1Physics 4810 / 7810 Week 6 - Situated!Day 11: Fa2008:Situated CognitionZPDand PlayFieldworkGO VOTE (Register and Vote!and vote the whole ballot!)Fieldwork• How is it going?• Apologies about fieldnotes… (#$#!!# WebCT)• More this week• Projects?(yes this is the authentic practice we arereading about)Clarifying Questions• Do you have any questions of interpretationfrom the papers?• E.g. what does ersatz mean?• What is ZPD• How does Vygotsky define Play?Largely about CONTEXT• What do we mean by context ? Latin root of the term, "contexere, whichmeans 'to weave together.'"(Cole 1996,p. 135)Context• Context is the collection of componentsand the relations among them - theconnected whole which includesconstituent elements and the relationsamong them.• Birdwhistell uses the analogy of a rope todevelop such a notion of context:Context as RopeThe fibers that make up the rope arediscontinuous; when you twist them togetheryou don't make them continuous, you makethe thread continuous .... even though it maylook in a thread as though each of thoseparticles[fibres] are going all through it, thatisn't the case... Obviously, I am not talkingabout the environment. I am not talkingabout inside and outside. I am talking aboutthe conditions of the system(Birdwhistell as quoted in R. McDermott 1993, p. 274).2Situating CognitionHow can the following make sense?1 is 33 is 55 is 44 is the perfect number.What’s a magic number?How about?One is 3Three is 5Five is 4Four is the magic Number?Cognitive ApprenticeshipsThe authors encourage teachers to engage studentsin authentic activities and immerse themselves in theculture of the subject they are studying. What arestudents’ attitudes about such an enculturation? Willthey want to dive into, say, the culture of physicists?•The closest we have to cognitive apprenticeshipsright now is probably not in the classroom but ininternships.•Teaching using cognitive apprenticeship requiresmore effort and skill on the part of the teacher thantraditional methods of teaching. How can we betterprepare teachers for thisCognitive Apprenticeships• Does CA mean making more physicists?• Is that our goal in the class?Situating Physics / Context• I used to hate word problems. I spentso much time just trying to interpret …• Sure, a golfer can use physics topredict where his ball will land if he hitsit such that it makes a 37 degree angleto the ground - but why would s/he?• I enjoy problems where I can use myphysics knowledge in situations whereone must use physics (for example, inastronomy). In In these situations,using physics feels more natural;Context• What role does context serve?– Establish prior knowledge– Send message that you know this– Create situation that is motivating– Physics becomes a tool to a natural endPhysics as a tool . . ."It is quite possible to acquire a toolbut to be unable to use it." In myopinion, this is far more than'quite possible;' this is inevitable.3Authentic Practice• Is “school” not an authentic activity?• Do students not develop expertise at “school” I think that often the students thatexcel are the ones that figure outwhat the teacher is looking for andprovide itJPFsReally? Is this better3/4 x 2/3 = 1/2 ???Orwell was right?1984T/F: It is possible to have a completelanguage that conveys meaning preciselyT/F: He who controls the present controls thepast. He who controls the past controls thefuture.Collaborative Work• We are social creatures, and what we do by ourselvesis greatly outweighed by what we can do with others.This assumption once again seems to come out of theblue. How did nobody question this for decades? Itseems so obvious.• My experience is that group work is exceedingly rare inthe workforce. Does anyone’s personal experience (orother data) suggest otherwise?Collaborative WorkCalled for by:• ABET• National Academies• National Standards• Project 2061• Governor’s Council• Industry…4Tracking• If you are in favor of tracking, do you thinkthat tracking should be changed to be basedon students' current level of developmentAND their proximal zone?• Students should be placed in a class withother students as close as possible to theirability level (or development level if youprefer). You are doing a disservice to honorsstudents by putting them with students thatwill slow them down and a disservice toregular students by flying through material tobenefit the honors students.Tracking• What do you think?• What does the literature say?Mehan, H., Hubbard, L., Lintz, A., & Villanueva, I. (1994).Tracking untracking: The consequences of placing low trackstudents in high track classes (Research Report No. 10).Washington, DC: National Center for Research on CulturalDiversity and Second Language Learning.CU Collaborative GroupsImpact on different pretest populations:"high starters" 50<pre<93%normalized gain for high pretest 00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.9S04 (13%) F04 (22%) S05 (14%)Semester (% of class in this gpretest >50%(% of class in this pool)Course (1) (2) (3)Tut courseTrad RecitImpact on different pretest populations:"low starters" pretest <=12.5%normalized gain for low pretest 00.10.20.30.40.50.6S04 (23%) F04 (20%) S05 (22%)Semester (% of class in this gpretest <= 12.5%Course (1) (2) (3)(% of class in this pool)Tut courseTrad RecitN=75 N=45 N=33 N=95N=75 N=23 N=33 N=9N=75 N=23 N=33 N=93.1±.12.9 ±.23.3 ±.13.2 ±.3Ave course gradeN=25 N=10 N=18 N=8Play• 1) Does letting college students "play"compromise our academic structure?How do we get them to stay on task?(I guess this applies to youngerstudents too.)• What do we mean by rule based play?Zone of Proximal Development• Analogous to the difference between a:– Scalar •– Vector• What is this useful for:– Understanding cog processes / development– Designing