Introduction to the Learning Sciences

Except in unusual circumstances, if you were in EP795 in Fall 2007, you should already have permission to enroll in EP796. If you have a problem registering, send an email with your name and student ID to the professor (dws@education.wisc.edu) asking for permission to register for EP796.

If you were not a student in EP795 in Fall 2007, please send an email to the professor (dws@education.wisc.edu) explaining why you are interested in taking the course without completing EP795 in the fall. Be sure to include the following information in addition to your explanation:

Your student ID
Your email address and phone number
Your academic affiliation (department, program, year)

Assignments and readings listed by course meeting

Introduction: Symbols and systems

Framework: Minds and bodies

Practicum: What makes an expert?

Method: Interview analysis

Process: Representation

Theory: Information processing

Theory: Narrative Intelligence

Interlude: Levels of expertise

NO CLASS – spring break

NO CLASS – work on projects

Theory: Perceptual Thinking

Theory: Symbolic thinking

Coda: The hybrid mind

Project Findings

Conclusion: Levels of analysis

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 second part of a two-semester sequence on the foundations of the learning sciences.

EP795 (the fall-term precursor to this course) looks at 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 "situated" or "sociocultural," emphasizing contexts as forums for socially constituted practices. In this view, thinking is a matter of participation in forms of practice.

EP796 looks at the role of the individual, emphasizing the internal processes and systems that play a role in thinking. The dominant "symbolic" paradigm within this tradition views thought as a product of the interaction between representational structures and computational procedures that act on these structures, though we will be looking at a range of theoretical perspectives on the processes of individual thought.

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.

This course is taught as a seminar. The focus is on readings and discussions that 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.

Assignments and Evaluation

Assignments

The course has 4 components:

Readings and class discussions
Course website
Practicum
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/796 ).

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/796. 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.

Practicum

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 be given excerpts from two interviews. (Excerpts will be distributed in class.) The excerpts will be from interviews with the same student before and after their participation in the simulated negotiation we conducted in the fall on xenotransplantation. Your job is to compare and contrast the pre and post interviews. Did the student’s thinking change? If so, how? What are the differences and how can you describe and explain them? What are the similarities and how can you explain them? What does this tell you about how this student was thinking? What does it imply about the processes by which thinking changes? What does it suggest about the intervention? Pay particular attention to (and describe specifically) the inferences you are making and the evidence you are using. Be sure to describe how you analyzed the data (your method) as well as what you found (your results) and what that implies (your discussion).

Your report should be NO MORE than 1000 words.

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

Project

The final project for the course asks you to pick a specific problem, type of problem, or concept and observe how experts and novices solve the problem or understand the concept 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 thinking takes place in a situation 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 problem, type of problem, or concept you are observing, and 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 tells you 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 (which you will note is a relative term), 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 problem, type of problem, or concept that you would like to analyze and two groups of people who deal with that problem or concept – one set of “novices” and one set of “experts” – where the novices have little experience dealing with the problem or concept relative to the experts. You should choose a problem or concept that is complex, interesting, and that requires individuals to think in some depth, as well a setting where you can observe their work and thinking in depth. You should decide whether you want to choose a problem and setting that you are familiar with or whether you prefer to come to your observations with a “fresh pair of eyes.” You may choose to do your observations in a naturalistic context, or in a more controlled, “experimental” setting. 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 problem, class of problems, or concept, as well as the setting and participants. Explain what, if anything, you expect to see by observing novices and experts dealing with this problem or concept in the setting you have chosen. Focus in particular on how what you observe in this study will tell you (and thus the rest of us) something about thinking and learning beyond the specific context you are observing..

· 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/796) 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%

Practicum

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 practicum 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

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

January

Sun.

Mon.

Tues.

Weds.

Thurs.

Fri.

Sat.

20:

21:

22:

23:

Seminar–

Introduction: Symbols and systems

24:

25:

26:

Reading & Assignment

none.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

January

February

Sun.

Mon.

Tues.

Weds.

Thurs.

Fri.

Sat.

27:

28:

29: Assignment-

Summary & question due online

(12 noon)

30:

Seminar-

Framework:

Minds and bodies

31:

Reading

Pinker, How the Mind Works, Chapter 2, pp. 61-93
Damasio, Descartes’ Error, Chapters 10 and 11
Sacks, The President’s Speech