Learning Theories in Sociocultural and Historical Contexts

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Learning Theories in Sociocultural and Historical
Contexts

• Peter Renshaw
• University of Queensland Australia

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• Communities of Learners
• Plural not singular What are the features of
  this learning community?
• Directs researchers to the culture within
  classrooms. What is routine? What is taken for
  granted?
• Foregrounds the cognitive and social norms
  embedded in classroom activities

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This Community of Learners

• Academic Norms Authors Not Copiers
• collaboration co-knowledge
• multiplicity meta-knowledge
• validation common-knowledge
• Social Norms Inclusive Practices
• egalitarian social relationships
• community for difference
• ethic of care

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• Research on Collective Argumentation (CA)
• 1. Students more active and participatory
• 2. Students use exploratory and inquisitive talk.
  
• 3. Students use abstract reasoning strategies.
• 4. Students reflect on social origin of knowing
• 5. Students identify themselves as authors
• 6. Students deployed CA in peer contexts.
• 7. Students deployed CA later in high school.

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• Presenting Angelas Repertoire of Voices
• We Refers to Angela and her partner (local,
  concrete)
• We Refers to all humanity (generalised,
  timeless )
• I Refers to Angela (distinct, unique)
• We had the dictionary meaning which says this -
  infinity has the state of being infinite,
  infinity of the universe, infinity of space,
  time, quantity.
• So we thought that we would make a meaning of our
  own. So we thought that infinity means
  everlasting number, object and the universe. .
• And I made this up. I think the word infinity is
  similar to life. No one can fully explain it and
  just like infinity it has many definitions. We
  cant really explain life and we cant really
  explain the word infinity.

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• Presenting and Validating
• Remembering Not Copying
• Alice. Where did you get this idea from?
• Annie Well me and Allan had exactly the same
  idea except Allan had his expressed in cement,
  and he wanted to go with my idea.
• Katie By any chance did you copy from another,
  like.. Annie Group? No, not another
  group, like a previous (sessions
  problems)?...
• Allan No, not really, I wrote my problem. .
• Annie We remembered it, but we didnt copy it.

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• Teacher Attempts to Coerce
• Annie So what we did. I got that idea off mine
  and took it away from Allan's answer.
• Teacher No, that's not going to work. You just
  can't make things fit together. Okay?
• Annie No, I just knew that . . .
• Teacher Stop arguing and listen to me for a
  moment. You have to work with your ideas and
  convince him that your ideas are accurate.
• Annie I didn't take my answer away from his.
• (Teacher leaves. Annie Allan continue their
  group inquiry)

• Annie Resists Theres hope!
• Annie No, we're going to fix up your idea. We're
  going to find out where you went wrong. Allan
  But .. Allan, we'll do your idea. .. draw that
  shape please on the back (of the sheet)? On the
  back of this and we'll fix up your idea. Allan
  Commences to draw
• Teacher How are we going?
• Annie I know where he went wrong. Teacher It
  doesn't work! I know, but I think it can.
• Teacher I'll get you another sheet.
• (Teacher gives the children a new problem sheet
  and leaves the group.)

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• Linda Resists Participatory Norms
• Lindas construction of private space was
  accepted by teacher.
• Classmates noted her actions were outside ground
  rules.
• A few classmates at times chose to work with L.
• As the year ended Linda chose to participate with
  peers

Blackboard Whiteboard
Teachers desk
Screen
OHP
DO O R
Lindas Private Place
Library Shelves
DOOR
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• Journeying Metaphor for Learning
• Learning as an individual journey
• Individual as a valuable resource (human capital)
• Classrooms as places to acquire knowledge and
  skills
• Graduating and entering into different markets.
• Learning as a relational journey
• Individual as a participant in communal
  activities
• Shared practices become personal habits
• Graduating and participating within the community

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• Key Argument
• The issue isnt primarily one of scientific
  progress of movement forward of the invention
  of entirely new theories of learning or theories
  of the self, but of selection and privileging
  of certain theories at certain times.
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• Key Question
• Why was a particular set of theoretical tools
  pulled from the tool-kit and promoted as relevant
  to particular generations? I sketch one possible
  account of this process below.

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Behaviourist Era (20s-30s)

• the behaviourists laboratory setting was so
  strikingly similar to the human predicament as
  visualised at the time..The contrived plight of
  the rats-in-a-maze seemed a faithful laboratory
  replica of the daily predicament of
  humans-in-the-world. (Zygmunt Bauman)

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Developmental Constructivism (60-70s)

• In the 1960s, the decade after the successful
  launch of Sputnik, the West was trying to match
  the achievements of the Soviets in space
  exploration. Central to this educational project
  was the production of creative thinkers
  learners who could be inventive and constructive
  contributors to - in particular mathematical and
  scientific advancements.

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Metacognitive (70 - 80s)

• The ideal learner was likened to a manager or
  executive. Rather than having someone watch over
  them, learners floated free cognitively to watch
  over their our shoulders and guide our own
  actions through meta-cognitive reflection. Rather
  than being manipulated externally by agents who
  controlled reinforcement schedules, the learner
  internalised this control and could now monitor
  task performance, reflect on progress and
  dispense self-rewards.

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Sociocultural Era (90s - )

• (Gee Lankshear and Hull 1996 New Work Order)
• The ideal worker (learner) for the present
  economy needs certain dispositions such as being
  a team player, sharing their expertise in a
  distributed system, committed to joint projects
  but flexible and adaptive, able to move on,
  motivated by team success.

( Australian Council of Deans of Education
2001) The new economy requires persons who can
work flexibly with changing technologies persons
who can work effectively in the new
relationship-focussed commercial environment
people who are able to work within an open
organisational culture and across diverse
cultural settings.
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• Cognitive- Neuro- Science
• The brain as the last frontier of biological
  sciences.
• Intersection of biology and computer science.

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Cognitive- Neuro- Science - Why Now?

• We live at a time of risk and uncertainty The
  new biology offers the promise of precise
  technologies (drugs, treatments) to overcome
  social and individual problems.
• The new biology offers the promise of
  simultaneous control choice, of remediation
  enhancement a utopia based on biological
  re-programming .

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