According to Alexander 2005 we now know that children need to talk, to experience a rich diet of spoken language, in order to think and to learn. As Johnson and Johnson [2009] argued, the methods we use to teach leave an imprint on students. If instructors primarily use recitation, students are imprinted with a pattern of listening, waiting to be called upon, and giving answers that the instructor wants. However, if instructors use group discussion, student are imprinted with a pattern of opinions. While literacy and numeracy may be considered the ‘basics’ of schooling, ‘talk is arguably the true foundation of learning’ [Alexander,2005a, 9.], and by extension the true foundation of democratic citizenship education
This attention to talk/discussion/discourse as a learning tool has been given added weight by recent work in the field of cognitive science to Hutchins [2000], while sociologists have long noted that most of our knowledge is the result of a social construction rather than of individual observation [e.g.,Berger & Luckmann;1967], it was not until the insights of the psychologist Vygotsky emerged in the 1980s that a similar notion came about in cognitive psychology under the of ‘distributed cognition’ Traditionally, human cognition has been seen and studied as existing solely ‘inside’ a person, irrelevant to the social, physical, and material context in which the cognition takes place. In contrast, Vygotsky argued that the true direction of thinking is from the social to the individual and not from the individual to the social.
Building on this and on similar ideas, advocates of distributed cognition argue that a better understanding of human cognition can be achieved if it is conceptualized and studied as distributed among individuals. According to this conceptualization, knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative efforts towards shared objectives within cultural surroundings, information is processed among individuals, and the tools and artefacts are provided by culture. Cognitive distribution thus emphasizes the social aspects cognition:’ It does not seem possible to account for the cognitive accomplishments of out species by reference to what is inside our heads alone. One must also consider the cognitive roles of the social and material world’ [Hutchins,2000,p.9]
According to Hutchins [2000], cognitive processes may be distributed in at least three interesting ways: across members of a social group, between internal and external structures [material or environmental], or between earlier or later events. In the context of this chapter, we focus on the fact classrooms are social groups, and classroom discussion in turn can be seen as conversation [distributions] across members of these social groups. According to Heylighen, Heath, and Van Overwalle [2004] ‘Groups often can be more intelligent than individuals, integrating information from a variety of sources, and overcoming the individual biases, errors, and limitations’ In the simplest case, this occurs through the accumulation of layers of individual contributions. Heylighen, Heath, and Van Overwalle further elaborated that an idea that is recurrently communicated will undergo a shift in meaning each time it is assimilated by a new agent, who adds his/her own unique interpretation and experience to it. After several exchanges among a diverse group of agents, the communication may result in a new configuration of ideas or possibly a consensus around a shared concept, thus providing a basic mechanism for the social construction of knowledge.
The emergence of this conceptual framework of distributed cognition offers a powerful argument for the use of classroom discussion as a vital [but not the sole] tool for learning. According to Brown et al. [1993] a cognitively-based model of instruction emphasizing socially distributed expertise in the classroom will foster a community of learners where the ethos is one of individual responsibility coupled with communal sharing. In this model discourse, constructive discussion, Questioning, and criticism would represent the prevailing mode rather than the exception in classroom. The classroom would become, in lave and Wenger’s [1991] conceptualization, ‘a community of practice.’ A primary focus would be on learning as social participation, that is, an individual as an active participant in the practices of social communities and in the construction of his/her identity through these communities. I would further argue that this type of classroom would provide students with the opportunity to acquire the king of citizenship competencies [Knowledge, skills, and dispositions] described earlier in this chapter.
The relationship between classroom talk and citizenship education has been a focus of research for at least several decades. In 1991, Wilen and white reviewed more than 25 years of research on the forms of discourse in social studies classroom in the united states, even citing studies of classroom questioning from 1912 and 1935. According to Hahn [1991,p.470], social studies educators have long asserted that studying and discussing issues is important to democracy and that this supported by research: ‘Empirical evidence gathered over the past 25 years, although meager and often coming from non-representative samples, consistently supports the position that positive outcomes are associated with giving students opportunities to explore controversial issues in a open, supportive atmosphere,
According to Alexander 2005 we now know that children need to talk, to experience a rich diet of spoken language, in order to think and to learn. As Johnson and Johnson [2009] argued, the methods we use to teach leave an imprint on students. If instructors primarily use recitation, students are imprinted with a pattern of listening, waiting to be called upon, and giving answers that the instructor wants. However, if instructors use group discussion, student are imprinted with a pattern of opinions. While literacy and numeracy may be considered the ‘basics’ of schooling, ‘talk is arguably the true foundation of learning’ [Alexander,2005a, 9.], and by extension the true foundation of democratic citizenship education This attention to talk/discussion/discourse as a learning tool has been given added weight by recent work in the field of cognitive science to Hutchins [2000], while sociologists have long noted that most of our knowledge is the result of a social construction rather than of individual observation [e.g.,Berger & Luckmann;1967], it was not until the insights of the psychologist Vygotsky emerged in the 1980s that a similar notion came about in cognitive psychology under the of ‘distributed cognition’ Traditionally, human cognition has been seen and studied as existing solely ‘inside’ a person, irrelevant to the social, physical, and material context in which the cognition takes place. In contrast, Vygotsky argued that the true direction of thinking is from the social to the individual and not from the individual to the social. Building on this and on similar ideas, advocates of distributed cognition argue that a better understanding of human cognition can be achieved if it is conceptualized and studied as distributed among individuals. According to this conceptualization, knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative efforts towards shared objectives within cultural surroundings, information is processed among individuals, and the tools and artefacts are provided by culture. Cognitive distribution thus emphasizes the social aspects cognition:’ It does not seem possible to account for the cognitive accomplishments of out species by reference to what is inside our heads alone. One must also consider the cognitive roles of the social and material world’ [Hutchins,2000,p.9] According to Hutchins [2000], cognitive processes may be distributed in at least three interesting ways: across members of a social group, between internal and external structures [material or environmental], or between earlier or later events. In the context of this chapter, we focus on the fact classrooms are social groups, and classroom discussion in turn can be seen as conversation [distributions] across members of these social groups. According to Heylighen, Heath, and Van Overwalle [2004] ‘Groups often can be more intelligent than individuals, integrating information from a variety of sources, and overcoming the individual biases, errors, and limitations’ In the simplest case, this occurs through the accumulation of layers of individual contributions. Heylighen, Heath, and Van Overwalle further elaborated that an idea that is recurrently communicated will undergo a shift in meaning each time it is assimilated by a new agent, who adds his/her own unique interpretation and experience to it. After several exchanges among a diverse group of agents, the communication may result in a new configuration of ideas or possibly a consensus around a shared concept, thus providing a basic mechanism for the social construction of knowledge. The emergence of this conceptual framework of distributed cognition offers a powerful argument for the use of classroom discussion as a vital [but not the sole] tool for learning. According to Brown et al. [1993] a cognitively-based model of instruction emphasizing socially distributed expertise in the classroom will foster a community of learners where the ethos is one of individual responsibility coupled with communal sharing. In this model discourse, constructive discussion, Questioning, and criticism would represent the prevailing mode rather than the exception in classroom. The classroom would become, in lave and Wenger’s [1991] conceptualization, ‘a community of practice.’ A primary focus would be on learning as social participation, that is, an individual as an active participant in the practices of social communities and in the construction of his/her identity through these communities. I would further argue that this type of classroom would provide students with the opportunity to acquire the king of citizenship competencies [Knowledge, skills, and dispositions] described earlier in this chapter. The relationship between classroom talk and citizenship education has been a focus of research for at least several decades. In 1991, Wilen and white reviewed more than 25 years of research on the forms of discourse in social studies classroom in the united states, even citing studies of classroom questioning from 1912 and 1935. According to Hahn [1991,p.470], social studies educators have long asserted that studying and discussing issues is important to democracy and that this supported by research: ‘Empirical evidence gathered over the past 25 years, although meager and often coming from non-representative samples, consistently supports the position that positive outcomes are associated with giving students opportunities to explore controversial issues in a open, supportive atmosphere,
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
