Cole & Wertsch (1996) Where is the mind?

Cole, M. & Wertsch, J.V. Beyond the Individual-Social Antimony in Discussions of Piaget and Vygotsky. Human Development, 39: 250-256.

Mainstream View

Piagetans: individual childen construct knowledge through their actions in the world

Vygotskians: understanding is social in origin

In Piaget’s writing, he acknowledges the importance of the social world.

In Vygotsky’s work, he insisted on the centrality of active construction of knowledge.

Where is the mind located?

Because what we call mind works through artifacts, it cannot be unconditionlly bounded by the head or even by the body. Rather, it must be seen as distributed in the artifacts that are woven together and that weave together individual human actions in concert with and as part of the permeable, changing events of life.

The human environment is surrounded by the achievements of prior generations

Human artifacts include: language, various systems for counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems: works of art ; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps, mechanical drawings, all sorts of conventional signs, and so on.

Artifacts do not serve simply to facilitate mental processes that would otherwise exist. Instead, they fundamentally shape and transform them.

Higher functions are, by definition, cultrually mediated.

Artifacts are recognized as transforming mental functioning in fundamental ways.

[Note: human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in conjunction; some believe that that developing artificial intelligences is a less fruitful direction than creating great human-computer systems]

Changing views of knowledge and their impact on educational research and practice (Case, 1996)

Case, R. (1996) Changing views of knowledge and their impact on educational research and practice. In D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.) The handbook of education and human development (pp.75-99). Oxford: Blackwell.

Epistemological positions have practical consequences that are of great concern to psychologists and educators. The way we view knowledge and its acquisition is likely to have an increasingly large impact as scientific and technical knowledge are likely to play a more central role in the future than they have in the past. and to become increasingly central to our economic, social, and physical well being.

Three general conceptual frameworks have contributed to our understanding of knowledge and its acquisition during this century: (1) the empiricist, (2) the rationalist and (3) the sociohistoric

Views of Knowledge
Empiricist position: knowledge of the world is acquired by a process in which the sensory organs first detect stimuli in the external world, and the mind then detects the customary patterns or "conjunctions" in these stimuli (David Hume, 1748). Our knowledge of the world is a repertoire of patterns that we have learned to detect and operations that we can execute on these patterns;

Rationalist position: Kant suggested that knowledge is acquired by a process in which order is imposed by the human mind on the data that the senses provide, not merely detected in them. Knowledge is seen as something that is constructed by the mind, and evaluated according to rational criteria such as coherence, consistency, and parsimony.

Socio-historic position: knowledge does not have its primary origin in the structure of the objective world. Rather, it has its primary origin in the social and material history of the culture of which the subject is a part. If we want to understand the knowledge that children acquire in the course or their development. then, we must first examine the technology that the culture has evolved in the course of its history, and the use to which that technology has been put. (Hegel and Marx) Knowledge is seen as the creation of a social group, as it engages in its daily interaction and praxis, and both adapts to and transforms the environment around it

Views of Learning
Empiricists: learning is the process that generates knowledge: it begins when we are exposed to a new pattern, continues as we learn to recognize and respond to that pattern in an efficient manner, and does not end until we can recognize the new pattern in other contexts. and generalize our response in an appropriate manner

Rationalists: learning is seen as the process that takes place when the mind applies an existing structure to new experience in order to understand it

Socio-cultural view: learning is seen as the process of being initiated in to the life of a group, so that one can assume a role in its dally praxis (technologies that a culture has evolved in the course of its history)

For rationalists, the fundamental problem with the empiricist tradition is that it views human knowledge in a fashion that is far too atomistic, and far too rooted in external as opposed to internal processes.

For socio-historic theorists, the fundamental problem with the rationalist tradition is that it locates human knowledge in the cognitive processes of the individual, rather than the patterns of activity of the human group.

The Learning Theory of Piaget and Inhelder

Gallagher, J. and Reid, D. (1981). Genetic epistemology as a learning theory. In The Learning Theory of Piaget and Inhelder, Chapter 1, pp. 1-11. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Summary

• Unlike most learning theorists, Piagetians do not explain learning as a reording of facts that are internalized through frequency and contiguity. Instead, they argue that a learner always makes inferences that go beyond the observable aspects of the world
• Piagetians claim that what children are able to observe about the world is more dependent on what they already know than what actually exists.
• The theory developed by Piaget and Inhelder is more than a theory of development. It also offers us a great deal of understanding about how children learn.

Six principles of learning derived from Piaget and Inhelder's genetic epistemology are:
1. Learning is an internal process of construction; that is, children's own activities determine their reactions to environmental stimulation.
2. Learning is subordinated to development; that is, competence is a precondition for learning.
3. Children learn not only by observing objects but also by reorganizing on a higher mental level what they learn from coordinating their activities.
4. Growth in knowledge is often sparked by a feedback process that proceeds from questions, contradictions, and consequent mental reorganization.
5. Questions, contradictions, and the consequent reorganization of thought are often stimulated by social interaction.
6. Since awareness (or conscious realization) is a process of reconstruction rather than sudden insight, understanding often lags behind action.

Other ideas and points:

• Learning does not stem from observation or experience alone
• Children are sensitive to stimuli only when they have the competence to understand
• To grow in knowledge, children must both discover and invent.
• Genetic epistemology differs from the more traditional approaches to learning in that it does not postulate that growth in knowledge is only the "result of experience." Instead, genetic epistemology emphasizes the active role of the person.

Cognition and learning

Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M. & Resnick, L. B (1996). Cognition and learning. In D.C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 15-46). New York: MacMillan.

This chapter by Greeno et al. gives a good overview of behaviorist, cognitive, socio-cultural perspectives on knowing, learning and transfer, and the nature of motivation and engagement.

It compares and contrasts the views and assertions of three main theoretical frameworks (behaviorist, cognitive, socio-cultural) on key thematic issues and questions about cognition and learning.

The chapter also discusses how these three theoretical perspectives play out in

• the design of learning environments
• formulating curricula
• constructing assessments

What is the relationship between these three perspectives? One possibility is that each theory accounts for different types of learning and knowing. Another is that these theories are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes they can support and interact with one another.

It is the view Greeno et al. that the role of theories of cognition and learning is not to prescribe a set of practices that should be followed, but rather to assist in clarifying alternative practices.

In the conclusion, they say, "Reforming practices requires the transformation of people's understanding of principles that are assumed - perhaps implicitly - in the practices, and that theoretically oriented research can assist in identifying these principles and suggest ways of accomplishing the transformations."

This reading led me to reflect about my own experience of learning how to play tennis. Initially, it was a lot of trial and error until I figured out how to hit the ball, serve, hot backhands, lob volley, etc. This seemed like behaviorist learning. When I started taking classes and getting private lessons, my tennis improved dramatically. In addition to playing more, it was helpful to be aware of some of the theories and concepts around things like top spring, transfer of momentum, strategy, etc. This more cognitive approach helped my game tremendously. But it still took a lot of drill and practice, development of "muscle memory." My tennis game also improved as I played with different people and joined a local tennis club. The socio-cultural aspect of tennis also supported my learning, and provided motivation to improve.

To me, the question is not which theory of cognition and learning is "correct" or "most true" but rather when do they apply and how. In addition, these theories may have great explanatory value - i.e., help us understand why educational practice worked (or did not work) with a particular set of learners in a certain context.

Modern Metaphors of the Developing Child

Nelson, Katherine (2007). Young minds in social worlds, Chapter 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Competing Metaphors and Conceptions of the Developing Child
1. Piaget - "epistemic child":the child seeking knowl edge of how the world is structured and, in the process, constructing the structure of his own mind.
2. Vygotsky - "cultural historical child": this child, unlike the epistemic child, is thoroughly social, situated in a specific historical context and within a culture that might or might not nurture the mind through facilitative processes of interpersonal scaffolding.
3. The very young are "little scientists" or "child as theorists": children are said to be born with theories that guide their knowledge gathering but that the theories are subject to revision in light of new data

Problems with these models:
1. they do not account for biology or culture
2. doesn't acknowledge outside influences
3. children are not machines nor do they think like adults

Learning is viewed as ways in which the child comes to be conscious of more and more sources of meaning and to discriminate among them. Eventually, children accept things as meaningful that they would not have at an earlier point in development.

Memory is the conservation, organization and transformation of meaning. Children learn how conserve, organize and transform experiences that have meaning and significant in increasingly complex ways.

We are driven by two major motivations: to make sense and to make relationships. Gathering meaning from experience helps us with these two goals.

What we find as meaningful is affected by many things including our surroundings, culture, past experiences.

Nelson proposes a hybrid mind framework of different levels of consciousness. It differs from Piaget's stage theory in that all levels, once achieved, coexist. In stage theory, one doesn't revert to earlier levels once later levels are achieved.

One nice thing about Nelson's hybrid mind theory is that it easily incorporates other theories as mechanisms or process to explain what is going on at any given level.