- Dec 2015
- Nov 2015
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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n her everyday life, Rachel and her family cared for stray and abandonedcats awaiting adoption through a local animal shelter. We often observed her readily pauseher game play to monitor a cat’s health or attend to its needs. In-game however, Rachel’sdecisions about the animals she was caring for as zookeeper were driven by monetary gainrather than the happiness or well-being of the animals.
This has interesting implications for the argument learning in simulations - because in game, Rachel's values are in direct contrast to her values in world.
Games inherently have a way to win, and it seems that "beating the game" is more important to Rachel than her real-life values. I wonder if the decisions she makes in-game have any predictive power over how she will choose when faced with similar situations in-life. Will she spend her real money and continue to care for stray cats as an adult, or will she be "driven by monetary gain"?
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in the variation of stances that Tylertakes, we see his working out among important consociates in his life a moral stance oncheating. He is both an unabashed user of cheats, sporting a somewhat transgressive personalreputation he values at times, and, at the same time, someone who does not want his playwith friends interpreted as unfair—thus the overt display of his hands during the openingsequence to show his competitors that he is not entering cheat codes
It's interesting to frame this in morality, because I'm not sure that using a "cheat code" is actually cheating, since it is built into the game by the designers.
It definitely gets at inequalities - since the cheat code user needs to have access to the websites, manuals, etc, that list the codes - but I'm still wondering if it could actually be classified as cheating (in the same way that doping in sports, or plagiarism is).
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Virtual worlds offer equallyinteresting opportunities that allow players to participate in simulated experiences.
I think this connects in with many of the conversations that we've been having about authenticity. What does one learn in a simulated context, and is that learning as valuable as an "authentic" experience?
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‘‘youth space, a place to gather and see and be seen bypeers.’’ Socializing is the driving force of these virtual worlds
I agree with the above connections to Nespor - but I think that there is also a great connection here to Figured Worlds. This line can be read as the definition of the figured world of Whyville.
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Equity-oriented scale-making projects involve interrupting the flows of people,technologies, and practices that comprise entrenched systems. These interruptionsmatter for what becomes consequential learning for individuals and communitiesand for the development of social and cultural practices. The staff at FreshRootsare challenging how the scale—the social, temporal, and spatial reach—of thelocal food economy has negatively affected and further marginalized the residentsof North Place
I wonder if this could be the difference that Jasmine was hinting at. Vossoughi and Gutierrez argue that multi-sited observations are an analytical tool to help the researcher understand the context of any type learning. Here, Jurrow and Shea are specifically interested in educational interventions that work to create a more just society. Scale making is about understanding how marginalized populations learn within and overcome entrenched injustices.
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Our use of the termscalerefers to the system oftemporal, social, and spatial relations in which that thing exists and has meaning.We use scale making as an analytic lens to studyhowpeople are thinking across
I think the key here is across - which is how it relates to the Vossoughi and Gutierrez. To really understand the full system of a subject's temporal, social, and spatial relations, you need to observe across multiple sites.
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www.wlwv.k12.or.us www.wlwv.k12.or.us
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userwhoconfessedtonotknowanythingaboutprogrammingandwhobeganparticipatinginthecommunity,heedingtoadviceandsuggestionsthecommunityoffered.Hementionedthathehadnowbeenhiredasadeveloper,andwassharinghisstoryasamotivationforothers
This is an interesting connection to what we discussed earlier this semester about AA stories. Do other users have similar stories? If so, how is this "master narrative" used to socialize people into the community?
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sharewithmesomeofwhatisn’tseeninthecommunity
Are there public (or private) guidelines that they follow in their moderation or is it entirely subjective?
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whichthecommunityhasdeemedtohavebeenriches
Is there also a way to see the conversations that the community deems poorest? Is there such a thing as a stupid question? Do respondants ever refer questioners to another thread where their question has already been answered? Is there a way that you can learn something from comparing the two?
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doc-0g-ag-prod-03-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com doc-0g-ag-prod-03-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com
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attending to horizontal forms of learning challenges traditional notions of “transfer” by making central the hybridization and transformation of practices, rather than their mere reproduction or application. Expertise itself is thereby widened to include the negotiation of various contexts and the development of hybrid solu-tions: border and genre-crossing practices that demand their own distinct skills and strategies. Research that makes central the mutual constitution of vertical and horizontal forms of learning can contribute to developing the documentation and assessment appropriate for afterschool and out-of-school learning, and identifying points of leverage and coordination such that the interests, questions, ideas, practices, and tools sparked in
This passage really spoke to me because it frames how learning works in a really powerful way.
Too often, we think of learning as transmission - I need to pass on my worldview/values to the next generation, otherwise my culture may not survive - but what the authors here (and all of the readings this semester) seem to be getting at is a more complex view of how people learn through participation and experience. An educator can't tell someone what to learn, they need to learn it for themselves. It's the educator's job to guide the learning, but ultimately real learning only happens when the learner sees the relevance for him/herself and their own life.
Showing that there are other ways that we experience learning in the world, besides the framework of vertical acquisition, is really inspiring and motivating for me.
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problematizing the view of out-of-school learning as “frivolous” or “incidental” does not mean that we should swing to the other extreme, “relegating all good things to out-of-school, with school only seen as a repressive space” (p. 83). This is particularly important for ethnographic research that seeks to understand learners’ experiences of educational exclusion and inclusion. Do the boundaries of certain educational con-texts or academic domains, inside or outside school, feel more or less
[note that I couldn't create an annotation when I highlighted across two pages - I intended this to be commenting up until the end of the paragraph on the next page]
This helps a bit to answer my question from above - but I think it also relates to our conversations this week about desettling disciplines vs. desettling learning in general. Desettling can (and should) happen both outside and inside school, but it's also important to remember that definitional boundaries do exist for a reason, and practitioners should use caution and not just desettle for desettling's sake.
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Are the forms of participation val-ued in one setting met with disciplinary responses in another? If so, how might young people subsequently interpret their own roles and capabili-ties differently across settings?
I'm not sure how relevant this is to everyone, but in the Jewish ed. world there is a lot of talk about making school more like camp. Leaders and policy makers see the success of sleep away camps at helping kids develop an identification with the Jewish people (which is a priority for many of these same leaders/policy makers) and so both Day School and Supplementary School educators are told to bring camp-like experiential modalities into their classrooms.
I'm wondering however if this is a caution against that kind of thinking? Do Vossoughi & Gutiérrez (and other advocates of multisited ethnography) think that borders between the various sites need to be defined or if the borders are permeable, is this kind of analysis harder?
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people are part of multiple activity systems, and that the relations and contradictions that exist between activity systems are central to the analysis of human activity and experience (Engeström, 2009; Gutiérrez & Arzubiaga, 2012). This insight becomes especially important for learning to recognize and meaningfully leverage the multiple activity systems, histories, and experi-ences that are present in a given educational setting, particularly those that may be marginalized or dormant in terms of their potential role in expansive forms of learning
Here the authors are saying that understanding how cultural context affects learning across sites is critical to understanding how learning is happening.
This connects with Nespor's (multisited) research on field trips, where the docents did not take any sort of context into account - they just gave over their script the same way they would have for any other group. Nespor described how this was especially problematic for a mostly African American group visiting Monticello, since they completely obfuscated any historical references to slavery.
Using the kind of framework that Vossoughi & Gutiérrez are advocating for only further underlines Nespor's point that educators need to take into account an understanding of the whole person - including their cultural perspective - otherwise they'll lose interest before walking in the door.
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- Oct 2015
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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n the process, settled measurement as an impersonal (i.e. reliable) mode of quantifying objectsis interrupted withimprovisatory, autobiographical acts of reimagining (“like I’m the king,” “like I’m playing with my dolls”) and remembering(“like I’m in preschool again”)selves in relation to scale. Value-neutral ordering is juxtaposedwith allusions to material (“the best”) and social hierarchies (“like I’m the king”).
Embodied measurement allows the space for a values judgement, where measuring with an objective tool is just a number on a piece of paper.
This makes me think of furniture shopping. I know that the couch might fit in my living room, but I can't decide if the size/shape is actually "right" until I see it in place.
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Asking students to offer suggestions for ways to measure that circumference, she discouraged them from appealing to familiar tools like tape measuresbut rather suggested that “let’s just use our body tools.”
Connection to Resnick - symbol manipulation vs. contextualized reasoning!
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the multi-sensory, interactive, and materials-rich design of the exhibits tacitly proposes a more material ontology of mathematical objects and a fleshier epistemology of mathematical knowledge. Math Moves!tells the visitor a story in which mathematics inheres in tangible objects and events while mathematical knowing happens in hands and feet just as much as in the head.
This makes total sense in the embodied world of this exhibit (and of science centers/children's museums in general), but I wonder if "presenting a more material ontology" of other subjects also creates a "fleshier epistemology"?
Do students who visit living history museums to "cook like the colonists" come away with a similar feeling of history being alive in their life (or at least relevant)? What about human-sized prairie dog colonies that are common at zoos - are the kids who play in them more concerned about conservation because of this experience?
I would (unscientifically) argue that these kind of exhibits do work to engender these kinds of feelings (dare I say identification?) in the participants - but what are the conditions where a simulation can become reality?
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For most of the youth, as well as for many of the adults who label themselves "realistic," their Old World ethnicity is really "food, fun, and festivals" and a commitment to what they see as working-class values and morals-hard work and honesty.
Here again we see that the dance is in service of a value - this time its ethnic/cultural. The parents want their kids to connect to a remembered past, and the kids value this cultural identity as something that is positive, especially since it centers around "food, fun, and festivals"
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Unlike most children's theaters that work to perfect short-term productions that parents and friends will attend, Liberty focused on producing a videotape as their final performance; instead of building sets, they filmed on location-in the projects, in local churches, or on the streets, The premiere showing of the finished video project took place at Liberty, with friends invited to attend for a big party, but life in the projects did not afford the luxury of going out at night safely, Thus, a primary goal of making the videotapes was for the youngsters to be able to take the tapes with them to play wherever and with whomever they wished,
One of the key things that I took away from this piece was that the leaders of these activities aren't interested in creating professional dancers - even though they strive to be as professional as possible. It's about how can the movement empower kinds in some way?
Here, Henri believes that this work will give kids a sense of worth that might not be so easily found in other aspects of their lives - and I think this is especially present in the fact that the kids are able to perform in a way that they and their family/friends can experience and be proud of, even given the harsh realities of life in the projects.
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Ifthesocialgeographyofthereconstructeddowntowniscodedtobereadinaparticular`aesthetic’fashion,itstillremainstoteachpeopletoreaditthatway,oratleasttoteachthemthatthereisaparticularwaytolookatthingswhendowntown,andthatthiswayofseeingisthebasisforlegitimateparticipationthere
As Ma and Munter described, built environments have particular functions and readings encoded in their design, and participants who use the space can either buy into these readings or create their own.
It seems that Nespor's idea of production of space involves an authority figure (tour guide, teacher, civic leader) facilitating this interpretation for a learner. As we see below, the space of the art museum (and it's downtown context), and the space of the history museum are produced through the "official interpretation" of and codes of behavior enforced by museum staff.
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doc-0s-bk-prod-01-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com doc-0s-bk-prod-01-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com
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We consider how material arrangements in the built envi-ronment of skateparks are recruited by and simultaneously influence skateboarders’ learning.
The very smart authors of this article are arguing that not only does the physical configuration of a skatepark (or really anywhere) influence the skater's learning, but the skaters also use (or edit) the physical environment for their own learning ends.
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if a specific piece of information is considered crucial, it is possible to identify the current source and to look deeper on ways to improve informationdeployment, either from the current source or from new/additional ones
OK, so it seems you're arguing that people can access funds of knowledge through the resources they use (maps, online directions, etc) and not just in interpersonal interactions. That's a bit different than my understanding of the reading - I thought that a FoK was essentially something that someone else knows, that you have access to as a participant in a system (like a family where the children have better english than the parents).
I don't think its that much of a jump from that to what you're talking about, so I'll be interested to see how you develop it further.
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as information providers are as important as information itself.
True. But how do information seekers gain access to information providers? In the examples in the Moll et. al. (families at home and structured classroom groups) the information seekers had access to these funds of knowledge in their "immediate environments of learning" (Moll et. al. pg 140).
I wonder if it could be quite hard for a newcomer to gain access to a fund of knowledge (especially one as complex as navigating the NYC subway) without the support of these formal structures.
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Looking at the interaction of old-timers/newcomers may enlightenthe information that feels closer to the core for both groups, those facts that old-timers are willing to provide because their experience shows that are needed, and those that newcomers feel as needed to survive the system and if possible do it in an efficient fashion
This makes sense, but I'm wondering how hard it is going to be able to see - especially since New Yorkers are often perceived as gruff, impassive, and reluctant to provide help.
I think you might want to observe in stations where New Yorkers are conditioned to a tourist presence like Times Square or Grand Central. You'll probably have a better likelihood of observing the interactions you're looking for there than at a more commuter-focused station. I also wonder if you could somehow gain access to the interactions with "official" old-timers, like the station agents, or whomever answers the help point intercoms. Getting official access is probably outside the scope of this project, but you may just be able to hang out near the token booth in a station and listen to what people are asking and the answers the agent gives.
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with emphasis on those users that are expected to become regulars because they are staying in the city for more than “a couple of days”
This is interesting. How long does it take to become an "old-timer" navigating the subway system? Certainly not as long as it might take to become an old-timer butcher, ship quartermaster, or midwife.
But I think there are dimensional aspects to this as well. You might become an old-timer on your frequent commute route (or even your regular line) fairly quickly, but someone who only stays in Manhattan, for example, would become a new comer again when they need to go somewhere in the outer boroughs.
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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Although the aura of "learning to be like the experts" hung over the team, none of the members claimed that they wanted to play in the major leagues or grow up to become a professional ballplayer. Those interviewed said that, aside from giving them time to be with their friends, playing ball allowed them to get "the basics" and to be creative with these basics. They expected practice sessions to be devoted to learning about elements of certain types of action in the game and to assume a certain independently gained level of knowledge on their part. They often used their own knowledge of cases—of players, plays, and games—to ask questions, make a point, or challenge other players' analyses of certain plays.
"Fantasy and game play serve as precursors to participation in an institutional life where individuals are treated as scholars, bosses, or at-risk-children and events such as the granting of tenure, a corporate raid, and the self-esteem of at-risk-children are taken in all seriousness. But to see imagination extended so is simply to recognize that it pervades cultural life" (Holland 51).
This is the logical next step - even though none of these players ever intends to play in the big leagues, they are gaining valuable experience, not only in knowing how to play the game, but because they are able to see themselves as part of a group that does things in a certain way for certain reasons. This kind of experience is key to being able to live and interact in all of the figured worlds that they will need to in the future.
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Sociodramatic play presents, then, a special situation for conditionality in that it is made possible by a meta-awareness on the part of all participants that the call for the play is a call for pretense or imagination. Although both children and adults will sometimes introduce invitations to pretense by specific lexical markers, such as suppose, let's pretend. or imagine, it is more often the case that sociodramatic play is initiated simply by an announcement of counterfactual conditions (e.g., "Man on second, top of the eighth inning ..." said during practice drill on grounders).
Heath's description of sociodramatic play is in line with Hollands ideas of Figured Worlds, where participants suspend their disbelief and enter into the world of pretend. Being able to do this requires an imagining of one's own identity as a part of the world that is being created.
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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).
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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he availability of distinctsitesandcommunities of practice,each of which espoused a certain instantia-tion of the hobby—that is, a particular substantive focus of astronomy practice,including observations of various kinds, teaching, reading, socializing, and soon—afforded the practitioner the possibility of tailoring his or her practice in avariety of ways
Where one practices the hobby is also an important resource both in terms of access to the practice itself, and to others in the community of practice.
I wonder if this kind of variation can be found in other hobbies. Is it as significant of a factor among model railroaders or people who knit?
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Collaborationwas thus an important dimension of Mitchell’s, Sally’s, and many others’ prac-tices, an inference further strengthened by the ethnographic observations thatinformal and more systematic collaborations were endemic (and thereforeval-ued)at bothMt HillviewandLake Countrysideevents. But it was also clear thatthesocializingfunction ofcollaborationwas at least as important as its products,and individuals clearly used the hobby as a means of developingfriendshipsthatextended beyond the fields of practice.
The community of astronomers, and the relationships that they build together, are clearly a resource for learning, as illustrated here and at other points in the article (ex. looking at an object through several telescopes with different resolutions). But the important thing here is that it's not just about working together in the moment, but about how these continued relationships/friendships support and encourage learning in the future.
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he architectureand outside design of the buildingis that of a more modern design than that of the surrounding area
This is interesting - I hadn't thought about it this way, but the building is immediately apprehendible by comparing it to its surroundings. Once you see it, you know immediately what/where it is.
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I noticed that the stairs was quite confusing as it blocked access to the various floors and getting to backto the lobby
I agree - I heard several people ask a security guard why they needed to wait for the elevator instead of being able to take the stairs to exit.
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Being that it is an open space in which artwork is quite separate from one another, “museumfatigue” as described by Allen can be avoided
I agree that the openness of the space contributed to a less stuffy atmosphere than you might find in other museums, but I did see plenty of people who were fatigued (or at least checked-out, sitting on a bench playing with their phones)
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handoutscards visitorswere using to guide compare to the art work on the wall.
Since these cards are available, that seems to me that the curatorial staff thinks that the "meaning" of the art isn't immediately apprehendable because of its placement and surroundings.
How does one piece relate to another? What can one learn by comparing and contrasting?
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Talented adults in these settings, who often have a deep awareness of the lo-cal social context, are particularly skilled at forming trusting, supportive relation-ships with young people
In order to gain the trust of adolescents, these "talented adults" must create a (figured) world that the young people can see themselves as a part of, hence the feeling of "safety and belonging."
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An analysis of teaching practices outside of school must deal with a basic problem:One rarely encounters “teachers” there, at least in the conventional sense of author-ity figures who develop curricula, implement lesson plans, and assess studentknowledge
This is an interesting frame, because up until now, many of our readings focused on "learning" and not "teaching."
I wonder how this difference in viewpoint could affect research? How would many of the cases that we've already looked at be different if the subject of analysis was the "teacher" (old-timer, parent, museum curator, etc) instead of the "learner"?
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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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.
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In schools organi-zed in assembly-line instruction, children often use intent participation to learn toengage in or resist the authority relations and the lesson format of the assembly-linestructure itself
Connection with Becker - assembly line instruction teaches students what they need to learn to be the cogs in the machine, not necessarily the content the teacher is trying to teach.
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By 5–7 years of age, children in many communities have substantial responsi-bilities for child, animal, and household care, participating in most adult activities(Rogoff et al. 1975, Paradise 1987, Whiting & Edwards 1988). When young chil-dren are included in the social as well as the economic life of their community,they are participants in the adult world, not “in the way”
This is a nice example to help define intent participation. Like in LPP, intent participation involves participating in activities that are integral to life - its not just an activity that's designed for children, its something (like chores) that is vital to the functioning of the household.
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learningspaces2008.pbworks.com learningspaces2008.pbworks.com
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we also need to be explicit about our own intentions in terms of whataspects of our learning environment we regard asappropriatefor visitors to struggle withand what we don’t. We might all agree that visitors should not struggle tofigure out howto open the front door (a problem we actually have, incidentally, due to handles that affordpushing but in fact pull to open). However, many aspects of learning are still controversial.For example: Should we make explanations of scientific phenomena easy to locate andunderstand, or do we want visitors to rise to the challenge of investigating phenomena intheir own terms? Should we create more sequenced exhibits and linear paths to reducethe effort of navigation and connection-making among exhibits, or should we keep thefloor-plan open because connection-making is exactly where we believe visitors should bespending their effort? These are ongoing questions requiring institutional prioritizing, aswell as further research.
I think that this is applicable well beyond the museum. How do you find the sweet spot between challenge and ease of use that learners will feel that they have accomplished something, and that their "struggle" was worth it. This is especially difficult when you are planning for diverse groups of learners.
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In the last decade we have explored various techniques for making abstract conceptsand themes more apparent to visitors, including heightened selectivity about which exhibitsto include in a collection, linear sequencing of exhibits, unified design aesthetics amongexhibits in a cluster, advanced organizers (conceptual and/or spatial overviews at the entryto thematic collections), and labels that echo and reinforce the abstract theme rather thanfocusing on the individual exhibit
Once again, the goal is to help the visitor/learner organize their learning, that way they can spend more cognitive effort learning what you want them to learn instead of trying to figure out what is going on.
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the prevalence of cognitive overload points to the central importanceof something I call“immediate apprehendability.”By this, I mean the quality of a stimulusor larger environment such that people introduced to it for thefirst time will understand itspurpose, scope, and properties almost immediately and without conscious effort
I love this idea! On the one hand it makes me think of all of the pieces of daily life that aren't immediately apprehendabile - but it also makes me appreciate all of the things that are.
It also makes me wonder what can be done to make learning processes more immediately apprehendable. Imagine the possibilities if we were able to spend less time learning how to learn (or learning how to use the tools that help us to learn).
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- Sep 2015
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slack-files.com slack-files.com
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digital systems and displays oftenundermine mutual availability and visibility. Removing the visibility ofthe scene of action from the view of others not only undermines co-participation and collaboration at the exhibit itself, but removes thepossibility of others seeing and making relevant sense of what people aredoing elsewhere within the scene. The relevant ecology of action is largelydenied to those who happen to be within the same space. In contrast, it isworth adding that even those who design for fairgrounds and similar venueshave long recognized the importance of making their displays visible to a‘gathering’, allowing others to participate in various ways in the scene ofaction
In our world of constant digitization, it is important to be aware of how technology creates individual and group experiences. If, in order to appreciate the work, you have to participate (i.e. run the controls), you are turning what could have been a group experience into an individual one.
This also reminds me a lot of Marshal McLuhan's ideas on hot and cold media.
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Spectators throughtheir moment-to-moment conduct, for example, when endeavouring todiscover how it ‘works’, display a sensitivity to how others are viewing andorienting to the piece. Indeed, there are multifarious ways in which‘sequences of moments’ emerge in the viewing of the art work through theconduct of various participants, whether they are with each other or just inthe perceptual range of a viewing. In this regard, it is worth noting that, oncediscovered, then the activity becomes one party producing actions which aredesigned to engender sequentially related conduct from another. It is as if thefoundational organizing feature of human conduct and sociality, namelysequence-in-interaction, provides the ways of investigating and perceivingthe properties of artefacts.
This is especially interesting in the context of an art museum where - in many cases - there are infinite ways to discover "how it works" since, unlike a science museum, there isn't an inquiry-based "right" outcome to the exhibit.
Even just looking at the artwork from the opposite side of the room provides a new perspective - and visitors constantly pick up on how others are viewing and interacting in the space.
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The transition point, from periphery into the principal stripof activity, hinges not on the spatial distribution of the participants, or evensimply on the character of the conduct, but rather through the ways thatactions are treated as sequentially responsive and prospectively relevant
And here's a definition of legitimacy - actions are legitimate only when their relevance is shown.
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these occasioned appearances make talk appropriateand relevant between apparent strangers in as much as they legitimize talkconcerning the operation of the piece and why things have occurred in theway that they have. They also provide a responsibility, to give the other asense of the very experience that you have experienced, so that they can seefor themselves how they appeared. The very asymmetries that pervade thepiece provide the foundation to a ‘my turn your turn’ structure to the ways inwhich people interact with the piece and each other.
I agree with Felipe's point above - this exhibit was designed well to engender relationships between people that wouldn't have happened otherwise - especially in an environment (an art museum) that usually invites individual contemplation. I wonder how it would have been received differently at a children's museum or an environment that is more hands on.
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digital technologies have provided resources withwhich to represent and transform conventional materials in order to engendernew forms of interaction and experience. So, for example, designers havecreated exhibits, which require visitors to touch and manipulate objects andreceive ‘feedback’ and information
A prime example of this is the redesign of the Cooper Hewitt, a the Smithonian's national design museum here in NYC: http://www.cooperhewitt.org/new-experience/. Not only are there large digital tables where you can explore the collection, but each visitor is given a digital pen to carry around the galleries, where you can save objects to a virtual library and interact with the exhibits in other ways.
The questions I have about these technologies, especially in the light of this article, are about how they bring people together or focus on the individual. Deus Oculi only worked in cooperation with others - but the pen and other digital elements at the Cooper Hewitt made the experience much more individual.
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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).
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slack-files.com slack-files.com
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Educationally sig-nificant interactions do not involve abstract bearers of cognitivestructures, but real people who develop a variety of interpersonal re-lationships with one another in the course of their shared activity in agiven institutional context."
This is a nice summary of resnick and lave/wenger put together - we learn by participating in real activities together. Moll et. al. adds that the social and cultural context of the learning environment is critically important to consider.
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but in the broader socialsystem that helps define the nature of these environments and deter-mine what tools and resources are available for the participants' ac-tions
To me, this is core to understanding their analysis - with the key phrases being "broader social system" and "tools and resources". In order to understand how learning works, we need to understand the context in which the learning takes place and how the learner uses the tools and resources available to them to engage with that context.
This is also a nice context to think about the design concepts that Allen cites such as User-Centered Design. If we're creating objects that "by virtue of their physical forms and location, invite certain kinds of use and not others" than we're doing that by using the understanding of broader social contexts and how people interact with them.
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edufw_5.pdf5
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n the early stages oflearning, cultura artifacts, whether objects, words, or figures, serve as obvious mediators of people's activity. We count our fingers, glance at diagrams, and recite rules to ourselves. After practice (and forjh,_e_y<mng, a degree of maturation), however, are . worosoecome i.llnersp(;;;king, and figuresoecomeToiii)s obvious, external form, relying instead on inner means that we can re-produce at will.
Symbolic manipulation vs. contextualized reasoning!
It seems like they are arguing that given enough exposure to context, you will ultimately move into pure mentation - if you measure the cottage cheese enough times, you won't need the measuring cup anymore
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nli.e less expert women tended to repeat the words and follow the direc-ons of others. They had less of an overview of romantic relationships; hey had to work harder to come up with responses to romantic situ-1 ations. Not surprisingly, those who were less identified with the world of romance, and for whom it was less salient, also were less expert in / JP.anaging relationships.
This follows the structure of the AA story in chapter 4 - less experienced members first needed to hear others' stories and come to identify with the AA narrative before they could coherently tell their own story.
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Talk about men, focus on men, and orientation toward romantic relationships correlated positively with how much the women talked about and treated themselves as ac-tors in the world of romance.
A nice summary of how these cases show a figured world influencing the actions of the actors in the world.
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Knowledgeability about the types of men and the ways relationships worked was more or less assumed. Further-level of competence in the conduct of relationships was presumed.
But actually, it's something that has to be learned, and that learning directs how one behaves towards others.
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How do meaning systems "bec;ome desire"? In other words, how does a culturally constructed world encourage people to action?
This is fascinating - it's not just about how one views oneself in relation to a figured world, but what that figured world can cause one to do.
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edufw_4.pdf3
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In the formation of." ne� identity an individual comes, with the social -eiicaiiiagemeni··-�u.d:i�sist�n��-.-�L2r.����,--.. r<itmemrei: the�l.v�ild.. in new ways·, an:d··rcql'osifioii:' llerself and emotionally invest herself in that world. Indlviduals-UoThis through particiPating in -group activities, learning to· produce and enact cultural forms particular to that world, and taking up these forms as devices for mediating their own conception of self and world.
It's important to remember that identity formation is an ongoing process in relation to the figured worlds that a person is participating in.
Often times we think of identity as static - either you have it or you don't - and that it can only be measured through observing practice. I think that this reading is encouraging us to be wary of those assumptions.
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I personal storie , oldtimers in AA tell their own life stories or partcll them-=Their drinking histories-and how they came to be involved in I AA. These stories contribute to cultural production and reproduction in three ways. First, they objectify many cultural elements-the beliefs, propositions, and interpretations-that new or potential AA members learn through listening. Second, by virtue of their" narrative forms, the stories realize a model of what alcoholism is and what it means to be an alcoholic. This model, in the absence of a well-defined, well-elaborated model shared by the wider culture, provides a basis for potential members to identify themselves as alcoholics, through comparing their lives to those in the stories. The storyline also provides a basis for labeling others, as others compare the lives of suspected alcoholics to the AA lives. Third, the AA story is a tool of subjectivity, a �p.ediat:ing-.de¥-iG€ for s�standing: As the AA member learns the AA story model, by listening to and telling stories, and comes to place the events and experiences of his own··· life into the model, he learns to understand his own�l.ife1 as an AA life, and himself as an AA alcoholic. The .l'ersonal_st"l}'_!s_a cultural vehicle for identity formation.
Storytelling is among the oldest traditions we have to pass on cultural norms - here AA is using that format to encourage members and prospects to identify with each other and see their own lives in each other's stories.
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this transformation of identity, from a drinking non-alcoholic ("normal drinker") to an alcoholic, requires a radical reinterpretation of who he is, of "self." lt requires a new way of figuring the activity of drinking, those who drink, and the place of drinking in a broader social and personal context. This process of reinterpretation of self, the formation of a new identity, is a major component of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Throughout this chapter I couldn't help but feel a bit uncomfortable by all of the talk of transformation. AA clearly does good and important things in the world, but in order to benefit from it, the participant needs to "radically reinterpret" him/herself. Alcoholism is definitely deviant and harmful behavior, but I also wonder how our discussion would change if we replaced AA with a cult (or with any kind of radical group) that requires reinterpretation and transformation as the basis of membership.
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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Figured worlds in their conceptual dimensions supply the ccmtexts of meaning for actions, cultural produc-tions, performances, disputes, fo;:'the understandings that people come to make of themselves, and for the capabilities that people develop to direct their own behavior in these worlds.l
When I was an undergrad I did some research at Walt Disney World (I was there on a four-month internship program) - and one of the most interesting things that came out of that research was learning about how people re-imagine their own identity in order to fully participate in the Disney experience. You really have to believe that you are meeting the actual Mickey Mouse, not someone wearing a costume.
This is true in our everyday life too - we're constantly using the cultural information from the (real or simulated) world around us in order to understand our own place in it and how we should behave.
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continual participation
This idea of embodiment through continual participation is a theme that runs throughout all of the readings - and also connects back to LPP.
The learner only becomes a master of a figured world by immersing themselves in it, first peripherally, and then more and more actively (see the descriptions in chapter 4 about the development of individual's AA story). Ultimately, if successful, they come to identify with the world and see themselves as a part of it.
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Figured worlds take shape within and grant shape to the coproduction of activities, discourses, performances, and artifacts. A figured world is peopled by the figures, characters, and types who carry out its tasks and who also have styles of interacting within, distinguishable perspectives on, and orientations toward it.
In order to participate in the world, we need to see ourselves and understand our role in it.
Just like an actor in a play needs to be able to understand their role, the other characters, and the rules of the world, we need to be able to do that in everyday life.
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newclasses.nyu.edu newclasses.nyu.edu
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[Where there is high volume] a division of labor among a relatively large number of workers increases efficiency. . . . In this situation, not only apprentices but journeymen, too, seldom learn the full range of tasks once proper to their trade
Lave and Wenger seem to suggest this is problematic, but I'm not sure that it is. If the "full range of tasks" is no longer economically relevant to their trade, than why is it important that they are learned?
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n some sense, they are "trained" but they have no experience. (In fact, the two quartermaster chiefs with whom I worked most closely said they pre-ferred to get their trainees as able-bodied seamen with-out any prior training in the rate. They said this saved them the trouble of having to break the trainees of bad habits acquired in school.
This reminds me a lot of Dewey's ideas of training vs. education:
"Without such formal education, it is not possible to transmit all the resources and achievements of a complex society. It also opens a way to a kind of experience which would not be accessible to the young, if they were left to pick up their training in informal association with others, since books and the symbols of knowledge are mastered.
But there are conspicuous dangers attendant upon the transition from indirect to formal education. Sharing in actual pursuit, whether directly or vicariously in play, is at least personal and vital. These qualities compensate, in some measure, for the narrowness of available opportunities. Formal instruction, on the contrary, easily becomes remote and dead—abstract and bookish, to use the ordinary words of depreciation. What accumulated knowledge exists in low grade societies is at least put into practice; it is transmuted into character; it exists with the depth of meaning that attaches to its coming within urgent daily interests." (Dewey, Democracy and Education, 1916, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/852/852-h/852-h.htm)
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Gain-ing legitimacy is also a problem when masters prevent learning by acting in effect as pedagogical authoritarians, viewing ap-prentices as novices who "should be instructed" rather than as peripheral participants in a community engaged in its own reproduction.
This quote really helped me to understand what Lave and Wenger mean by "legitimate" - the activity that the peripheral participants are doing has to be something that is meaningful or real. But legitimacy is also external, it needs to come from the "master" empowering and trusting the learner.
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brightspace.nyu.edu brightspace.nyu.edu
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As an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; it implies not only a relation to specific activities, but a relation to social communities -it implies becoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person. In this view, learning only partly-and often incidentally-implies becoming able to be involved in new activities, to perform new tasks and functions, to master new understandings. Activities, tasks, functions, and understandings do not exist in isolation; they are part of broader systems of relations in which they have meaning. These systems of relations arise out of and are repro-duced and developed within social communities, which are in part systems of relations among persons. The person is defined by as well as defines these relations. Learning thus implies becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these systems of relations.
This quotation really gets at the core of what I am interested in, how do learning experiences call upon - and cause people to evaluate - who they are in the world (and, to take it one step further, their values)?
Lave and Wenger are arguing that an LPP frame enables us to see the relationships between learners, and that it is precisely these relationships, and how learners view themselves in relationship to others. By understanding one's relationship with another, the learner is re-imagining their own identity, and that transformation is incredibly powerful and has incredible potential.
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In a theory of practice, cognition and communication in, and with, the social world are situated in the historical development of on-going activity. It is, thus, a critical theory; the social scientist's practice must be analyzed in the same historical, situated terms as any other practice under investigation. One way to think of learning is as the historical production, transformation, and change of persons.
A lot of what I'm getting out of this is that context is crucial. They seem to be arguing that it is easier to understand how learning works by looking at it within the context(s) that it is happening in.
This also connects back to #resnick's ideas about symbol manipulation versus contextualized reasoning.
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