Moving from the individual to the collective

I have not read my statement on my personal theory of learning that I wrote in the opening weeks of this course. I am hoping when I come to write my revised version next week, I will have made some changes. I hope.

You see, I lost a bit of hope when, tonight I sat down to review the last five weeks to so in an attempt to pull some of the ideas together. Finding patterns and relationships is how I learn. You see, despite all of the learning I have enjoyed in this course, I still am most comfortable as an individual learner.

The dialogue generated through online posts in the course has challenged by thinking and should I find myself in a teaching situation ever again (I have taken a hiatus from the classroom), I will strive to incorporate the concepts of this course. However, push comes to shove and I need to produce a knowledge artifact, I just want to retreat to my office, read my material and then be left alone to contemplate, to play with ideas on a mind map or chart, and then to write. I love a good debate and would discuss my writing with anyone willing to engage me, but I still need the time alone for the production before I want to dialogue with anyone.

Having said that, I am intrigued by the ideas presented in the last five weeks which are pulling me in a more collective direction.

Most recently, in week 10, we explored Scardamalia’s idea of collective cognitive responsibility. The most exciting aspect of this concept for me is the idea of having each student accepting personal responsibility for not only their own learning, but also for the learning of their peers. In Collective Cognitive Responsibility, the teacher joins his or her students who become a group of equals all contributing to a body of knowledge. If students got used to the idea of Collective Cognitive Responsibility in the K-12 system, then the independent learning demanded in post-secondary would not come as such a shock. Also, when professors encourage students to from study groups to help each other through, those who grew up with CCR would know what to do instead of staring at the professor in complete confusion.

Also in week 10, we looked at the idea of a community of inquiry from Garrison and Arbaugh (2007). I enjoyed how this article looked at learning from three different presences: social, teacher, and cognitive. A group who has come together for learning needs to have a social presence – where open communication and collaboration is encouraged. A guiding force to structure content and assure content expertise is also needed. Thirdly, there must be a cognitive presence where students have a sense of wonder and a desire to acquire answers.  The authors state that all three aspects are integral for learning to occur.

I was fascinated to discover the idea of distributed cognition (also referred to as distributed intelligence and distributed constructivism). The article from Pea (1993) explored the idea that others are required for our learning that we can’t learn in isolation. The idea of affordances was discussed – the idea that our perception of an object is linked to how it is used. This related to the fact that objects in our everyday life possess distributed intelligence – they contain the intelligence of those who invented it and taught us how to use it. Pea (1993) likened his ideas to those of Vygotsky stating that Vygotsky, “placed great emphasis on the ways in which character of social interactions and externally mediated action makes explicit certain processes that come to be internalized in the private thought of an individual.” Pea (1993) explained that we use our environment which includes other people as well as objects when we learn and therefore our new ideas and thoughts are distributed across that environment.

A video that help me understand affordances

Cole and Engestrom (1993) discussed four different ways that effect just how cognition is distributed

a)      In person – Each of us has a unique cultural perspective, our own personal view of the world that differs from everyone else’s.

b)      In the medium culture – The goals of the learning, where it takes place (setting) and the tools that are used will affect how cognition is distributed

c)       Socially – the rules of engagement and the artifacts generated in which the learning takes place affects distribution.

d)      In time – meaning changes over time

The Cole and Engestrom helped me to understand how meaning is shared across a group and how meaning affects cognition.

The last concept that helped me begin my journey from individual to collective was that of situated cognition. As Dewey stated “learning is an experience of the relations of things”. Learning is embedded in context. Learning is also personal. This concept is very much based in activity, where the distributed cognition was very much places in the realm of ideas and learning, not so much on tasks.  

So what does this all mean?

The idea of learning as a social activity is the most obvious common thread in all of the above concepts. With my teacher hat on, I say, “OF COURSE”. But, then when I think of learning, I find that harder. Given a choice between reading a book along in my room or sitting in a room full of people talking, I choose the book every time. However, I will acknowledge that I do learn more (after reading first) when discussing ideas with others because others challenge my ideas and cause me to reach into my learning to justify, clarify, or change my stance.

The concepts also bring to the fore the idea of learning be situated in and distributed among the tools, people, and environments we learn with. The learning will be changed significantly by what is going on within and around us at the time of learning.

SIDE NOTE: A brilliant blog and wiki that one can get lost in for hours….. http://cresenciafong.com/blog/?p=9

Cole, M. & Engestrom, Y. (1993). A cultural-historical approach to distributed cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions. Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1-46). NY: Cambridge University Press

Garrison, D. R & Arbaugh, J. B. (2007). Researching the community of inquiry framework: Review, issues, and future directions. Internet and Higher Education, 10, 157-172

Pea, R.D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions. Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). NY: Cambridge University Press.

Scardamalia, M. (2002). Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. In B. Smith (Ed.) Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society (pp. 67-98). Chicago: Open Court. http://ikit.org/fulltext/inpressCollectiveCog.pdf