Introduction to the Learning Sciences

This course has been oversubscribed in past semesters. In order to create a workable seminar group, I am asking students to send some information so I can admit an appropriately diverse group of students in terms of background and expertise. If the course is oversubscribed, preference will be given to students in the Educational Psychology Department.

To make this possible, I need the following information:

Your name
Your student ID
Your email address and phone number
Your academic affiliation (department, program, year)
That you are interested in registering for EP795 and are seeking permission from the instructor
A brief description of your reason(s) for taking the course
Because EP795 is part of a two semester sequence, please indicate when you plan to take the companion course EP796

If your reason for taking the class is to fulfill a course requirement, please try to give some explanation as to how the topics we are studying will connect with your intellectual and academic interests.

The course writing-intensive, so I am also requesting that students interested in the course provide a short writing sample: a minimum of 200 words, although you may send something longer if you wish. You may send any paper written for a previous course, or if you are starting your graduate program, your application essay. Or you may send any other prose essay you have written recently. I am interested in the mechanics of the writing rather than the content.

If, after reading the syllabus, you are interested in taking EP795: Introduction to the Learning Sciences, please send a brief email with the information above to dws@education.wisc.edu.

Assignments and readings listed by course meeting

Intro & Simulation: Thinking about Thinking

Dichotomy: Thought, Symbolic and Social

Antecedents: Pragmatism

Fieldwork: Observing a Learning System

Method: Ethnography

Case Studies: Cognition in the Wild

Process: Scaffolding

Theory: Situated Cognition

Theory: Discourse

Theory: Distributed Cognition

Theory: Structuralism – Paper: rough draft due

Thanksgiving, no class – Paper: full draft due

Research: Reports of Findings

Conclusion: Levels of Description – Paper: final draft due

PDF files for the course readings will be available for download on each week's assignment page.

Course Description

Learning takes place all around us -- in chance encounters and in the midst of doing other things as much as in schools and other institutions. What distinguishes classrooms and other settings organized for learning is that they are designed. Educators have made choices about content (what people will learn), activities (how people might best learn), and organization (when, with whom, and under what circumstances people will learn).

Ideally, the choices educators make should be guided by an understanding of how people think and how people learn.

This course is the beginning of a two-semester sequence on the foundations of the learning sciences as guidelines for the design of learning environments. The course is open to all students with an interest in the study of learning, but the syllabus, course work, and class discussions are designed primarily for students beginning doctoral-level study of education rather than to practitioners or those pursuing professional degrees.

In this two-semester course sequence, we will address the learning sciences from two distinct perspectives about the nature of mind. One emphasizes thinking as a variety of “internal” processes, including: perception; creation, use, and interpretation of symbols of various kinds; analytical and categorical reasoning; and holistic interpretation of the contexts for individual action. This “symbolic” view of cognition looks at thinking as an interaction between an individual and his or her external world shaped by the propensities and abilities of an individual thinker, particularly (though not exclusively) the way in which individuals represent the external world in internal symbols.

An alternative perspective on cognition emphasizes thinking as a form of mediated activity. Mediation is construed quite broadly, including language and other systems of signs, forms of social practice, and artifacts that aid thought (like blackboards and computer technologies). This perspective is often referred to as “sociocultural,” emphasizing contexts as forums for socially constituted practices. In this view, thinking is a matter of participation in forms of practice.

There is a tendency to place these two general perspectives in competition; in this sequence of courses, we will examine them as alternative levels of description -- just as in biology, where descriptions of populations and of organisms employ different models and concepts. Organisms participate in populations and populations are made up of organisms. Both perspectives are important in understanding the whole system.

The overall structure of the course sequence is a series of readings and discussions about the “symbolic” and “socio-cultural” views of thinking. Both views are discussed in each course, although in the fall (this course, 795), we look in more depth at the socio-cultural view of cognition. In the spring, the emphasis is on the symbolic view.

In each semester, readings and discussions are anchored by a project where students conduct a small research study using and thus exploring the analytical tools (i.e., the theories) under discussion.

Thinking about thinking is never an easy task. This course will require a lot of work, both in the quantity and quality of the reading. Some of the readings are quite difficult. Discussions will ask you to grapple with ideas that are not always intuitively easy to grasp. The project is ambitious, time consuming, and challenging. In short, this course will be hard work.

The goal of the course is to build a solid understanding of what we know about how people learn as a foundation for designing places and circumstances where learning can happen more effectively. How successful we are in reaching that goal will depend on your willingness to think through these ideas looking for stimulating connections, insights, and questions.

Please note that building this understanding is not something that will be accomplished in a single semester of the two-semester EP795 / 796 sequence. It is expected that students will take both courses, ideally during a single academic year.

Assignments and Evaluation

Assignments

The course has 4 components:

Readings and class discussions
Course website
Fieldwork
Final project

Each of these is described in more detail below, with specific due dates and times listed under topics and readings below.

Please also see the note below about written assignments, which includes information on submission, formatting and due dates.

A general note about written assignments

All written assignments will be turned in to the course website
(http://epistemicgames.org/795 ).

The logic behind this requirement is that reading work of other students is an important component of the class. Submitting work to the course website makes it easy to distribute work to the class. Please post your writings directly to the website -- not in an attachment. This restriction helps to ensure that written work is easy to access and virus-free.

Each weekly written assignment is officially due at 12 noon on Tuesday before class. This is to give students a chance to read each others work before class. Because student work needs to be read by the class before discussions, extensions will not be available, except in extreme circumstances. If you need an extension, contact the teaching staff by 5.00pm on Monday to discuss the situation.

Class discussions and website

You are responsible for completing the reading and participating actively in class discussions each week. Your rule of thumb should be that you have read the articles and thought about them sufficiently such that you could start and lead a provocative and insightful discussion about them if asked to. In many cases you will be asked to do just that, and you should be prepared to do so at any point in the semester.

Before each week’s seminar, you will be asked to post a commentary on the readings to the course website. These commentaries will be due on Tuesdays at noon. Make sure to bring a copy of your own commentary to class and be prepared to expand upon it as a basis for further discussion.

This commentary should include a brief summary of the main points of the text, and provide a question or issue that you think is raised by the reading and that would be a relevant and important topic for further discussion by the class. This should NOT be a point of clarification (eg, “what does Vygotsky mean by Zone of Proximal Development?”), but rather an idea that connects readings with each other or with other work in the class (eg, “does the idea of a Zone of Proximal Development link Geertz’ concept of culture and Simon’s view of mind?”). You should both state your question, and explain its relevance to the content of the course.

Commentaries should ideally be no more than 250 words for each reading.

You are expected to read summaries from other participants before coming to class each week and to comment on at least one other person's post.

Readings

All course readings are available as PDF files that can be downloaded from the course Website, http://epistemicgames.org/795. Selected readings are also available for purchase in the University Bookstore.

Please consult with the course TA if you need more information on obtaining the readings.

Fi eldwork

The purpose of this assignment is to help you shift from the position of participant in learning environments (that is, being a student or a teacher), to the position of an observer (that is, being a researcher).

For this assignment, you will spend 3-4 hours (roughly 1/2 of a typical school day) observing a group of people learning something. This could be an elementary school class. You could choose to “shadow” a high school student for part of his or her day and observe a variety of classes, or come to one class over a series of days. For instance, you could choose to observe a sports team practicing, an employee benefits seminar, or a rural agricultural extension worker conducting training sessions. Basically the requirement is to find a setting where (1) learning is taking place, (2) in a group of people, (3) over a sufficient amount of time such that you can observe 3-4 hours of activity.

Write up your observations. Describe the setting and participants. Explain what, if anything, people seem to be learning, and how they are learning it. Pay particular attention to the relationship between individual and group activity. Please also reflect briefly on how your observations relate to Tyack’s discussion of the history of American schools (the reading assignment for that week).

Your report should be NO MORE than 1000 words.

Post your observations to the course website by 12 noon on the Tuesday before class.

Project

The final project for the course asks you to pick some setting where people are learning in a group and analyze it using the ideas we are reading and discussing in the course. That is, you are being asked to put theory into practice and use ideas about learning to understand with some depth and subtlety how learning takes place in an environment of your choice, using the readings of the course (where appropriate!) as models.

In general, your paper should include: (1) an introduction that describes the issue your study is exploring; (2) a description of the single theory your study is exploring; (3) a description of the setting where you made your observations (including information about who you observed, where, for how long, etc); (4) a description of what you observed; (5) a discussion of what that suggests about the theory you were exploring; (6) a conclusion that describes the implications of what you found -- that is, what, if anything, someone would do with this information.

We will discuss the results of these projects in detail as part of the class towards the end of the semester, and our conversations about how these ideas play out in the real world will be an important link between theories of cognition and the practice of education.

This is a difficult and ambitious project. To make it more manageable, the assignment is broken up into 4 stages, each with a separate due date during the semester. If you complete each step of the assignment on time and get positive feedback from the TA and instructor, you should be in a position to do a good job on the project overall. However, managing your time on the project overall remains your responsibility. If you feel parts of your particular project need to be completed ahead of the “schedule” in the syllabus you should talk with the TA or instructor.

The key steps in the final project are:

· Topic Proposal

In some ways, this is the most important and difficult step of your final project: choosing an appropriate topic. You need to choose a setting you would like to analyze for your final research project. This can be -- but does not have to be -- the same setting that you used for your Fieldwork assignment. You should choose a setting that you can observe with some ease over a significant period of time, where a group of people is learning something complex, interesting, and in some depth that will take them some time to master. You will also, of course, want to make sure that some significant learning will take place in the time you have available to observe. You should decide whether you want to choose a setting that you are familiar with or whether you prefer to come to your observations with a “fresh pair of eyes.” You will probably want to choose a setting where you are also at least a little bit familiar with what is being learned. Be sure to consult with the TA or instructor if you are having difficulty finding a suitable topic and setting. You may want to use readings from the course as models for the kind of settings you want to study.

Your proposal should describe the setting and participants. Explain what, if anything, you expect people will be learning in that setting, and how you hypothesize they are learning it. Focus in particular on how studying this learning environment will tell you (and thus the rest of us) something about the relationship between individual and group activity in learning.

· Rough Draft

The week before we will begin discussing your papers, a “rough draft” of your research paper is due. There is no specific requirement as to what constitutes a “rough draft,” other than that it documents substantial progress on your work, and demonstrates that you will be able to turn in a “full draft” on time the following week. A rough draft typically includes an outline of the paper as a whole, examples of text from some key sections, some analysis of the theory that you have chosen to work with, as well as graphs, figures and examples from the data. You should not need to make any special preparations for this rough draft -- if your work has progressed and you are on track to finish your paper on time, you should be able to send your work to date in whatever form you have been working from. However, you should be aware that failure to document substantial progress on your paper will be reflected in your final grade on the project, and will also lead to a concerned message from your TA.

· Full Draft

We will be spending two class periods discussing your research projects. To make this possible, you will be asked to post a “full draft” of your paper to the course website. A full draft of your paper means a complete paper that would be acceptable to turn in as a final draft: the text should be complete and proof-read; figures, graphs, tables, captions, and all references should be complete and in correct APA format. Basically, a full draft of the paper is a final draft, except in this case, your will be submitting the full draft for peer review in class.

You will get two forms of feedback on your full draft: comments in class, and written comments from the teaching staff, including a “full draft grade.” Based on comments in class and from the teaching, you will revise your paper into a final draft.

Your full draft should be NO MORE than 2000 words, EXCLUDING title, figures, and references.

· Final Draft

Final drafts of papers are due to the course website (http://epistemicgames.org/795) by 12 noon Tuesday before the last class meeting. Final drafts should incorporate changes to the full draft of the paper based on discussions of the paper in class, as well as comments from the instructor and TA. Papers that do not address these issues will be downgraded one step from the full draft grade. Papers that are successfully revised based on comments may be (but will not necessarily be) upgraded by as much as one step. Note that a successful revision is one that addresses the most significant problems or issues raised in the critique of the paper.

Your final draft should be NO MORE than 2000 words, EXCLUDING title, figures, and references.

Along with your final draft, you should include a cover letter that documents the revisions you have chosen to make. Please include a description of the relevant critiques you received from the teaching staff and your peers. For each point of critique, explain how you chose to address it in the final draft and your rationale for revising in that way.

Evaluation

The course has 4 components that are weighted as follows for the purposes of grading:

Readings and class discussions

20%

Course website

20%

Fieldwork

10%

Final Project

Process (includes Topic Proposal, and Rough Draft)

Final Product

50%

10%

40%

You will receive letter grades for your final project and for your fieldwork assignment. You will receive feedback about your work on the course website, but not a specific letter grade. If you have concerns about your performance in discussions or on the website, please consult with the TA or instructor.

The course will not be graded on a curve. Each student’s work will be evaluated based on expectations of performance in a graduate-level course. Students are encouraged to discuss work with each other and to collaborate wherever possible. However, unless specific arrangements are made in advance, students are expected to turn in written work that is entirely their own.

Accommodations for Individuals with Disabilities

Please let me know if you require special accommodations in the curriculum, instruction, or evaluation due to a disability. I will try to maintain the confidentiality of the information you share. If you have special needs or if you have questions about campus disability-related policies and services, please contact the McBurney Disability Resource Center, 905 University Avenue, 263-2741.

Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism

As indicated in the University of Wisconsin System administrative code, "The board of regents, administrators, faculty, academic staff and students of the university of Wisconsin system believe that academic honesty and integrity are fundamental to the mission of higher education and of the university of Wisconsin system. The university has a responsibility to promote academic honesty and integrity and to develop procedures to deal effectively with instances of academic dishonesty. Students are responsible for the honest completion and representation of their work, for the appropriate citation of sources, and for respect of others' academic endeavors. Students who violate these standards must be confronted and must accept the consequences of their actions."

Topics and Readings

Readings

Please consult with the course TA if you need more information on obtaining the readings.

Assignments

See above under Assignments and Evaluation for more information on individual assignments, including important information on due dates and extensions.

WEEKLY LISTING OF TOPICS, READINGS, AND ASSIGNMENTS

Introduction & Simulation : Thinking about Thinking

September

Sun.

Mon.

Tues.

Weds.

Thurs.

Fri.

Sat.

Assignment-

Read negotiation instructions before class

Seminar–

class intro &

xenotrans-

plantation

simulation

Reading

Before our first meeting, please read the instructions for the simulated negotiation – you will be participating in this exercise during the first class. You should have received the instructions as a PDF file in your email, or you can download it from the front page of the course website (http://epistemicgames.org/795).

Dichotomy: Thought, Symbolic and Social

September