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  3. Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives

This series addresses the situated nature of learning, remembering and understanding. It may appear obvious that human minds develop in social situations, and that they use the tools and representational media that culture provides to support, extend, and reorganize mental functioning. However, cognitive theories of knowledge representation and educational practice, in school and in the workplace, have not been sufficiently responsive to questions about these relationships. This series seeks to examine both these relationships, and the current and future nature of learning.

  • General Editors: John Seely Brown, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, California, Roy Pea, Stanford University, California, Christian Heath, King's College London, Lucy A. Suchman, Lancaster University

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40 results in Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives

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Situated Learning
  • Legitimate Peripheral Participation
  • Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    27 September 1991
  • In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.

Perspectives on Activity Theory
  • Edited by Yrjö Engeström, Reijo Miettinen, Raija-Leena Punamäki
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    13 January 1999
  • Activity theory is an interdisciplinary approach to human sciences that originates in the cultural-historical psychology school, initiated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Luria. It takes the object-oriented, artifact-mediated collective activity system as its unit of analysis, thus bridging the gulf between the individual subject and the societal structure. This 1999 volume includes 26 chapters on activity theory by authors from ten countries. In Part I of the book, central theoretical issues are discussed from different points of view. Some topics addressed in this part are epistemology, methodology, and the relationship between biological and cultural factors. Part II is devoted to the acquisition and development of language. This part includes a chapter that analyzes writing activity in Japanese classrooms, and a case study of literacy skills of a man with cerebral palsy. Part III contains chapters on play, learning, and education, and Part IV addresses the meaning of technology and the development of work activities. The final part covers issues of therapy and addiction.

From Teams to Knots
  • Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and Learning at Work
  • Yrjö Engeström
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    14 April 2008
  • Teams are commonly celebrated as efficient and humane ways of organizing work and learning. By means of a series of in-depth case studies of teams in the United States and Finland over a time span of more than 10 years, this book shows that teams are not a universal and ahistorical form of collaboration. Teams are best understood in their specific activity contexts and embedded in historical development of work. Today, static teams are increasingly replaced by forms of fluid knotworking around runaway objects that require and generate new forms of expansive learning and distributed agency. This book develops a set of conceptual tools for analysis and design of transformations in collaborative work and learning.

Sociocultural Studies of Mind
  • Edited by James V. Wertsch, Pablo del Rio, Amelia Alvarez
  • Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    28 April 1995
  • Sociocultural Studies of Mind addresses the primary question: how is mental functioning related to the cultural, historical, and institutional settings in which it exists? Although the contributors speak from different perspectives, there is a clear set of unifying themes that run through the volume: 1. One of the basic ways that sociocultural setting shapes mental functioning is through the cultural tools employed. 2. Mediation provides a formulation of how this shaping occurs. 3. In order to specify how cultural tools exist and have their effects, it is essential to focus on human action as a unit of analysis. This landmark volume defines a general approach to sociocultural psychology, one that we hope will be debated and redefined as the field moves forward. Sociocultural Studies of Mind is crucial reading for researchers and graduate students in cognitive science, philosophy, and cultural anthropology.

Sociocultural Psychology
  • Theory and Practice of Doing and Knowing
  • Edited by Laura Martin, Katherine Nelson, Ethel Tobach
  • Published online:
    05 November 2011
    Print publication:
    29 September 1995
  • These essays by leading theorists and researchers in sociocultural, cognitive, developmental and educational psychology honour the memory of Sylvia Scribner, whose work is recognized by each of the authors as seminal to their own thinking. The themes include the relationship between history and culture, the importance of context to thinking, the place of literacy in human activity and thought, and cognition in school and in the workplace. The volume presents applications of activity theory to fundamental issues in human behaviour at work, in school, and in problem solving situations, and it analyses historical-societal processes in science and culture. Scribner's conviction that science holds a responsibility to human welfare and understanding is carried on in these chapters. Sociocultural Psychology is crucial reading for researchers and graduate students in sociocultural, cognitive, developmental and educational psychology.

How Students Come to Be, Know, and Do
  • A Case for a Broad View of Learning
  • Leslie Rupert Herrenkohl, Véronique Mertl
  • Published online:
    06 December 2010
    Print publication:
    30 August 2010
  • Studies of learning are too frequently conceptualized only in terms of knowledge development. Yet it is vital to pay close attention to the social and emotional aspects of learning in order to understand why and how it occurs. How Students Come to Be, Know, and Do builds a theoretical argument for and a methodological approach to studying learning in a holistic way. The authors provide examples of urban fourth graders from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds studying science as a way to illustrate how this model contributes to a more complete and complex understanding of learning in school settings. What makes this book unique is its insistence that to fully understand human learning we have to consider the affective-volitional processes of learning along with the more familiar emphasis on knowledge and skills.

The Computer as Medium
  • Edited by Peter Bxgh Andersen, Berit Holmqvist, Jens F. Jensen
  • Published online:
    05 October 2010
    Print publication:
    25 March 1994
  • Computers are developing into a powerful medium integrating film, pictures, text and sound, and the use of computers for communication and information is rapidly expanding. The Computer as Medium brings insights from art, literature and theatre to bear on computers and discusses the communicative and organizational nature of computer networks within a historical perspective. The book consists of three parts. The first part characterizes the semiotic nature of computers and discusses semiotic approaches to programming and interface design. The second part discusses narrative and aesthetic issues of interactive fiction, information systems and hypertext. The final part contains papers on the cultural, organizational and historical impact of computers.The broad and rich coverage of this book will appeal to scholars in cognitive science, computer science, linguistics, semiotics, media studies and mass communications, cultural studies and education.

Talking Mathematics in School
  • Studies of Teaching and Learning
  • Edited by Magdalene Lampert, Merrie L. Blunk
  • Published online:
    04 August 2010
    Print publication:
    13 October 1998
  • The teaching and learning of mathematics in K-12 classrooms is changing. New curricula and methods engage learners in working on real problems. An essential feature of this work involves teacher and students in 'talking mathematics'. How can students learn to do this kind of talking? What can they learn from doing it? This book addresses these questions by looking at the processes of formulating problems, interpreting contexts in which problems arise, and arguing about the reasonableness of proposed solutions. The studies in this volume seek to retain the complexity of classroom practice rather than looking at it through a particular academic lens.

Changing Classes
  • School Reform and the New Economy
  • Martin Packer
  • Published online:
    06 July 2010
    Print publication:
    27 November 2000
  • How do schools help to create the kind of person a child becomes? Changing Classes tells the story of a small, poor, ethnically-mixed school district in Michigan's rust-belt, a community in turmoil over the announced closing of a nearby auto assembly plant. As teachers and administrators found ways to make schooling more relevant to working-class children, two large-scale school reform initiatives swept into town: the Governor's 'market-place' reforms and the National Science Foundation's 'state systemic initiative'. All this is set against the backdrop of the transformation to a global, post-Fordist economy. The result is an account of the complex linkages at work as society structures the development of children to adulthood.

Bakhtinian Perspectives on Language, Literacy, and Learning
  • Edited by Arnetha F. Ball, Sarah Warshauer Freedman
  • Published online:
    24 May 2010
    Print publication:
    23 August 2004
  • This 2004 book represents a multidisciplinary collaboration that highlights the significance of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories to modern scholarship in the field of language and literacy. Book chapters examine such important questions as: What resources do students bring from their home/community environments that help them become literate in school? What knowledge do teachers need in order to meet the literacy needs of varied students? How can teacher educators and professional development programs better understand teachers' needs and help them to become better prepared to teach diverse literacy learners? What challenges lie ahead for literacy learners in the coming century? Chapters are contributed by scholars who write from varied disciplinary perspectives. In addition, other scholarly voices enter into a Bakhtinian dialogue with these scholars about their ideas. These 'other voices' help our readers push the boundaries of current thinking on Bakhtinian theory and make this book a model of heteroglossia and dialogic intertexuality.

Understanding Practice
  • Perspectives on Activity and Context
  • Edited by Seth Chaiklin, Jean Lave
  • Published online:
    06 January 2010
    Print publication:
    25 June 1993
  • Understanding Practice brings together the many different perspectives that have been applied to examining social context. From Ole Dreier's work on the therapeutic relationship, to Hugh Mehan's work on learning by disabled students, to Charles and Janet Keller's work on blacksmithing, the chapters form a diverse and fascinating look at situated learning. A distinctive feature of the book is the wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the problem of understanding cognition in everyday settings.

Psychotherapy in Everyday Life
  • Ole Dreier
  • Published online:
    15 December 2009
    Print publication:
    19 November 2007
  • In this book, Dreier shows how clients make therapy work in their everyday lives. Therapy cannot fulfill its purpose until the clients can make it work outside the therapy room in relation to the concerns, people, and places of their everyday lives. Research on therapy has largely ignored these efforts. Based on session transcripts and interviews with a family of four about their everyday lives, Dreier shows the extensive and varied work the clients do to make their therapy work across places. Processes of change and learning are seen in a new perspective and it is shown that expert practices depend on how persons conduct their everyday lives. To grasp this, Dreier developed a theory of persons that is based on how they conduct their lives in social practice. This theory is grounded in critical psychology and social practice theory and is also relevant for understanding other expert practices such as education.

Computation and Human Experience
  • Philip E. Agre
  • Published online:
    07 December 2009
    Print publication:
    28 July 1997
  • This book offers a critical reconstruction of the fundamental ideas and methods of artificial intelligence research. Through close attention to the metaphors of artificial intelligence and their consequences for the field's patterns of success and failure, it argues for a reorientation of the field away from thought in the head and towards activity in the world. By considering computational ideas in a large, philosophical framework, the author eases critical dialogue between technology and the social sciences. AI can benefit from an understanding of the field in relation to human nature, and in return, it offers a powerful mode of investigation into the practicalities of physical realization. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

Beyond Communities of Practice
  • Language Power and Social Context
  • Edited by David Barton, Karin Tusting
  • Published online:
    24 November 2009
    Print publication:
    03 October 2005
  • The concept of 'communities of practice' (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998) has become an influential one in education, management, and social sciences in recent years. This book consists of a series of studies by linguists and educational researchers, examining and developing aspects of the concept which have remained relatively unexplored. Framings provided by theories of language-in-use, literacy practices, and discourse extend the concept, bringing to light issues around conflict, power, and the significance of the broader social context which have been overlooked. Chapters assess the relationship between communities of practice and other theories including literacy studies, critical language studies, the ethnography of communication, socio-cultural activity theory, and sociological theories of risk. Domains of empirical research reported include schools, police stations, adult basic education, higher education, and multilingual settings. The book highlights the need to incorporate thinking around language-in-use, power and conflict, and social context into communities of practice.

Building Virtual Communities
  • Learning and Change in Cyberspace
  • Edited by K. Ann Renninger, Wesley Shumar
  • Published online:
    12 November 2009
    Print publication:
    08 July 2002
  • Building Virtual Communities examines how learning and cognitive change are fostered by online communities. Contributors to this volume explore this question by drawing on their different theoretical backgrounds, methodologies, and personal experience with virtual communities. Each chapter discusses the different meanings of the terms community, learning, and change. Case studies are included for further clarification. Together, these chapters describe the building out of virtual communities in terms that are relevant to theorists, researchers, and practitioners. The chapters provide a basis for thinking about the dynamics of Internet community building. This includes consideration of the role of the self or individual as a participant in virtual community, and the design and refinement of technology as the conduit for extending and enhancing the possibilities of community building in cyberspace. Building Virtual Communities will interest educators, psychologists, sociologists, and researchers in human-computer interaction.

Dialogic Inquiry
  • Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education
  • Gordon Wells
  • Published online:
    09 November 2009
    Print publication:
    28 August 1999
  • For more than a quarter of a century, the polemics surrounding educational reform have centered on two points of view: those who favor a 'progressive' child-centered form of education, and those who would prefer a return to a more structured, teacher-directed curriculum, which emphasizes basic knowledge and skills. Vygotsky's social constructivist theory offers an alternative solution, placing stress on co-construction of knowledge by more and less mature participants engaging in joint activity together, with semiotic mediation as the primary means whereby the less mature participants can seek solutions to everyday problems, using the resources existing in society. In addition to using illustrative examples from classroom studies, a comparative analysis of the theories and complementary developments in works by Vygotsky, and the linguist M. A. K. Halliday, are provided. This unique volume will be of tremendous benefit to those in the field of education, as well as to sociolinguists, psychologists and researchers.

Technology in Action
  • Christian Heath, Paul Luff
  • Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    12 June 2000
  • Despite the extraordinary advances in digital and communication technology over recent years, we know very little about the way these complex systems affect everyday work and interaction. This book seeks to explore these issues through a series of video-based field studies. It begins by discussing the introduction of basic information systems in general medical practice and ends with an exploration of interpersonal communication in advanced media spaces; in the process also looking at news production, the control room of London Underground and computer aided design in architectural practice. Social interaction forms a particular focus of these studies as they explore the way individuals use various tools and technologies and coordinate their actions and activities with each other. The authors also show how video-based field studies of work and interaction can inform the design, development and deployment of new technology, in this valuable new resource for academics, researchers and practitioners.

The Materiality of Learning
  • Technology and Knowledge in Educational Practice
  • Estrid Sørensen
  • Published online:
    15 September 2009
    Print publication:
    27 April 2009
  • The field of educational research lacks a methodology for the study of learning that does not begin with humans, their aims, and their interests. The Materiality of Learning seeks to overcome this human-centered mentality by developing a novel spatial approach to the materiality of learning. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), Estrid Sørensen compares an Internet-based 3D virtual environment project in a fourth-grade class with the class's work with traditional learning materials, including blackboards, textbooks, notebooks, pencils, and rulers. Taking into account pupils' and teachers' physical bodies, Professor Sørensen analyzes the multiple forms of technology, knowledge, and presence that are enacted with the materials. Featuring detailed ethnographic descriptions and useful end-of-chapter summaries, this book is an important reference for professionals and graduate or postgraduate students interested in a variety of fields, including educational studies, educational psychology, social anthropology, and STS.

Acting in Anaesthesia
  • Ethnographic Encounters with Patients, Practitioners and Medical Technologies
  • Dawn Goodwin
  • Published online:
    20 August 2009
    Print publication:
    16 February 2009
  • In recent years, evidence-based medicine (EBM), clinical governance and professional accountability have become increasingly significant in shaping the organisation and delivery of healthcare. However, these notions all build upon and exemplify the idea of human-centred, individual action. In this book, Dawn Goodwin suggests that such models of practice exaggerate the extent to which practitioners are able to predict and control the circumstances and contingencies of healthcare. Drawing on ethnographic material, Goodwin explores the way that 'action' unfolds in a series of empirical cases of anaesthetic and intensive care practice. Anaesthesia configures a relationship between humans, machines and devices that transforms and redistributes capacities for action and thereby challenges the figure of a rational, intentional, acting individual. This book elucidates the ways in which various entities (machines, tools, devices and unconscious patients as well as healthcare practitioners) participate, and how actions become legitimate and accountable.

Thinking as Communicating
  • Human Development, the Growth of Discourses, and Mathematizing
  • Anna Sfard
  • Published online:
    27 July 2009
    Print publication:
    21 January 2008
  • This book is an attempt to change our thinking about thinking. Anna Sfard undertakes this task convinced that many long-standing, seemingly irresolvable quandaries regarding human development originate in ambiguities of the existing discourses on thinking. Standing on the shoulders of Vygotsky and Wittgenstein, the author defines thinking as a form of communication. The disappearance of the time-honoured thinking-communicating dichotomy is epitomised by Sfard's term, commognition, which combines communication with cognition. The commognitive tenet implies that verbal communication with its distinctive property of recursive self-reference may be the primary source of humans' unique ability to accumulate the complexity of their action from one generation to another. The explanatory power of the commognitive framework and the manner in which it contributes to our understanding of human development is illustrated through commognitive analysis of mathematical discourse accompanied by vignettes from mathematics classrooms.

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