Nicolopolou & Cole Collective reality Collaborative learning Shared knowledge Culture of collaborative learning Institutional fit Activity system Social cohesion Interactional density
Food for thought From Nicolopolou & Cole
One of the most central and distinctive principles of the Vygotskian perspective is that the formation of mind is essentially and inescapably a sociocultural process; consequently, it can be grasped only by situating individual development in its sociocultural context. (p. 283)
Extending the notice of what it means to be “social” or [the] interpsychological context of development exclusively in terms of face-to-face interactions in dyadic pairs (or, rarely in small groups)… to address more systematically the institutional and cultural contexts within which face-to-face interactions occur and that structure their nature and impact. (p.283)
Goal of the 5th D work: (p.211) 1. to situate specific interactions in the context of a cultural and institutional framework that is understood as a genuinely collective reality. 2. Finding a way to study genuinely collaborative learning, primarily by tracing the generation and transmission of shared knowledge.
The potential educational contributions of computer technology cannot be evaluated in isolation; rather, it is necessary to examine how computers – and other resources – can be integrated effectively into larger systems of educational practice. (p.212 – 213)
The 5th D is fundamentally an activity system with a certain specific inner logic. The goal is to create a context that can promote collaborative learning and within which children themselves are motivated to progress step by step, so that they are actively involved in their own development rather than simply receiving information from people. (p.219)
The interplay of choice and discipline… is embedded in an attempt to integrate play and imagination into the educational process. [Very much connected to the field of youth development and what they purport as fundamental features of environments that promote healthy YD]
Play is always a learning activity because it requires learning and grasping these rules, seeing that they form a system, elaborating them, and mastering the possibilities of the form of practice they constitute.
Interesting finding of the 5th D:
1. Same content and materials – but developed very different patterns of operation and of cognitive results over the course of a year – and the paper shows how these differences were a result of their being embedded in different sociocultural contexts. 2. Conclusion: a. Differences in the degree of cognitive success associated with the task-activity on which they focused, can be explained in large part by the different types of common culture developed at each 5th D site. Culture of Collaborative Learning. (p.211) • The pattern of interactions 1. The quantity and quality of problem-solving interactions. • The degree of commitment to, and involvement in, the play-world of the 5th D and its system of rules. b. The strength or weakness of the culture of collaborative learning depended on the “institutional fit” – degree of affinity between the internal culture of the 5th D program and the larger cultural environment of the host institution. (p. 211)
• Two distinct patterns of knowledge generation and accumulation explained by the nature of degrees of institutional fit and thus degrees of culture of collaborative learning that developed. [This can also occur within groups within a program (e.g., YouthMAP and the OLMs, the Angels, the Wizards, etc.)] • The library site was more successful at a. generating and maintaining a culture of collaborative learning, b. and thus having stronger social cohesion and thus resulted in greater cognitive gains. c. Greater degree of interactional density
The punchline found at top of p.309
In short, the key point is that the culture of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club and that of the 5th D were not fully integrated with each other, at least in comparison with the situation at the Library; rather than being mutually supportive, to a considerable extent the culture of the Club and that of the5th D. were working against each other. Each of these cultural systems embodies an approach to development – explicit or implicit – that might (hypothetically) have served as a basis for successful learning activity; but in practice they interfered with each other. The consequence was a weaker culture of collaborative learning than at the Library site and a correspondingly lower degree of cognitive success.
From Cole, Quan, & Woodbridge
Vocabulary Authentic experience Activity theory
Food for Thought The 5th D project is fundamentally about creating after school activities for school-aged children as supplements to school learning. The strong role that choice and voluntary participation play in the design of the learning environment.
Their approach draws upon Dewey and Activity-theory – by seeking to ground children’s exercise of basic skills in activities, the goals of which are comprehensible to children, thereby constituting what Dewey termed “authentic experience.”
Activity Theory:
Emphasize curricula that allows children to participate in academic work alongside more capable peers and adults where they use, practice, and master basic skills as means to gaining control over, and responsibility for, their own actions. In addition to the fact that these activities take place during after school hours, increased quantity and quality of time on task are achieved not through more efficient methods of administrative control, but by the active, voluntary, engagement of children motivated by the tasks themselves.
Evaluating the System: • The institutional level – focus on increasing staff and facility commitments • The activity as a whole – monitored attendance*, parent evaluations, and achievement o Skill assessments • The face-to-face construction/performance of the activity – field notes as “micro-process” indicators. From field notes: “The fact that I can make a suggestion to the girls when they run out of ideas…” [guided practice, highlights the role of the more capable peers and adults and collaborative learning and the development of shared knowledge.]
“These kids are really bright when they are given the opportunity to shine.” [youth as resources – YD principle]
The punchline: Use activity theory to guide the creation of new forms of activity that are simultaneously new opportunities for research on the development of training. The problem of evaluating this system requires a methodology that integrates data of different kinds. What constitutes legitimate data at the level of the institution and activity-as-a-whole (The 5th D) necessarily is of a different kind than those needed to describe the dialogues of children and adults playing games together.
From Kim, chapter 5
Vocabulary Community Technology Center (CTC) Accessibility Safety Youth development – choice, youth as resource CBO – community based organization Sense of safety – sense of belonging – skill building Practice
Food for Thought Space as co-constructed, dynamic, & socially constructed – rather than tangible/concrete/stable
Psychological impacts of space features (e.g., accessibility, safety, learning, assessment)
Metaphors for a space – a design principle?
Access to space
Pathways to TTA by youth – so the “learning space” was not just TTA, but started way before youth even go there.
Many of the practices and components of access and safety that I describe as co-constructions, are things that not even good learning space designers are going to be able to design for, however, they are considerations to keep in mind that the learning space has a life of it’s own and will be shaped by the stakeholders over time.