CoP can changedepending on the moment, depending on what kind of people are in any given section of the museum, and caneven be influenced by the staff.
cool - this kind of observation might help the analyst (you) figure out how much flexibility is available in the engagements of being a Whitney visitor, and how you might draw the lines for particular CoPs.
by the end of the visit, can a person move from new comer to old timer
we often use the terms "relative newcomer" or "relative oldtimer" - that helps somewhat with this dilemma in the sense that now we can talk about expertise in the timescale of different types (trajectories) of participation. So, if we're talking about single visit participants, then those at the end of a day-long visit might be considered relative oldtimers
is person considered an old timer in the CoP of “museum”but not of“The Whitne
cool - this relates to our conversation in class (a week after you wrote this) about more local CoPs in relation to broader CoPs.
n old timer at the Whitney could be someone who has been to the Whitney many times, and knows where everything is without the need of a map, and knows the expected type of behavior at this particular museum
ah, ok, you were getting there...
ay be considered an old timer, but then the Whitney could open a new exhibition, and an old timer may no longer be considered an old timer if they have no knowledge or experience with this particular collection
but what if we think of membership and expertise not in terms of expertise in related to particular works of art (knowledge about specific objects) but adaptive, flexible ways of engaging with objects, whether they are familiar or unfamiliar? In relation to your case, you can be an expert fiction reader or even Strand customer, and when their stock changes (or even if they rearrange their organization system) I don't think that makes you a newcomer suddenly. Instead, you have resources for participating in a continued proficient way, which is different than how a newcomer would participate.
who Ithink was a newcomer was standing in in front of the TV with his eyes closed, but taking in the music that was playing from the film. Iwas able to observe him rockingback and forth and nodding his head up and down taking in every single note being played. In thissituation Ifelt that his community of practice was the art of musi
if you are thinking of the CoP as the art of music, then would you still call this visitor a newcomer? He might be a newcomer to the museum, or to looking at art, but he seems to identify strongly with the music - so might he already be a relative oldtimer in some CoP of music appreciation?
Alternatively, if he is a newcomer to art viewing, what kinds of access to participation does he have as an oldtimer in a CoP of music appreciation?
rted askingquestion about the pie
what kinds of questions? this might help us understand what kinds of learning is happening
changing her identity
from what to what, do you think?
either in partnership with the museum (taking photos of the art, looking up something about the artist, etc)
this seems to be in contrast to the argument in the rest of the paragraph. what do you make of this? Also, how might this readily available resource (individually brought to the setting, but we can assume a large portion of visitors have them) change the concept of immediate apprehendability?
But unless the visitor took the time to read the explanatory text,
or if the visitor had particular forms of expertise, or maybe were oldtimer visitors, right?
This created an interesting situation for visitors coming off the elevators, since they had to plow through a crowd of people waiting around to get on the elevator.
I also noticed that on almost every floor there is something to look at straight ahead as the elevator doors open. This seems like deliberate design, but seems somewhat thwarted by the people you have to navigate around to get out of the elevator
5
this 5th page is, like, my favorite.
n’t make such a conscious decisi
this is a good example/comparison for thinking about our FW question about intending to be or knowing about being a part of a FW. Can you engage in a CoP by accident (I think yes)? What ramifications might this have for learning? for the development/reproduction of the CoP?
advanced
I wonder how you decide what is more or less advanced in this situation - is it because some engagements are pre-requisites of others? Is it because more advanced suggests fuller participation or expertise in the CoP somehow? What does it mean for a total newcomer to participate in an advanced way while an oldtimer participates in only non-advanced ways?
a community of practice which ischaracterized simply by people who have seen and thought about what the sculpture is; who have been curious about how it was made and what it represents. A key point here is that there is no text or description or even a name for the sculpture. You can only engage with the sculpture itselfin this vast room
This is a neat way to think about this observation. I've been guilty of spending more time with a text panel of a work than with the work itself. In this case, the engagements of the CoP you describe (seen it, thought about it, been curious...) are in direct interaction with the sculpture (and maybe other viewers), rather than expert information. This is a very particular kind of organization for learning/type of access to participation, totally opposite in the extreme from schooling.
participation in communities of practice which are formed around engaging with the sculpture, andalso more broadly engaging with the artistic culture and curation of the museum
cool - so you can think of progressively more "local" communities. You can imagine broadening out to "art museum visitors" or "art appreciators" or maybe a different slice, like "sculpture appreciators"
look at learning (outside of schools)
we can still use LPP in schools, right? It's just that the CoP and learning it illuminates is learning to be a student in a (e.g.) physics classroom rather than to be a physicist.
e. Taking a picture with a smartphone also indicates a different agenda for the interaction; it both is a sign of, and dialectically changes the motivation someone has to interact with the art piece.
From a Latourian point of view we might think about how the photos allows participants to bring the object (with certain aspects amplified, and others reduced) to other settings to do further work on it.
Identities become imp_'!_!!l'_llt in .. iaenhties are participatin!L!!!_1lctivities organ-., ,. ---i.Zea·oy figured worlds.
Identities become important outcomes of participation in communities of practice in ways analogous to our notion that identities are formed in the process of participating in activities organized by figured worlds"
This seems like it could be a useful passage for our class question about CoP vs FW!!
quiredalittledancebetweenreaders,movingclosertoread,furtherbacktoallowotherstoread.Thisaccomodationwasunstatedbutpracticedhereandalongthewalldescriptionsoftheartwork.Somepeoplewerewearingmuseumissuedheadsets.Idon’tknowifthesecamewithaselectionoflanguagestochoosefrombutnevertheless,manypeoplebypassedtheseblurbsandwenttoartworkthatattrac
seems like you've got 3 kinds of legitimate peripheral participation here - different ways visitors participate, by reading the wall text carefully, by using the headset audio tours, and and by skipping a bunch of things and heading straight for particular pieces. Don't be afraid to use the language. Then you can ask, what kinds of learning might these different forms of participation support? Or different kinds of identities? Or what kinds of further access to participation do different peripheral forms of participation support?
Somepeopletriedtoattractfriendstoworksthatmovedthembutnotallweresuccessful
Could you think of that person as an "oldtimer" in relation to a particular piece, trying to recruit newcomers? What kind of an identity might this kind of "oldtimer" be developing?
Newcomerslearnedfromoldtimerstotakeacardforthewall
from observing?
English.Thiswouldbeaproblemforvisitors,mainlytourists,thatcan’treadEnglish
This could be something you might say about access to participation for non-English speaking newcomers
Itwasinterestingtoseewhensomeonestoppedbecausetheyusuallypassedmanypiecesofartalongtheway
Try and be explicit about why when something surprises or interests you. Is this notable because you expect they'd want to look at everything? Why? Or another reason?
threecommunitiesofpracticeweremostevidenttome:visitors,securityguardsandadministrators
really nice to pay attention to different groups, not just one set
Forexample,ifwedon’tallowwomentoreadfromtheTorahinthisspace,willtheyfeelempoweredtostudytheBibleoutsideofit?Moreover,willtheirmalecounterpartsbesupportiveofthemiftheywanttodothat?Whatareweteachingourchildrenandcommunitymembersaboutgenderrolesandvaluesinthisspaceandhowdoesthataffectourcommunitybeyondit?
This seems like a really great set of questions to try out a figured world and identity lens.
Thereisalsocommentaryabouttheprayersintheprayerbook.Muchofitwillgivesourcesfortheoriginoftheprayers,whoandwhytheywrotethem,whenandwhytheywereselectedforthissectionoftheprayerboo
This hints at a richer conception of what's to be learned - it's not enough to know how to go through the motions, but it is expected that it matters to know the origin of prayers, who and why they wrote them, etc. Meaning is made explicit and important. Probably in more ways than just this.
maybeintimidatingtoasksomeoneforhelp
Maybe they are also resources as objects of observation?
awomanwhoisundergoinganOrthodoxconversionprocess
This highlights for me that you might be a newcomer to this particular synagogue, or a newcomer to Orthodox Judaism.
Mostpeopleinattendanceareexperiencedprayers,meaningtheyhavegrownuptheirwholelivesattendingOrthodoxsynagoguesanddayschool,sotheyknowmanyoftheprayersbyheartandthechoreographycomesnaturallytothem
What's the degree in variation between different synagogues? I imagine that there is a basic understanding of "how to do this," but what are the nuances that might be different from place to place? For example, in reform services, I know that different Cantors might sing things differently. I don't know anything about Orthodox services.
Thekeyquestionistryingtoteaseoutwhataspectsofthecommunityarecentraltofosterthiskindofanenvironment.
Cool. So, from an LPP perspective, you've got a similar setting to school, which is that it's there for the teaching and learning of a topic without actually being centered on the activity. In other words, people go there to learn about programming, not to do programming (and learn while they do it). So you've got two overlapping practices, I think: one is being a member of this community (which people have to learn how to do, and is clearly under constant negotiation, as shown by your first example post), and the other is programming. I say they are overlapping, because failure in participation in one makes participation in the other difficult, if not impossible.
topsubmissions
i'm still not sure i know what "top submission" means? how does it get to be top?
AlcoholicAnonymousgroups.Itisexplicitlystatedinthesubredditrulesthat“youdon’thavetobeanexperttoansweraquestion.Ifyoucanhelp,chimein.”Participationbyeveryuserisencouraged,andaccompanyingthisstatementtherearealsoveryclearguidelinesaboutwhatpropercontributionsareandarenot.Whenusershavequestions,therearealsoclearguidelinesabouthowtowriteanappropriatequestionsandlinkstoexternalresourcestofacilitateusersinmakingtheirquestionseasiertounderstand
cool - you could try and think about what the figured world of /r/learnprogramming is
Thisisaninterestingdynamictoexplore,asmostuserscometothesiteseekinganswerstotechnicalquestions,yetthevastmajorityofusersaresimilarlyinexperienced.Also,thereisanotherclassofuserswhicharethosewhoareclearlytechnicallyveryproficient,andwhoareinthe/r/learnprogrammingsubredditmainlytoanswerquestionsandtoserveasresourcesforthoseinthecommunity.
Depending on how you look at the community, you might think of the participants with expertise in the object of learning (programming) as peripheral, while the learners are more central participants.
Oneinterestingobservationisthatsubmissionswhicharesimplytextposts,whichisthedominanttypein/r/learnprogramming,areineligibleforkarma,yetatleastinthiscommunityitdoesnotseemtodetract
A place where the design of the environment is not totally responsible for structuring use/participation.
Frontpageoftheinternet
is this a quote from somewhere?
Registeredsubscribershaveaccesstopostcontentandwritecomments,butallofthematerialpostedisavailabletothepublic,evennonregisteredusers
Useful detail for getting at access to participation
learning
What if we broaden our view on what the goals of learning here might be? As you mentioned earlier, the sole purpose of the piece is probably not really getting water. In fact, this might be a less important purpose for it. So what else might be learned/experienced through interaction with/activity around the sculpture?
Thoughexperienced,theystillstruggledwiththeabilitytodrinkfromthefountain
This is a neat quality - you can be experienced but still bad at it. So what else might develop with repeated visits to the fountain, if not necessarily expertise at drinking from it?
sculptor
you mean "sculpture"?
informationstaffwereveryhelpfulinguidingmetowardsthebooksIwaslookingfor.IwenttocheckthemoutandstumbledasIhadtoscanthelibraryissuedbarcoderatherthanthepublisher’sbarcode.Ihadtodifferentiatethiscomputerkioskfromanotheronwhichyoucouldapplyforalibrarycardorpayyouroutstandingd
This gets at the resources for learning - you enlisted the help of staff to find the books. How did you figure out the other issues?
Idecidedto“do”thelibraryafterobservingforawhile.
Your learning, at least on this visit, seems to me to consist of the second activity, looking for/reading books. This seems to involve negotiating space/quietness with those who are using computers. How do you think your experience of this compared in relation to how you might imagine (or observe) an oldtimer do it? This can get at the question of "What access to participation do newcomers have, in comparison with oldtimers"
mostvisitorswereoncomputers,notlookingfororreadingbooks
Seems like you've noticed two distinct (maybe overlapping) possibilities for activity here - using computers and looking for/reading books. This might also constitute 2 different communities of practice, right?
emed to attemptto use it in order to support learningfor all, but in doing so heto also be supporting the exemplar in their move toward full participantin the community of practice of Mindful NYU yoga practitioner
are you partly also making a distinction here between a broader community of yoga practitioners and those at Mindful NYU?
Hearing the instructor welcome each person in the exact same manner gave me the impression that he might be making a consciouseffort to make everyone comfortable andacknowledge each had fair and equal rights to be in the space.
I like this interpretation - another take is that, if it's the same for everyone, it's not "genuine," whatever that means. But maybe that gives insight into a value of how to treat individuals here - you don't have to be treated differently to be important or special.
To each person he gave the same response, “Thank you and welcome. I’m glad you are here.” I recognized this repeated statement to be a sign of granting equal access ofthe physical space to each participant regardless of his or her yoga experience
cool - i see the blocks as providing access to newcomers as well.
goals of “stillness” and “being in the moment” were supported both by the instructor’swords and calm nature, andby signage outside the roomencouraging all that entered to leave shoes, phones, and other belongings behi
This is a nice observation of a configuration of disparate things that came together for you.
ually learn? If there is a diff
Is part of this question finding out what they really need to learn in order to successfully (whatever "success" means here) pull off the conference?
ommunity members become a part of the organizationalcultureand community of practice
I wonder if you should also ask the complementary question, about how the volunteers help shape the community in different/new/evolving ways from year to year?
voluntary structure help (or hinder) this learning proc
i wonder if our unit on elective learning will be helpful for you, even though volunteering is different than, say, learning to make model rockets in your spare time. Maybe you will also make some connections to the Kirshner youth activism piece.
his failure to help volunteer
So part of what you're saying is that you feel the resources to learn have been insufficient somehow.
has outperformed every other high school in the city the last two year
it could be interesting to investigate the competitions as hybrid schooled/informal assessments
hool a Lousy Place to Have Robotics Club
good one
lthough this session felt very “informative” to some who spoke to me about it, this session felt very inauthentic to what robotics club is
This makes me think about the first class of the year for this course (Learning In and Out of Schools). Maybe you can help me brainstorm how to disrupt that for next time (year after next).
yin particular, left after 30 minutes, even though he had to walk directly by the presenters in the front of the classroom space to leave. When he stood up to leave, a nearby friend asked him, “You leavin’?” He said, “yeah, I’m done here
too bad! this brings up a question for me about membership - is it completely voluntary? what are the conditions of membership?
hen they are walking around, the judges wanna go to ask a girl a question first, if they can. They will go right up to a girl if she is part of the teamand in the pit (where the robots team works during competition). Sometimes, I have seen them wait until a girl from the team came by to ask any questions. So girls, if you’re in the pit, be prepar
wow! i can't wait to see how/if this plays out
between in/out of school here
cool - maybe hybridity will become a useful concept for you
he new ones)
you point to some new technologies but you might think about being as detailed about older (and also less designed) resources for learning.
more personaland less observable proces
you can do interviews and also ask to follow people you know
The paper map depicts the full subway system
One thing that you might think about is the learning involved in reading the map for the purposes of getting somewhere. It's not the same as reading a map for driving or walking somewhere.
articipationis lostor weakensthan is one’s identityand membership lost too?I question this because of theinterdependentrole learning has on participationand identity.Does thepotential to learn and relearn activate membership?“...learning as legitimate peripheral participationmeans that learning is not merely a condition for membership, but is its
neat question - probably differs in the details for different communities of practices.
s of community might have changed with the introduction of MetroCard machines, with their supposedly user friendly des
Does the case of your mother inform this question?
the mastery of this tool signifies, that is a symbol as in Lave and Wegner’s example of A.A.poker chips, asthe beginnings of legitimateparticipation
nice comparison. As I've moved from city to city, my carrying of the subway card of that place has always felt like a cultural marker of my belonging; it symbollizes something different than (more than) its actual use as fare for transportation.
viewer
It seems like it's worth separating your viewers into the categories of subscribers and non-subscribing viewers (or whatever you'd call them). Is there a way to know this?
environment
I think it would be more productive to think of the environment as the online environment - this is the "place" where people are engaging, and the one you have access to. You should keep in mind that while they do so they are also, physically in other places, sometimes simultaneously engaging in other activities that you can't know about. But you also want to think about what the online environment is like.
ep up you must also be participant within this legitimate peripheral participa
say more about what you mean here?
changing membership in communities of practice, Like participation, can neither be fully internalize or externalized.” (Lave an Wen
I'm not sure how this quotation applies here. I believe this passage was referring to theoretical debates about identities in relation to communities and practices as opposed to being a more individual-centered trait. So how do learning and developing identities amongst your viewers and subscribers inform us about the participation of haters or flamers?
much participation versus non participation, in those followers that like subscribe and comments on the video versus tho
Are there nuances within these two dichotomous categories? Are there different kinds of participation? Different kinds of commenting?
pear. In this aspect, I strive to think about the “illegitimate peripheral participant” p.35, for the last example though Lave and Wenger proposed that there was no such thing. because these people aren't not finding ways of belonging to my channel, and are only coming in order to win so
So say more about this. What is it about these folks that is "illegitimate"? Why do L&W say there is no such thing? How do you feel this phrase becomes relevant for this category of subscribers?
so depending on the content was the engageme
?
enjoye
?
community of practice that is unified in th
So these are characteristics of the CoP, but it doesn't comprise the CoP, right? Not everyone who has these characteristics are a part of the CoP. So what is the CoP really about?
isual learners; th
They do use this modality, but can you say they "need" to?
focus on people having their meetings in Star
I think this is particularly interesting because the goals are pretty different from someone who wants coffee. It's sort of backward, like they need a meeting space and are happy to have coffee too.
time, I plan to focus more on what types of people this happens too, and not just how often it occu
I like that you're asking questions based on your observation and thinking of ways to focus your future observations.
was one instanc
so, what do you make of this? What might this specific event tell you about this place? Or what further questions does it bring up for you?
not actually purchase a coffee-drink; actually some people did not even purchase a drink. The amount of food purchases, or even just getting a cup of water was actually very surprisi
what else do they do besides drink/eat?
nt in to this observation with a bias standpoint because I was t
good, it'll be important to continue to be open to having your assumptions or past experiences/interpretations disrupted.
es me about this franchise is that no matter who or what you are, or what part of the world you are at, you will see all types of people getting Starbuc
This is neat also because there is sort of a global CoP of Starbucks patrons, but there may be slight local nuances.
Figure 2
the expressions on the faces of these people made me laugh out loud.
this too would be the engagement with “anti-‐SJW” and “anti-‐feminism” topics.Honestly,I am less enthusiastic ab
good thing this is only a semester project so you don't have to be totally comprehensive :) Seriously though, this is a good point. a major critique of politically charged conversations on the internet is this filtering, echo-chamber effect, so it is important that you acknowledge to some extent related communities.
I’m very curious about which issues actually circulate and gain mass attention
I'd also guess there are flows or cycles of how "conversations" progress about news events?
wcomers can build a largeplatform though the popularity of an original
alternatively, what about oldtimers who don't have many followers? Is this a possibility? Maybe to be a more full participant you need to have a lot of followers?
are acting as teachers to each
It's not necessarily what you're doing here, but I don't think you need to argue that anyone is doing "teaching" in order to argue that learning is happening. There's meaningful activity going on here, so people are learning. From an lpp lens (which you don't have to take in your project, but I sort of asked you to take for this FR) that's enough to say that learning is happening.
ge, obvious issues that people are learning while interacting with social justice related content on Tumblr. But users are also learning more subtle things like how to run a blog, write posts, netw
cool, two layers, sort of, of activity here. I'd argue this is true anywhere, but it's made more obvious on a digital platform somehow. However, appropriate ways to interact and using the technologies of communication (talk, gesture, etc) in face to face settings is not always the same across settings (e.g., whispering in some libraries)
people include a bio page on their blogs that reference their age, gender (and pronouns), race, and other identity marker
ok, never mind. but do you have to treat this info with just a little bit of skepticism, at least for some accounts? how does one decide? Or maybe it doesn't matter for social relations in this community?
be primarily teenagers or people in their early
how can you tell?
boundaries of this site is not completely clear or concrete. This is an issue I will have to explore furth
initial ways of deciding/searching for what's relevant?
book shopping
I wonder how we'd have to re-conceptualize "book shopping" as an activity when part of the activity includes sitting down on a bench and reading a book for 20 minutes or more. I feel like places like B&N discourage this kind of behavior (they want you to buy it before you read, right?). So maybe the activity that goes on here is more complex than my understanding of "book shopping," which includes browsing (sometimes), finding what you want, then going to the register to pay for it. Could be worth trying to flesh that out some.
ople who do not work a typical 9-5 job, or they wouldn’t have been able to be at the bookstore at 12 (unless they were spending their lunch break t
or tourists?
where new books, bestsellers, and knickknacks are displayed). New comers, or maybe just people that don’t really have any particular book in mind, were much more likely to stop and sort of get “stuck” at the front of the store
The designers of the store must be deliberate about this
I wonder if there is a time of the day or day of the week where I will find more people asking for help.
I like that you're starting to ask probing questions in relation to your observations or conjectures
visited in the middle of the day on a Frida
This is a good consideration. Depending on what your research question(s) end up being you may want to stick to similar times or really vary when you visit.
as opposed to a theory of learning, which LPP or figured worlds are
wow, Jasmine must really want to get this point across...
Using a Lave and Wegner framework (1991), learning to use the revolving doors is most succinctly done throughengaging in a community of practice, where you see, observe, and participate in the activity of using the door
I think this is an interesting case to try out with LPP because, in general, people don't choose whether or not to engage in the practice - it's a prerequisite for getting to class or the meeting or lunch or whatever.
d might jump at not using it, if given the social chance
good contrast
committed to community of practice.
what does this look like?
indicated different ways the community of practice is reproduced and transformed.
say more about this. what, for you, do these indicate?
You must exit as the compartment you are in first reaches the opening (see figure 4). Therefore, as I witnessed and videotaped, someone can enter the same compartment you were in going the opposite way (see Figure 4)
really nice detail
figure 1
really nice figures
This means that even though the curriculum is learned in a traditional framework within a classroom,
ok, but what is the curriculum for learning in the bookstore? Lave and Wenger would say that there is a "learning curriculum" - what is it like? What did you observe?
First, one must arrive at the bookstore, and navigate the various areas in order to find the appropriate area needed, thus engaging the geographical lens. Next, a sense of knowledge of what the alphabet is and looks like was necessary to locate the books on the shelf, showcasing the need for knowledge of the English language system. Consequences if one does not know what ABC order is they will not be able to find any of the materials, and risk looking ignorant. Reading was also an important part of being successful. Reading the prompts on the black printer and on the kiosks was necessary in order to be able to manipulate them in an appropriate manner and get the results that were needed.
I think you're conflating doing with learning here. You're sort of saying what people needed to already know in order to successfully get their books. But what is the process of learning to get their books like? It's certainly related, but not the same thing.
s Becker specifies towards the beginning of the reading,... “the complexities may lie in the social situation the student will use rather than in the material itself. “(Page 87) To me, this means that the subject matter that is being learned does not necessarily involve active application of concepts that are learned; rather, the social framework that is needed in order to be successful at a specific task.
This is a great way to do this - pick the concept from the reading, provide a quotation, and summarize your interpretation for us, then make a connection to your case.
navigate toward the rear of the store, past the fiction and non-fiction books and clothing, as well as the registers and the cafeteria/ public speaking spac
I love that you have images of the store below. The way to do this is to reference each image you use within the text (figure 1., figure 2., etc) and then label the image with a caption. Then put the image as close to the relevant text as possible.
people involved.”
page number? I'm not totally sure how you're using this quotation here.
is a social practice, viewed in Lave and Wenger’s text
In Lave & Wenger, all activity is social practice. So how does this inform this case in particular?
g the books for class “situated activity” (
I'm not sure what you mean by this
find the books
this part seems significant - what did you see people do to accomplish this?
I learned some strategie
how?
involved the risk of looking ignorant
is this something you assume from your own experience or something observable?
Still others were unsuccessful and walked away fruitless
What do you mean by this? What did you see?
Dewey Decimal System
I thought it was just alphabetical by author?
As an examplewhen an unfamiliar part of buying/refilling a MetroCard arose, users seemed slightly frustrated
Compare this with the examples Resnick used
when it comes to tourists using these machines might emphasizethe difference of using themachine, a tool of technology, or seeking the help of the MTA worker
I'm not sure what you're saying here about age and tourists?
n this case technology, to achieve a goal or acquire knowledge
Make some comparisons with the cases Resnick uses to make her argument. How is this similar or different?
, I think it is quite the opposite.
I'm not sure why you say this - are you saying that in school we learn to use tools? If so, I don't think that is Resnick's argument. I think the argument is that we are often expected to learn things without the tools that we might use out in the world (e.g., no calculators while taking math tests).
one that was familiar with using the machine
how do you know?
see image below
nice diagram!
whatBeckerwouldsayaboutlearninginthiscontext
can you make some specific comparisons?
curriculum
from Becker's point of view there may be no curriculum - or we could think of it as a "learning curriculum," in the way Lave & Wenger describe
potentialresearchquestions
It's good to be generative - your next questions are all more about the library in general. Can you think of some ways to push further on your observations of the revolving doors?
eIamassumingthatthemlookingaroundwasforthatpurpose,butitcouldalsohavebeentomakesuretheirtrippingdidnottripsomeoneelse
nice to consider an alternative explanation
seemedlikealthoughtheytwopeopleinthesamerevolvingdoorwerehavingaconversationbeforeentryintoBobst,theyseemedtostopthatconversationwhileinthedoortogether,andthencontinueitwhentheygotout
weird - so if the physical separation made by the revolving doors isn't the thing that interrupts the conversation, what is it about this change in activity that might be the source of the interruption? It's not like, for example, in an elevator people stop their conversations. Or do they? Under what circumstances?
whenIfirstbeganobservingIactuallydidnotknowwhatIwouldbepayingattentiontoorwhatIshouldfocuson
This is a nice example of a good way to approach a field site for the first time. You had experience with revolving doors, but you weren't yet sure what you would notice and learn. You were relatively open to what you might discover. As you observed, you saw some patterns.
Thetworevolvingdoorsaresituatedinthemiddleoftheentryway,andonesetofregulardoorsoneachsideoftherevolvingdoors.
nice diagram
itdoesn’tseemlikeanyoneisworriedaboutminimizingtheanxietyfeltbycustomers/”students
cool. another aspect of the social situation at Oren's that's different I think is that there's such a varied flow of people, all doing different things with different levels of experience, that one has to adapt to all kinds of possible scenarios (e.g. two customers talking across you in line, or getting the wrong order, or there being too many people in line to get to the end of the line from the door you came in)
peertopeerlearninghappensinatraditionalclassroomsetting
In my mind there are (at least) 2 different versions of this. One is where a kid "gets it" first, or better, and helps a kid who doesn't "get it" yet. The second is two kids who are in a similar stage of "figuring it out," talking through it. These both could probably be mapped onto Oren's
ikerepeatcustomershavemoreknowledgethanfirsttimerssotheyalsohavethepotentialtodosometeaching
we might call this "intergenerational" or something like that - relative oldtimers participating along with newcomers
tudentsuccesscanbepossiblewhenBeckerexplainsthat“Noonecanlearneverythingatonce,butnoprincipleorrulepreventstheapprenticefromlearningalittleofthistoday,alittleofthattomorrow,thingsinsomeordernooneeverthoughtofbefore,orlearningtothepointwherehewantstostopandthenswitchingtosomethingelse”(200
I'm not totally sure I get the connection here.
ThesocialpressureofaninstitutionsuchasNYU,createsananxietyformanystudentsaroundnotknowinghowtodosomething.Thestudentwhousedtheprintertoaccessthebookssheneededbutthencircledaroundthestorewithoutaskingforhelpisanexampleofthisprototypicalstudentwhowantstofitinwiththebatch
Some of this (and part below) feel like interpretation based on your generalize experiences rather than really being grounded in your observations. What did you see in the Bookstore that seemed to constrain students to behave as prototypical?
Beingpartofsuchabatchnaturallyconstrainsthestudenttobehave,asbesthecan,asthoughhewereprototypical;itistheeasiestwaytofitintothecollectiveactivityheispartof”
This quote comes out of a section in Becker about Curriculum. What the analogy for the curriculum here? You hint at it, but are not explicit. How does it compare with what Becker says about curriculum in schools?
gafellowstudentasasourceofknowledgeseemedmoresociallyacceptablethanaskingtheexpertassist
Because you saw it more frequently?
udentonagoosechaseupanddownaislesforafullthirtyminutestoonlyleavewithtwobooks
So how do you know this was what was going on. An alternative explanation: maybe she just wanted to browse?
heentirebookstorehadbeenredonesothatbookswerenolongercategorizedbytheirclassesandsectionsinaconvenientonestopshopsortofway,butwerenoworganizedalphabeticallybytheauthor’slastna
For things like this (there are a couple other places above) where you know because of insider knowledge (rather than from your observation), you should say how you know it.
othedairyworkersthatcomputedtheirinventoryvisually,experiencingthedoorsincontextwouldinfo
nice use of a specific example from the text.
muchactivityoutsideschoolissociallyshared.Work,personallife,andrecreationtakeplacewithinsocialsystem,andeachperson’sabilitytofunctionsuccessfullydependsonwhatothersdoandhowseveralindividuals’mentalandphysicalperformancesmesh
after you use a quotation, make sure you provide the page number "...mental and physical performances mesh" (p. 13).
leavingmetowonderif
I like that you're explicit here that this is a conjecture you're making, rather than a claim about her intentions. good to differentiate, even in field notes/fieldwork reports.
surprisinglypassedthroughtherevolvingdooreasily
it would help if you say why this was surprising to you, and also, since it was surprising, what did you observe them doing that, to you, made it easy for them? in other words, how did they manage to do it easily?
themorepeoplethatchoseanyonedooratanymomentresultedinmorepeoplechoosingthatdooraswell
this is a neat observation. there's a sort of social momentum as well as physical momentum.
Thelargeplazahastwoperpendicularbuildingswhosemainentrancesbothopenontoit.TheentrancetotheSternbuildingisparalleltoWest4thstreetsomoststudentsareexitingorenteringfromthestreet.Theeastsideoftheplazahasaseriesofbenchesandplanters.Theentranceisservicedbyarevolvingdoorandswingingdoorsoneachsideofit.Asignoneachoftheswingingdoorssays,“Pleaseuserevolvingdoortosaveenergy.”
This paints a really nice picture of the scene
isted the volume ofeach cup in ounces, however the staff preferred to help customers “use the objects [the cups] directly in their reasoning” (Resnick pg 14). Instead of saying that a medium was 12 ounces, they had set up example cups on the service counter. As they asked “small, medium, or large?” they would point to each size of cup. This is also similar to how Resnick describes dairy workers visualizing mathematical concepts,here the customer usesthe actual object as a visual reference and makesa decision based on context instead of basing their decision on an abstract concept
I really like this example. We could also think of the cups as a tool for customers, right?
Just like the deck hands need to communicate sightings to the bridge for navigation, the baristas need to communicate customer needs with each other in order to provide a valuable service
good comparison
staff splits up the duties of order taking, payment processing, and beverage preparing. This appears to make the overall system more efficient as the same staff member can repeatedly preform the same tasks, moving the customers quickly through the process
ah, so this is interesting. your observational notes above focused on customers, but there's also learning/activity going on with the staff
In this case generalized in-school learning allows for novice users to read the prompts provide by the machine and interact with it in a slow but successful way,
do you have evidence for this?
n that sense the quality of the result is always the same, if result was obtained the quality is fine, and therefore the interaction with the tool is the test itself.
How does this compare with the cases that Resnick uses to make her point?
the tool itself did the testing of the learning
so what was the object of learning?
s, one additional screen appeared after the language selection screen, indicating that tempora
this is a really interesting "breakdown" (as Resnick describes on page 18). As you note, it provides additional insight, even for oldtimers' activity.
most of the users seemed to be regular users and had no trouble with the standard way to use the machine
I think you can still learn something by watching "experts" or "oldtimers"
his was just a general principle they adhered to? In this instance, it does not appear that a situation-specific competency developed, but rather, that people could recognize this situation as a general situation where one is in “a flow of traffic,” and thus marshalled their knowledge of what to do in such similar situations
Bu wait, I don't think that Resnick's argument was that people don't ever gain general concepts or principles. Instead her argument is that "the packages of knowledge and skill that schools provide seem unlikely to map directly onto the clusters of knowledge people will use int heir work or personal lives" (p. 15). For Resnick I don't think the argument is that generalities can't be taught, rather that what we've chosen to teach in school (at the time, at least) don't map-- "Growing evidence of this kind points to the possibility that very little can be transported directly from school to out-of-school use" (p. 15). For her it's a mismatch problem, not one of teaching generalities.
Our system, in this case, was designed to promote energy efficiency. However, it was clear that in this instance people's contextualized reasoning only
I've tried to comment on this twice now and it keeps not showing up. can't tell if it's just not appearing right now, or if it's actually not saving...
took into account their need to get into the building, and lacked the more general goals that the entrance was trying to promote.
Nice analysis - you dug into the details of the navigation case, tried out the comparison, and fleshed out the difference.
It was puzzling to notice how frequently this would happen, and why they wouldn't simply exit the building using the door on the left; after all, that would be the shortest path and would still comply with all written instructions and physical affordances of the entrance.
I like that you explain here why this behavior was puzzling to you
If someone explained to you how to use one of the machines outside of the metro station, it would be hard to visualize what exactly you should do, and all the possibilities of what might happen could never be explained to you. Only first hand experience with one of the machines will help you understand how they work (or don’t work!).
Anything from your observations that seems to back this up?
nick mostly looked at how tools can be helpful in calculations, which doesn’t really apply to the metro card machines. (Although I am sure some people were doing calculations in their heads to determine how to re-fill their card
Yes, it seems like your observation was mainly about people's learning to use the tool itself (the machine). I wonder what Resnick would say about this.
I did see one girl explain to her friend why adding time is the best option
Ah. this illuminates for me that there are 2 layers of learning here. One is learning about the machines themselves, but the other is about riding the subway. Some uncertainty in button pressing could be related to deciding what to buy OR figuring out how to buy something.
surprising
It would help if you say why this surprises you.
The most significant thing I noticed was that the majority of people had trouble with the machines.
this is a nice descriptive list of the troubles that you saw folks encounter
s an example of the difference Resnick offers Hutchins’ naval ships study of which the main argument is that no one individual can pilot the shipon their own, instead the knowledge needed is distributed throughout the system.
nice job offering a summary of the "point" from Resnick
no one individual can pilot the shipon their own, instead the knowledge needed is distributed throughout the system.
Resnick focuses on the distributed cognition example (can't be done by an individual alone), but she also hints at less "strong" versions of shared cognition ("each person's ability to function successfully depends on what others do and how several individuals' mental and physical performances mesh" (p. 13). In wonder what aspects of learning and cognition you see here that don't have to be done with others, but often is and works better that way?
ished, students became, for my observation, synonymous tothe second group:those who arrived with a l
neat. you're beginning to categorize classes of participants, which seems to coincide/intersect with phases of the phenomenon now
Image 1
would be cool if, in the diagram, you drew a box to show us where the image illustrates, and also the perspective from which it was taken.
Diagram 1
nice!
o the store seemed to be either students or tourist
how could you tell?
contrast, the revolving doors at Bobst are lacking in tools available. T
In wonder if we might think of parts of the design of the doors as tools to help people learn how to use them. For example, the handles hint at which way the doors should rotate, and the compartment sizes hint that one person should go in at a time?
Resnick asserts that schools test and evaluate students individually;a student succeeds or fails at a task independently of what other people are doing. Rather, a person’s out-‐of-‐school world is socially shared;each person’s ability to function depends on what others do and how they mesh together.
nice summary of how you interpret Resnick's argument.
ving doors, I feel as if each person has their own goal that happens to be the same as others, to successfully enter Bobst Li
nice contrast. i also think that some nuances of the goal might cause trouble in the doors example - what if one person is in a hurry but others are not?
are both cycling through shared activities in a given area. On the ship it is visual sighting, recording, calling specialists, confirmation, and recording. At the revolving doors it is walking to the overhang, finding the cue, navigating around people ex
I like how you're really pushing on the analogy here to see how the comparison might line up.
Because most people were not looking at the larger flow mov
alternative conjecture: maybe it was just too hard to combat - if you're at the end of the line, you can't direct it in the other way
sometimes when that one pushing person would exit, the door would abruptly stop and the other people in the door would scuff their heels, catch themselves, or walk into the front of their compartment. It wouldjust be a brief moment before they would catch on and immediately start pushing themse
This is a breakdown of the sort that Resnick wrote about (page 18) - helps make visible to us (as analysts) the some of the tacit assumptions of the participants, and also gives us some insight into some of the adaptive behaviors necessary to be a skilled revolving door user.
Either the person would speed up and enter the door quickly, usually with a little skip hop, or more usually they would play it safe, wait, and enter in the next compartment of the
Love how specific your observation got with movements of people's bodies.
entrance to the building is located under an architectural overhang. Under this overhang, the whole wall is glass and there are three large glass revolving doors spaced across the wall. There are two additional glass manual doors on each far side of the wall. These manual doors had small plaques that read, “Please use revolving d
I like this as a brief yet useful description for orienting us to the setting.
schools increasingly have come to resemble war zones, spaces marked by distrust, fear and demonization
if we thought becker was being harsh about schooling...
That perspective meant that there is no activity that is not situated. It implied emphasis on comprehensive understanding involving the whole person rather than "receiving" a body of factual knowledge about the world; on activity in and with the world; and on the view that agent, activity, and the world mutually constitute each other.
!!!
LIFE Center
structural reasons for the schools' educational failures
structural reasons for failures and successes will be a focus this semester