In spite of the intuitive and theoretical appeal of situated cognition
(Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Greeno, 1997; Lave & Wenger, 1991;
Roschelle & Clancey, 1992; Roth & Bowen, 1995) and distributed
cognition (Pea, 1993; Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991; Salomon, 1993),
there has been few attempts to develop methodologies for making sense of
how learner understandings are constructed and are grounded in contextual
particulars. In fact, research in general tends to look at the products,
not the processes of learning (Wittrock & Baker, 1991; Young, Kulikowich,
& Barab, 1997). The difficulties with capturing the process of learning
are only exacerbated when one adopts a situated perspective on what it
means to know and learn. This is because from this perspective, knowledge,
more aptly phrased "knowing about" is no longer conceived of as a static
structure residing in the individual’s head. Instead, knowing about refers
to a dynamic activity that is distributed across knower and that which
is known Barab, Cherkes-Julkowski et al., 1999).
It is this intersection of individual, context, and activity
over time that constitutes the unit of analysis when one adopts a situated
perspective (Greeno, 1998). The difficulty in finding methods for capturing
this unit of analysis lies in the fact that it is distributed spatially
and temporally across these reciprocal components (Barab, Fajen, Kulikowich,
& Young, 1996; Young et al, 1997). In spite of the challenges in capturing
such a dynamic and distributed unit of analysis, it is imperative that
educators continue to explore innovative methodological approaches that
capture learning as it emerges within rich environments so as to inform
instructional practice and design.
To capture the process of learning in situ, my colleagues and I have
been developing an innovative method for tracking the emergence, evolution,
and diffusion of practices, concepts, and artifacts that occur across extended
time frames (Barab, Hay, Barnett, & Squire, 1998). We have found this
method particularly useful in carrying out design research (Brown, 1992),
in which we are designing entire courses, examining the impact of various
interventions on the learning process, and feeding this information back
into the next iteration of the course. Our methodology is designed to capture
occurrences distributed across time and space that influence/constitute
a learner’s understanding, providing information on how environmental particulars
contribute to evolving understandings. We believe that a learner’s ultimate
understanding of any object, issue, concept, process, or practice can be
attributed to, and is distributed across, the network that these occurrences
form. It is in this sense that we see cognition as distributed, embodied,
and situated, and it is with the goal of capturing knowing-in-the-making
that we advance our Constructing Networks of Activity methodology.
Figure 1 contains an example Activity Network. The figure
includes Activity Nodes for each Initiator with numbered circles representing
node Initiators and non-circled numbers representing node Participants.
Shaded nodes represent those nodes in which a particular practice is being
carried out, referred to here as "The Practice." In addition, lines represent
links between two nodes.
Full Articles
Constructing Networks Of Action Relevant Episodes: An In-Situ
Research Methodology
Constructing
Virtual Worlds: Tracing the Historical Development of Learner Practices
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