Dewey, Gee, Bransford, Schwartz, & Pea

Dewey, Gee, Bransford, Schwartz, and Pea have made many similar arguments, albeit using different language.
Dewey focused on the “continuity of experience”, saying that everything we learn is affected by what we already know. Our past experiences continually impact our current and future experiences.
Gee focused on a specific subset of Dewey’s theory, arguing, in part, that students who aren’t exposed to specialized academic language early and often are at a distinct disadvantage in school.
Bransford and Schwartz focused their work on measuring transfer, but the arguments they made relate well to Dewey’s idea of continuity of experience. They claim that information presented in context, with concrete examples, can help students appreciate new knowledge and increase the chances that the information will be spontaneously used in other contexts. They also focused on an idea they termed “knowing with”, which suggests that everything we learn is tied to the context in which we learn it and the tools that are used to learn it, and that what we learn in continually influencing what we might learn in the future.
Pea focused on distributed intelligence. This is the idea that intelligence not only comes from an individual engaged in an activity, but also from the tools that an individual is using to complete said activity. What we know and what we are able to accomplish cannot be decontextualized from the tools that we use. In designed learning experiences, we Pea argues that we can use tools to offload cognitive demand. This allows learners to focus on experience rather than specific content knowledge.

         While Dewey introduces us, broadly, to the idea of continuity, Gee identifies a particular issue that teachers face in meeting students at their different competencies while designing a learning environment that contributes to the effective progression of continuity among all of them. Bransford and Schwartz also recognize the importance of this continuum of learning, while suggesting new assessments that capture a more dynamic picture of the students’ progress in learning over time. Finally, Pea discusses the idea of using learning tools (as distributed intelligence) that students can leverage to progress their own learning trajectory to higher-level thinking. All of these would agree that learning in a single classroom needs to be designed in a way that builds on students’ previous knowledge, incorporates useful tools and sources from their communities, and effectively prepares students for future learning. Thus, creating a dynamic continuum of learning.

            Dewey’s idea of continuity highlights the importance of identifying a student’s previous knowledge and organizing the activities within the classroom to benefit the students as they attempt to build on it in the future. Dewey is sure to underline the role of continuity in the importance for a teacher to consider past learning while developing present learning environments that will effectively shape future learning.

Gee has decided to focus on the specific problem of academic learning acquisition and the role it can play in a student’s continuity of learning from his first day of class. The disparity of language between children from affluent and poor families often causes a rift between the successes of those students from the beginning of their schooling. Gee emphasizes the importance of drawing on students’ previous learning, while pointing out that the diversity of previous learning can create problems as a classroom assumes a specific academic language.

Bransford and Schwartz then identify the inabilities of certain assessment strategies to provide an idea of this continuous learning that a student experiences. Bransford and Schwartz discuss the static nature of assessment results that are unable to take into account a student’s learning trajectory (progress). They suggest implementing “practice for future learning” perspectives to focus on extended learning and more dynamic assessments for students.

            Pea’s article discusses the notion of distributed intelligence and its role in expediting and building the foundation for much of our learning. It is my (current?) opinion that distributed intelligence relies on and shapes the continuity of learning within an individual AND throughout history. This distributed intelligence utilizes these tools that “literally carry intelligence in them” to advance the learner more quickly to higher-level thinking and problem solving.

Week 4: Making Connections

So, It would appear that perhaps Dewey and Norman have had the largest influence on my thinking, although I did enjoy all of the other readings. The table below has 2 main sections: Major Claims and Informative for Design. The blue text is my thoughts on connections amongst readings. This is not thorough, but it does highlight the things that stand-out to me the most. 

	Dewey (1938) Experience and Education	Gee (2004) Situated Language and Schooling	Pea (1993) Distributed Intelligence	Bransford & Schwartz (1999) Rethinking Transfer
Major Claims	It’s not either or between “traditionalism” and “progressivism”. Organization is still important but what it looks like should be rethought. Experiences are always happening and involve explicit (purposeful) and implicit (by-product) learning—Experiences can be educative or miseducative.	Learning is a cultural process, and ignoring the resources that traditionally low achieving kids bring into the classroom is what has been causing the gap between poor (mostly minority) students and their more privileged (mostly white) peers	The mind rarely works alone; intelligence is distributed "across minds, persons, and they symbolic and physical environments, both natural and artificial" (P. 1/ 47) RESEMBLES GEE’S NOTIONS OF TOOL USE AND PARTICIPATION IN A COMMUNITY.	“... people's perception of the givens of a situation depends on what they have at their disposal to know with. Thus, the individual's knowledge actively constitutes the perceivable situation (p. 23 / 82) RESEMBLES DEWEY’S CONTINTUITY OF EXPERIENCE The ability to use resources to problem solve (“knowing with,” p. 11, 70) is a better predictor of future success than a snapshot of a person’s knowledge at any given point in time (p. 10 / 69) MAKES ME THINK ABOUT PEA’S POINT THAT AFFORDANCES ARE ONLY THERE IF THEY ARE TAKEN UP, AND DEWEY’S NOTION OF CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE ALONG WITH NORMAN’S CLAIMS ABOUT THE VALUE OF STANDARDIZATION “They can modify their environments by changing them physically, by seeking resources (including other people), by marshaling support for new ideas, and so forth. Rather than simply viewing transfer as the mapping of old understandings and practices onto a given situation, the PFL perspective emphasizes that people can actively change the given situation into something that is more compatible with their current state and goals.” (p. 23 /82) RESEMBLES DEWEY’S PRINCIPLE OF INTERACTION
Informative for Design	The tension between theory and practice resembles the link between untested design and use, and use in novel situations. (RESEMBLES NORMANS EXPLANATION OF WHY PROTOTYPING AND TESTING IS IMPORTANT)	Have learners collaborate with experts on tasks they couldn’t do on their own. Have learners work in a "smart" environment filled with tools and technologies, and artifacts store knowledge and skills they can draw on when they do not personally have such knowledge and skills. (RESEMBLES PEA’S DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE) Information is given "just in time" when it can be put to use (and thus better understood) and "on demand" when learners feel they need it and can   follow it. Extended information given out of a context of application (thus not "just in time”) is offered after, not before, learners have had experiences relevant to what that information is about. (RESEMBLES DEWEY’S IDEAS ON BUILDING ON EXPERIENCE) Learners see learning as not just "getting a grade" or "doing school," but as part and parcel of taking on the emerging identity of being a physicist.	“... the environments in which humans live are thick with invented artifacts that are in constant use for structuring activity..." (p. 2/ 28) RESEMBLES DEWEY’S NOTIONS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL, SOCIAL, AND MATERIAL SETTINGS, AND NORMANS NOTIONS OF BAD DESIGN VS. HUMAN ERROR “... intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed... While it is people who are in activity, artifacts commonly provide resources for guidance and argumentation. The design of artifacts, both historically by others and opportunistically in the midst of one's activity, can advance that activity by shaping what are possible and what are necessary elements of that activity" (p. 3/ 50) RESEMBLES NORMAN’S NOTIONS OF DESIGNING FOR HUMANS ENGAGED IN ACTIVITY AND THE LEGACY PROBLEM “Resources of the world offer potential relationships, constrained by their affordances, that may not at all be mentally represented prior to a situational perception of their meaning... Intelligence is contributed in each moment by the ways in which people interpret the things they are experiencing" (p. 5 / 55) RESEMBLES ALL OF NORMAN AND DEWEY’S PRINCIPLES OF CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE AND INTERACTION Affordances aren’t always obvious for novices (p. 62, 64). There are trade-offs between privileging “meaning for” and “meaning of” "Intelligence is contributed in each moment by the ways in which people interpret the things they are experiencing" (p. 5 / 55) REMINDS ME OF DEWEY’S CONTINUITY OF EXPERIENCE	We can see people’s learning trajectories by looking at the questions they ask because their questions shape/reveal their learning goals. (p. 10 / 69) If students don’t create good representations of problems they might assimilate unrelated problems and make negative transfer. This means that we want students to have differentiated knowledge, which can be facilitated by encouraging metacognitive strategies such as monitoring and reflecting on one’s own learning with the goal of improvement (p. 5/65) “... people need help thinking about their experiences and organizing them into some coherent view of the world.” (p. 26 /85) “... the dynamic assessment environments should help students learn about themselves as learners” (p. 32 /91)
Definitions	Principle/Condition of Continuity of Experience: past experiences effect current and future experiences, experiences can prepare us for future learning or close us off to future learning... learning should always have a purpose experienced in-the-moment Principle/Condition of interaction: “Every genuine experience has an active side which changes in some degree the objective conditions (environment / material and social setting) under which experiences are had... [The principle of interaction] assigns equal rights to both factors in experience-objective and internal conditions” (p. 15, 16)... in Rogers’ words, or my summary of Rogers’ words: "human inquiry always restructures a situation as people appropriate materials for new purposes"

Progressivists and Prior Experience

Dewey, Gee, Pea, Bransford and Schwartz all have progressive views on education.  As a set, Dewey creates the framework for this view by comparing and contrasting it to traditionalism.  He shows that education for the five is not like the “filling of a cup”, acquisitional metaphor for learning, but rather a process that gets students active in their learning.  Learners in this view are not handed content, but rather are given the tools to discover and create learning for themselves.  Gee adds to this by pointing out that the human mind works best when it can run simulations, not just memorizing.  Bransford and Schwartz with their idea of transfer show the importance of the process of learning, not just the product; because the process is more transferable than memorizing a fact, more focus should be placed on making this an active process.  Pea sums it up, simply stating, “Intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed” (p. 50).  His strong ties to constructivism and creating intelligence through human activity make him a strong advocate for progressivism.

The five also see how important prior experiences and knowledge are to future learning.  Dewey’s idea of continuity again acts as the framework for this connection.  His idea that the learner brings their experience to the learning situation, and then carries this experience into future learning connects to Gee’s concept of the languages of learning.  Here, Gee writes of how some students come to school with an academic language, while some do not.  For these two types of students to be on an even playing field, so to speak, in the classroom, they must both have that academic language; if it was not developed in their home experiences, then their experiences at school must do double-duty to make up for a lack of prior experience.  Similarly, Pea would see experience as a tool, another factor that contributes to the learning environment.

  One way in which Bransford and Schwartz add to this conversation in the area of transfer is through their concepts of “letting go” and “lived experience” (p. 80-81, 84-85).  In letting go, the learner must have some prior knowledge that they can assess (they use the example of a historian working with an unfamiliar topic).  For the learner to show good transfer, they must be able to reevaluate this knowledge and decide what is useful and what needs to be “let go” to keep them from making assumptions instead of learning.  With “lived experience”, they show how important it is for contrasting cases.  Learners can use their experience as a contrast to a new experience, allowing them to uncover more about it. 

Really Dewey, Gee, Pea, Bransford and Schwartz are all calling for change.  They want to see education change from its traditional approach to one that focuses on active learning, they want to see prior experience used as a tool to further the learners understanding, and they want to see the changes to assessment and learning objectives that come along with them.  

Linking Dewey, Gee, Bransford & Schwartz, and Pea

             Dewey prefaces his thinking by explaining that it is not enough to simply acknowledge that something is not working and therefore do the complete opposite. While traditional instruction has been ineffective, he states, “it does not follow that progressive education is a matter of planless improvisation” (p.28). Rather, because every individual brings with him/her prior experiences and internal conditions priming them for certain learning opportunities, it is therefore a teacher’s job to most effectively orchestrate an interaction between internal and objective (external) conditions that will move a learner forward (p.42). He warns that this insight really only complicates the work of educators, and that we must now explore the methods of orchestrating these interactions. Dewey has framed the challenge for us, the other writers have brought in some more concrete examples and insights into what it will mean to enact this “progressive” form of education.

            Gee brings our attention to the achievement gap within schools and sheds some light on the fact that the way we teach within schools may be keeping certain students from reaching their potential. He advocates for a more “cultural” process of learning involving “masters. . . creating an environment rich in support for learners” (p.12).

            Bransford & Schwartz similarly argue that the goal should be to “place (students) on a trajectory toward expertise” (p.68). They argue that the end goal itself does not matter so much as having the tools and skillset to engage in the process of reaching the end goal. The idea of knowing “with,” that “an educated person thinks, perceives, and judges with everything that he has studied in school, even though he can’t recall on demand,” places emphasis on experiences that will help students grow and interact with the world in rich and meaningful ways in future experiences (p.69-70).

            Pea brings in the idea of distributed intelligence, and the idea that intelligence is accomplished rather than possessed (p.50). It is not so much about gaining personal knowledge, but about being able to interact with the world (humans and non-human objects) in effective ways. Students must learn how to interact with versatile objects, tools created by others that store intelligence (measuring tools, periodic table, maps, calculators, to name a few), as well as collaborating with others in order to construct intelligence.

            All authors place an emphasis on experience, both past and future, and social interaction. The view of what makes someone truly educated is changing and therefore, so is the role of “educator.” It is less about passing knowledge down from one brain to another, and more about setting up learning opportunities that will challenge and build upon past and current experiences, allowing learners to interact with and act on the world in deeper, productive ways.