Running head: LESSON PLAN CRITIQUE: ARE ROCKRIDGE TEENAGERS A TRIBE?

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Lesson Plan Critique: Are Rockridge Teenagers a Tribe? Craig Chubb ETEC 512 University of British Columbia Dr. Janet McCracken 1 November 2012

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Rationale of Theories I chose this particular unit plan for two reasons. First, I knew it would fit well with some of the learning theories presented in ETEC 512; and second, I have only taught this unit once and knew that it could be tweaked to better connect with the different learning theories presented in this course. I can now actually make sense of, and theoretically articulate a unit plan, that before I could only intuit to be effective in terms of student learning. Thus, I chose three theories (and a theorist) that I thought mostly reflected my unit: Situated Learning, Distributed Cognition, and Constructivism. Situated Learning and Vygotsky At the time when I created this unit I did not consider Situated Learning Theory nor have Vygotsky in mind. Asking students to answer the question, are Rockridge teenagers a tribe? was designed to be purposely abstract, knowing that the students were going to be required to do some investigation and learning on many different levels. The tribe question ultimately requires the students to do a comparative analysis of the different identities, and this can only be done after having completed their own primary research. Because Situated Learning is in some ways born out of Vygotskyian theory that human thought and action are situated, it seemed natural to group the two theories together (Rambusch, p. 2). On many fronts, this unit supports many aspects of Situated Learning. The students are required to become researchers in their chosen field, which is a fairly complex task, especially for grade 8 students. Students need to know concepts of statistical significance, they need to how to survey and they need to know whom to survey in order to make their research valid. This part of the unit was particularly important to me because I knew that students who use tools actively

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rather than just acquire them, by contrast, build an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and of the tools themselves (Brown et al., p. 33). It was important that the students in their respective groups go through a period of struggle to learn how to problem-solve as they move forward in their project. They needed to know the challenges of collecting data and the pros and cons of using digital or non-digital tools to complete the task. In short, they needed to think and act like researchers and become authentically enculturated by using some of the cultures tools. Because throughout most of their lives people learn and work collaboratively, not individually, as they are asked to do in many schools (Brown et al., p. 40), it was important that this unit was designed with an emphasis on social construction of knowledge and collaboration. This project also authentically situates the students because they are essentially studying themselves as a tribe in the wider context of cultural identity, thus making the task relevant and personal. With a greater understanding of Situated Learning and Vygotskys sociocultural nature of learning and knowledge, the unit could be amended to emphasize these modes of learning. For example, I made too many assumptions about how students would gather knowledge about their different identities. In hindsight, I did not place enough importance and time on getting the groups to explore and thoroughly understand its identity. During the first attempt, I was more concerned about them drawing their conclusions; And yet ironically, the groups conclusions could not be sufficiently thorough if they did not spend enough time authentically learning about their identity and how it is historically, socially, economically, culturally, and physically situated. Furthermore, next time I am going to place more emphasis on the notion that human thought and action are situated, meaning what people perceive, how they conceive of their activity, and what

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they physically do, develop together (Rambusch, p. 2). When I designed this unit I did not consider the importance of these linkages, and I did not consider why it was important for the students to understand this as well. When students ask questions of efficacy I will now have a rational answer to provide them and this in turn will help them with their own metacognition. Distributed Cognition and Vygotsky There are two major components in this unit which place emphasis on Distributed Cognition. First, students will need to work in small groups to design, assess, and problem solve as they make their way through the unit. The unit was purposely designed so that students would be confronted with a series of problem solving dilemmas, and that it will be their responsibility as a group to resolve them. Just as juries are an important class of distributed problem solving organization, so too will be the nature and role of the groups in this unit (Hutchins, p. 3). Second, the groups will also need to present their findings, debate and defend their conclusions in a classroom setting. The generation and distribution of knowledge supports Edwin Hutchins notion of Mind in Society and Society of Minds, wherein rather than using the language of mind to describe what is happening in a social group, the language of social groups can be used to describe what is happening in a mind (p. 4). The notion of Society in Mind is particularly significant in this unit because the experience of interactions with others may eventually help the individual student to create the functional system in the absence of others (Hutchins, p. 5). In other words, the use of cognitive artifacts and interplay between individual and group (as well as the internal and external representations) feeds and nourishes each others respective cognition, thus eventually allowing the individual to create and/or recreate the functional system on his or her own. By the end of the unit, for instance, it is my hope that as the groups

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break up and move on, each individual will have the expertise and skill set to further develop their cognition in research, to problem solve, and to support and defend their identity conclusions. Armed with a greater understanding now of Distributed Cognition, in hindsight, I should have placed more emphasis on the role of the individual student as it applies to the group dynamic. Considering the evolutionary nature of the groups themselves, each student plays an important but unique role in his or her group. They do not operate or work in isolation. Instead, each of their activities are characterized as the assembling of various representational states (Rogers and Ellis, p. 122). They each contribute something unique, which in isolation may not add up to much, but collectively the contributions are greater than the sum of its parts and allow for a more impressive final product. Again, I must place more emphasis on student metacognition. To foster more Distributed Cognition, before the students get too far into the project I would encourage each student in their group to spend more time discussing their existing skill and knowledge set. I believe they need to spend more time sharing their unique functional role before starting their project in order to identify the groups overall strengths and weaknesses, and to identify and highlight the different cognitive artifacts that are available to them (Rogers and Ellis, p. 126). Finally, I would also make clear to the groups before they got started that they are to expect their progress to evolve in unexpected ways, because external representations used in situ are interpreted in coordination with the implicitly shared and individual knowledge of current events and work practices (Rogers and Ellis, p. 127).

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Constructivism and Vygotsky Constructivism and Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development probably reflects my unit plan more than any other theory because it embodies what I was ultimately hoping to achieve with my studentswhich is fundamentally an appreciation of many ways of knowing and understanding the world, and to downplay the perceived notion on the objective world of facts (Gulati, p. 183). This unit was purposely designed to be exploratory in nature, using the individual experiences and social relationships of the groups, to both overcome obstacles and to construct their own knowledge (Gulati, p. 183) as they are constantly trying to make sense of, and understand their experience (von Glasersfeld, p. 33). Because active learning is identified as an important principle of constructivist education (Gulati, p. 186), it was necessary that the students figure out on their own the process by which they can answer the tribe question. Not only do the students need to research and understand their own respective identity, but they also need to know how their groups identity is contextually situated with all the other groups identities. Incidentally, keeping in mind the complexities of this task, I do not necessarily expect each and every one of my students to fully achieve the units learning outcomes because each students understanding and knowledge constructs will develop at different times and at different speeds. In my view this is to be expected because constructivism supports the notion that learners individually possess diverse learning styles and intelligences (Blaik-Hourani, p. 231). Thus, while some students may not fully achieve the units prescribed learning outcomes, they still have managed to build on their own existing knowledge constructs and will be further ahead regardless of where they end up at the end of the unit. In other words, perhaps I would place more emphasis on the process and less on the product.

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Now armed with a greater knowledge of Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development, I believe my unit failed in identifying this zone for the individual students. Next time I will play a more active role in determining the level of guidance that students need to maximize both the students and groups performance. While I designed the unit to focus on the student, whom has to do the conceptualizing and the operating (von Glasersfeld, p. 48), I did not factor in the temporal challenges of getting the students to complete the project on time as a unit because each group moves at a different pace. The challenge lies with providing the students enough time to authentically build their own knowledge constructs and not to artificially place constraints on them that would damage the constructivist process. !

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References Blaik-Hourani, R. (2011). Constructivism and revitalizing social studies. History Teacher, 44(2), 227-249. Brown, J. S., Collins, A. & Duguid, S. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18, 32-42. Gulati, S. (2008). Compulsory participation in online discussions: is this constructivism or normalisation of learning? Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 45, 183-192. Hutchins, E. (2000, May 18). Distributed Cognition. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from http:// eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/Anthro179a/DistributedCognition.pdf Rambusch, J. (2004). Embodiment and situated learning. University of Skvde, School of Humanities and Informatics). Rogers, Y. & Ellis, J. (1994). Distributed Cognition: An alternative framework for analyzing and explaining collaborative working. Journal of Informational Technology, 9, 119-128. Von Glasersfeld, E. (2008). Learning as a Constructive Activity. AntiMatters, 2(3), 33-49.