nmost cases, the science games are single player, but there are also a number of gamesthat require smaller groups of players, as well as community-based science gamesthat involve all Whyvillians.
Interesting. This makes me think of how community-based science games or individual games in general can be constructed as a space in which FoK is shared. Others who have successfully completed the games either alone or together with others, can inform others on how to do so.
An alternative approach to studying transfer is rooted in an ethnographic tradition thatis sometimes called situated, everyday, or distributed cognition.1
As seen in FoK (Moll Tapia and Witmore 1993) and FW research read earlier in semester. But are these "psychology" research?
Similarly, Gutiérrez and Rogoff (2003) argue for grounding “observations across multiple settings and communities and [assuming] various vantage points to understand the complexity of hu-man activity” (p. 23).
Which in the end is the point, right? TO understand the complexity of human activity. This is also referencing the fields of knowledge
In coordinating with each other, people show themselves, to those who would look carefully, to be orderly, knowledgeable, and precise.
Funds of Knowledge all over the place. I mean, you always look "carefully" to the ones around you...
the opportunities for learning that emerge as people, tools, practices, and interests move across settings and across the social contexts or activity systems that constitute any given setting
This resonates to me as a missing piece of the Arizona border communities/FoK piece, as it was clearly stated that they changed jobs frequently but no indication of the learning and the transfer of information associated was made.
By understanding the individual and his or her cultural means in rela-tion to his or her contexts of development, this approach understands learning as a distributed phenomenon and, thereby, contests the tenden-cy to create the Cartesian divide between the individual and the social
This notion certainly maps well to the example of the extended families that we see when we discussed Funds of Knowledge. The emphasis here on physical places could help us broaden our view of funds of knowledge, perhaps thinking that different physical spaces could themselves offer access to different funds of knowledge.
How can a multi-sited sensibility help make visible the complexity and ingenuity of human development, particularly in the con-text of migration, diaspora, and other forms of transnational and inter-cultural movement? We argue that multi-sited perspectives contribute to this discussion by urging us to pay equal attention to the practices and forms of human ingenuity that emerge in and through the connections/tensions/contradictions within and across various social spaces and activity systems—particularly for non-dominant youth.
As seen through Rogoff's families in the Arizona borderlands, they have FoKs and rely on each other as resources to make their transition to the states. Their resourcefulness cannot be discounted.
What differentresources change the production ofspace?
I might add here how FoK, unless that falls under "resourcees," change the production of space.
theordinarylanguagetheybringtotheexperi-
FoK!
Theinformationdeskstaffwereconstantlyoutoftheirseatsteachingpeoplehowtousethecomputerstoaccomplishtheirgoals
So you might say the staff were key resources in positioning the computers as part of the visitors' potential FoK? Or, that the staff mediated interactions between visitors and computers?
For example, if the museum has an operating steam locomotive (as many do), the boy may have been surprised to find out that they are much louder, larger, dirtier, and scarier than he might have imagined. Because their previous shared experiences have con-tributed to a shared knowledge base about trains, family conversations dur-ing the museum visit would have been richer and more focused. Similarly, the experience of the visit provides subsequent opportunities to extend!§: and deepen the on-going family conversation about trains as the boy and his parents wait later at a railroad crossing for a freight train to pass, look at snapshots from the museum visit, or read a new book about trains.
As Oscar pointed out above, the conversation between children and parents is a great example of Funds of Knowledge. But I also think the museum itself works to enrich the childrens' fund, that they will continue to draw on.
As Moll et. al. explained, the museum/train exhibit is functioning as a "cultural resource that mediates thinking as distributed dynamically in interpersonal relationships among people, their artifacts, and their environments" (Pg 139).
The parents would probably make many more through explanations, descriptions, and questions intended to help the boy interpret the visit through the lens of their shared prior knowledge about trains
This is FoK in action, as parents provide their knowledge to help the boy navigate the basic concepts and ideas of trains.
Even when a child ~~,.).Q..-( t:,V loses interest and an island of ex,Pertise begins to fade, the abstract and gen-(\...! 'f-A. <g \ era! themes that used the islands rich knowledge as a launching pa~ll re-4-iA ~~ . -\ , (_ IC main connected to children's otfler knowledge.
Connects to FoK because Moll et al describes thinking as a distribution of knowledge through social interactions. However, this takes FoK a step further by saying that though the content knowledge may be limited for a certain time depending on interests invested, the implicit learning that occurred will be carried over to another 'island'.
Entering the building, we took the elevator to the third floor, mostly because of the idea of the “Education Center”, to find out that there was nothing happening neither there nor in the Theater (also third floor).
I am surprised by the lack of FoK...no one told you those floors were closed? No one in the elevator knew either?
Many argue, for example, that youths’ participation in social change requires themto understand systemic legacies of inequality and racism in the United States,which might require some form of educational intervention by adults (Ginwright& James, 2002; Tejeda, Espinoza, & Gutierrez, 2003)
This is a characteristic of inquiry/project based learning. Learning the history of inequality/racism while engaging in activism gives the information context. If "teachers" cannot bring this awareness to youths then you're limiting their role as a resource/FoK.
In the intent participation tradition, experienced people play a guiding role, facil-itating learners’ involvement and often participating alongside learners—indeed,often learning themselves. New learners in turn take initiative in learning andcontributing to shared endeavors, sometimes offering leadership in the process.In contrast, in assembly-line instruction, experienced people manage learners’behavior and communication. They subdivide the task, often directing but notactually participating in the activity at hand. They serve as experts, and the learners,in turn, are supposed to cooperate in receiving instruction and information andcarrying out assignments.
Here's another great example of intent participation versus school learning.
I wonder how we might move from transmission to facilitation? I think that the classroom described in the Moll, et. al. that we read last week is actually a great example, but it would take a lot of effort to break out of the assembly line mode into a more collaborative, inquiry-based model.
interest and pleasure that people gain arises through theirindividual engagement with the art work.
Individual views vs. interactive behavior: seems like FoK playing here.
itraises important questions concerning the circumstances or occasions onwhich objects and artefacts are viewed and of the competencies that peoplebring to bear in their recognition and interpretation.
Viewing an artwork (or an exhibit in a museum) is not an experience that happens in a vacuum. People understand what they are experiencing within the context of their own social world and based on interactions with those around them (both those they know and those they don't).
Indeed, whatpeople choose to look at in a museum or gallery, how long they spend withan exhibit, and how they look at and experience particular objects andartefacts may well arise in and through interaction with others – not justthose they may be with but others who happen to be within ‘perceptual rangeof the event’ (cf. Goffman, 1981)
Isn't the "fund of knowledge" one has access a chief thing governing this as well? After all, what is shaping the interest in being in the museum in the first place?
The conduct of others within the same space can feature in how peopleorient, what people choose to look at and how they experience particularobjects, artefacts and events
I'm thinking of this in relation to the classroom discussion in FoK - the students were contributing different knowledges, this influenced (but not totally replaced) the ways that a student would then understand the topic
designed to display and encourage a way of seeing, of making sense, ofexperience by other
Co-participation within museum setting - relates to Resnick's shared cognition and FoK's emphasis on relationships and context.
In this article, we examine how people in and through interactionwith others, explore, examine and experience a mixed-media installation
Distributed thinking, distributed cognition, as in FoK
he design of products and environmentsto be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adapta-tion or specialized design.
One way for us to conceptualize this would be to think of designs which do not necessitate access to any particular knowledge which may not be contained in some "funds of knowledge."
Our studies on physical interactivity have shown that it is not a simple and universalprescription for effective learning
Overall finding here. Effective learning can be a loaded term. What other pieces of the FoK are missing here?
Perry and Tisdal suggest that one factor in accounting for the long holding times at APEexhibits is that, unlike the traditional exhibits studied, the APE exhibits were designed tosupport the use of exhibits by more than one member of a social group. This is compatiblewithfindings by Borun and Dritsas (1997) that exhibits that allow for multiple simultaneoususers facilitate family learning, at least in the absence of the kinds of interference problemsthat Allen and Gutwill (2004) describe
Is this a kind of FoK?
Weexpect these institutions to provide a hugely diverse visiting public with entertainment, thefreedom to choose their own path, follow their personal interests, do their own inquiry, andcreate their own meanings. Yet at the same time, we want our museums to be respectededucational institutions where people can spend an hour and come away having learned somecanonical science.
Much like the negotiation of curriculum in the FoK reading, but with the additional constraint of not having access to the counterpart in the negotiation
. These funds of knowledge are sociallyinherited and culturally reproduced and developed (or discarded),and their distribution is a constant and dynamic characteristic ofhousehold life
This whole section on relationships and networks to build funds of knowledge, especially those that are intergenerational, is directly related to work in social justice efforts (especially in learning ally practices for people from privileged groups)
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.
There is a box stuffed to overflowing with books pub-lished by individual children and collaborative small groups
Publishing as a way to "save" for the FoK
Just as onthe first day, the children use the present to understand the past, andthe past to clarify the present:
I think this description highlights an important act of FoK, they "stretch" across social environments and time (here years)
Aaron has several areas of expertise to sharewith his classmates and teachers on a regular basis: He is a talentedartist, he knows a great deal about his favorite animal and pet, thegecko, and he is aware and articulate about his Jewish cultural back-ground.
I love that from this perspective, the children themselves have much to offer. It's great to look at children as contributors to funds of knowledge.