Situativity is a sociocultural learning theory that views knowing as the ability to participate successfully in a community's practices and being attuned to the constraints and affordances of an activity system. Knowledge is distributed across people and tools, and learning is the strengthening of practices and participatory abilities in a community (Greeno, Collins, and Resnick, 1996). It positions all members of a community as participants in the learning process, thus redefining the role of the teacher as a perhaps more experienced but equal member of the community who can use their experience to act as a mentor to less experienced members. These core assumptions have shaped the way I taught (though I did not have the language at the time to articulate these definitions) and the way I conduct my research on learning and professional development. Situativity has served as a lens through which I can analyze learning and assessment ecosystems and their parts, so I read this week's readings with this lens as well. I'd like to extend the use of situativity beyond the classroom and into the research community, positioning researchers as members and learners who bring experiences and perspectives to any research study that work together to inform and enrich the community.
In class, I found myself wanting to have a deeper theoretical discussion about affordances & constraints and tools because it seemed that a theoretical grounding would have yielded an even more productive discussion. I was particularly interested in exploring three concepts further: (a) affordances and constraints of activity systems, (b) tools and tool use, and (c) the image of the "lone researcher." I shall do a bit of that here. I'm really just working out ideas here, so apologies if they're not fully formed.
affordances and constrains of activity systems: As I mentioned in class, I was struck by the way that all of the authors we read discussed the concept of affordances in such a broad manner, but I was particularly interested in the debate of the definition of affordances discussed by Conole and Dyke (2004) and Boyle and Cook. While I understand each of their definitions, I was surprised that they chose to work from Gibson's (1979) and Salomon's (1993) definitions, defining the term quite broadly and encompassing both what a thing affords and what it constrains. There have been some very productive and refined discussions of affordances and constraints in the Learning Sciences, specifically discussing the attunement to the the affordances and constraints of an environment as central to learning. Separating affordances from constraints seems to help tease apart and clarify the discussion of (a) what a particular environment or activity system allows or promotes, and (b) how it places boundaries, and whether those constraints and affordances add focus or hinder productivity.
Furthermore, this idea that becoming more aware of an environment's affordances and constraints is learning may be productive in discussing how one can engage with a new technology in the research process. It positions the learner (in this case, the researcher) as interacting more and more productively with the tool, implying that they can interact with it at different levels. Thinking about the levels I outlined last week, this puts less emphasis on the tool itself (therefore giving it less power over the research or the researcher) and more focus on the user and their increasingly productive and meaningful interactions with it.
Finally, by looking at a particular tool or set of tools as an activity system in which a user operates, one can attune themselves to different aspects of the tool, learning what they need to know as they need to know it. There is also likely a user community around any given tool, the members of which will have different levels understanding of the tool and can offer their experiences and insights to a less experienced member. In this way, the power is not in the tool, but in the learner/user; in this way, the tool can be manipulated by the user to do what the user needs.
tools/tool use: I was surprised that Osiurak et al. (2010) decided to narrow their discussion of tool use to physical entities that are"extensions of the upper limbs" (p. 518), providing several definitions of tools as physical things. While they close their section of What is a Tool? with the qualification that any definition of a tool and tool use is one of convenience (p. 519), the discussion frames the rest of the discussion, positioning tools as physical objects to be manipulated by a user. By leaving conceptual tools out of the conversation, it seems we are missing something. This comment needs more thought, but I wanted to mention it because, as we begin to explore technology, I think we should remember that we possess powerful conceptual tools that can be used to make sense of and manipulate physical tools. Tools, both physical and conceptual, mediate our engagement with and understanding of the activity system in which we operate; analyzing and understanding the nuances of those mediations may help us better understand how we can manipulate and use a tool to its maximum potential.
the lone researcher: This is a short comment. A situative perspective offers a different take on this image of the lone researcher, isolated in their lab analyzing their data. Even when we work alone, we bring with us all of the experiences and interactions with the members of our various communities, so we are not operating in isolation from our community. I just think this is important to remember as we explore new ways to conduct and present research, looking for transparency and interaction around the research process. An implication of taking a situative perspective is that the research process does not have to be - and arguably should not be - a solo activity.
Thinking about my own learning process in this way has helped make these abstract and difficult points salient, and I've found them useful in analyzing new information. This is the perspective I bring with me into our discussions, and I hope that we can engage in meaningful discussions enriched by a variety of perspectives as we explore technological tools.
Greeno, J. G., Collins, A. M., & Resnick, L. B. (1996). Cognition and learning. In Berliner, D. C. & Calfee, R. C. (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 15–46). New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, Prentice Hall International.
Greeno, J. G., & Middle School Mathematics through Applications Project Group. (1998). The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53(1), 5–26.
Also:
Case, R. (1996). Changing views of knowledge and their impact on educational research and practice. In Olson, D. (Ed.), The handbook of education and human development: New models of learning, teaching and schooling (pp. 75–99). Cambridge: Blackwell.
I know this is an older post, but I've been thinking about your discussion here today around the lone researcher and the link you've made to situative learning. One thing that I've been wondering about is how situative learning makes sense of the idea of discursive practices and the production of norms, etc. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
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