Warmington et al. (2005) ‘Surfacing contradictions…’

Warmington et al. explore professional learning in multiagency settings, with particular reference to children’s services provision in local authorities. However, their work is also useful for understanding the evolution and application of Activity Theory.

In terms of how Activity Theory is applied in professional settings, Warmington et al. state its value is that it surfaces contradictions within an existing activity system, leading to the proposal of new working practices.

Warmington et al. also outline the origins of Activity Theory, which lie in Vygotsky’s ‘framework for analysing relationships between human actions and cultural artefacts in order to dispense with the individual/social dualism and create a Marxist social psychology’ (p.3). Activity Theory does not privilege the individual, but, instead, sees the individual as one of a series of nodes influencing the outcome of purposeful activity.

Engestrom (Warmington et al. argue) is responsible for the second generation of activity theory which, influenced by Leont’ev, focuses on the ‘Tools’ node of the activity system.

Engestrom argues that the purpose of a tool is not constrained by design. Instead, purpose and meaning arises through usage. Engestrom states, at various points, ‘the material form and shape of the artifact have only limited power to determine its epistemic use’ (2007, pp. 34-35) and ‘reconfiguration of given technologies by their users is essential’ (2007, p. 35). Hence tools, like the other nodes in an activity system, are not static but in a constant state of redefinition, shaped by the interaction of all the nodes in the activity system. Warmington et al. argue, ‘An activity system is always a nexus of multiple points of view, traditions and interests’ (p. 5).

Warmington et al. go on to identify a third generation of Activity Theory, also spearheaded by Engestrom, in which the interaction between activity systems is the focus of interest.

Engestrom is also interested in how change happens, and sees contradictions as the source of change. Engestrom’s analysis is Marxist in this regard, as he sees contradictions as ‘historically accumulating structural tensions’ (2001, p. 137), as a result of which (and according to Warmington et al.) ‘some individual participants begin to question and to deviate from its established norms. In some cases, this escalates into collaborative envisioning and a deliberate collective change effort’ (p. 5).

Warmington et al.summarise the developments in Activity Theory, and its increasing complexity. While the third generation Activity theory enables broad social analysis, with contradictions between as well as within activity systems, the second generation Activity Theory is useful for analysing specific practices in isolation, recognising that the analysis is an abstraction, but using the model to identify tensions in activity systems, and potential means for resolving those tensions.

References
Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Engestrom, Y. (2007) ‘Enriching the Theory of Expansive Learning: Lessons From Journeys Toward Coconfiguration,’ Mind, Culture and Activity, vol. 14, nos. 1-2, pp. 23-39.

Warmington, P., Daniels, H., Edwards, A., brown, S., Leadbetter, J., Martin, D., Middleton, D. Parsons, S. and Popova, A. (2005) ‘Surfacing contradictions: intervention workshops as change mechanisms in professional learning,’ paper presented to the British Educational Research Association annual conference, University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005.

Engestrom (1987), ‘Learning by expanding…’ (2)

Notes on ‘3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research,’ ‘4. The instruments of expansion’ and ‘5. Towards an expansive methodology.’

Engestrom argues that human activity does not occur in a vacuum. Instead, it always occurs within a social context: ‘Human activity is not only individual production. It is simultaneously and inseparably also social exchange and societal distribution. In other words, human activity always takes place within a community governed by a certain division of labor and by certain rules.’

Furthermore, Engestrom argues that meaning is not constrained by design. Instead, meaning is forged out of usage: ‘A tool always implies more possible uses than the original operations that have given birth to it.’ Similarly, ‘The instructor’s task and the learner’s perceived task are seldom the same thing.’ In this specific sense there is a close connection between Engestrom’s standpoint and Wenger’s analysis of how communities of practice work (1998, p. 80): ‘Even when a community of practice arises in response to some outside mandate, the practice evolves into the community’s own response to that mandate.’ Thus, meaning is not a given (though it may be prompted), but a construct.

In addition, Engestrom challenges the scaffolding metaphor which has, in recent years, become a favourite descriptive tool for social constructivists in learning and teaching. Engestrom’s problem with the metaphor is that it still imposes limits on the knowledge that the learner can construct and, ultimately, ‘the idea of scaffolding is restricted to the acquisition of the given.’

Engestrom’s description of the activity system, the tensions therein and hence the creation of new knowledge and understanding, implies that human activity both works within and challenges tradition. Considering creativity, he argues ‘a work of art (or science)… requires simultaneously acceptance of a convention… and passing beyond it’ and, ‘scientific discoveries… are to a large extent achievements of synthesizing and crystallizing elements that were already “there.”’ A similar argument for the creative process is made by T.S. Eliot in The Sacred Wood (1922), in which Eliot accepts that the artist is always working within an inherited tradition, which is there to be used in order to enable new creation, an argument which takes Eliot to the position of ‘immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.’ Both writers, therefore, see creation not as a spontaneous process (generating that which had not been conceived of before) but as a significant reconfiguration of existing, though not static, economic, social and cultural resources.

In seeking to understand how an activity system changes, and having recognised that tension between nodes in the activity system precipitates change, Engestrom uses the metaphor of the springboard: ‘the springboard is a facilitative image, technique or socio-conversational constellation (or a combination of these) misplaced or transplanted from some previous context into a new, expansively transitional activity context during an acute conflict…’ Tension between nodes, therefore, is a precondition for creativity, and springboards offer a route out of tension towards a new activity system, but they do not in themselves comprise the solution to tensions: ‘Springboards do not come about smoothly and automatically. They appear in times of distress, almost as lifebuoys… Springboards are not solutions. They are starters or hints toward a path leading to an expansive solution.’

Engestrom’s analysis is broadly Marxist in the sense that he sees tension as the spur to progress. Furthermore, he uses the Marxist term ‘dialectics,’ though with his own definition: ‘In my analysis, dialectics is the logic of expansion. And expansion is essentially a social and practical process, having to do with collectives of people reconstructing their material practice.’ However, Engestrom argues that existing structures of learning and teaching militate against the collective construction of new knowledge and understanding: ‘Industrial capitalism is the triumph of individualism. Here, the mature form of learning is obligatory school-going. In the obligatory school, the dominant unit of functioning is the individual, spatially and temporally discrete task.’ Therefore, formal education exists to hinder creativity, not to encourage it.

Engestrom’s distinction between the individual and the social may be problematic in the sense that the activity system presupposes that individuals inhabit, inescapably, social contexts. Furthermore, the activity system within which people function, and which they may go on to transform, is a tradition, an inherited set of values and practices. Therefore, the distinction between the individual and the social may be a false one. As Wenger (1998, p. 141) argues: ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually.’

In his conclusion, Engestrom returns to Vygotsky and the idea that, in human behaviour, a stimulus and a response have ‘a human-created symbolic stimulus mediating between the two.’ Furthermore, Vygotsky’s object of analysis was ‘observations of behaviour in daily life,’ and, more broadly, ‘the historical transformation of cultures.’ Engestrom follows Vygotsky’s lead, but is also interested in where tension is experienced, arguing ‘individually manifested doubt, hesitation and disturbance is the starting point. The direction is from the individual to the societal. However, the individual point of departure is itself understandable only as a cultural-historical product.’ As individuals and collectives respond to tensions and seek to create resolutions, ‘The practical solutions that represent the unexpected, the unrecognizable, are actually initial forms of new theories.’ Tension is necessary to create the new, and the breakdown of one activity system prompts the creation of a new activity system, more suited to its economic and social contexts. Hence, social progress is facilitated by tension, and expansive learning arises when existing activity systems are no longer fit for purpose.

References,
Eliot, T. S. (1922) The Sacred Wood: essays on poetry and criticism, Bartelby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/200/ (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Engestrom (1987) ‘Learning by Expanding…’

Notes on ‘1. Introduction: The futility of learning’ and ‘2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning.’

For Engestrom, problem solving is a reactive form of learning, and purportedly supportive modes of teaching (sometimes characterised by the scaffolding metaphor of teaching) are thus patronising and futile: ‘the poor learners must be helped to cope with the tasks given to them.’ Conversely, effective learning involves reconfiguring the learner as a partner in the fundamental design of learning; we should be ‘enabling the users themselves to plan and bring about the qualitative changes (including the design and implementation of technologies) in their life contexts.’ Engestrom is thus interested in expansive processes which, though ‘elusive and uncontrollable,’ also enable people to ‘transcend the contexts given to them.’

Engestrom links the origins of formal learning with the emergence of literacy: ‘Schools do indeed appear wherever people start reading and writing. In their very generality, reading and writing are such abstract or indirect instruments that they cannot be learned by simply participating in work activity.’ Simple apprenticeships can occur in less formal contexts, but the abstract qualities of reading and writing require a formal context for their transmission, separate from everyday intercourse.

However, for Engestrom, increasing tensions are evident in schooling, because students are simultaneously engaging in production and consumption themselves: ‘today’s pupils are at an early age intensively drawn into the market as relatively independent consumers, even as producers of exchange values (as computer hackers, as sport stars and performers, etc.). When the pupils’ direct participation in the societal production is intensified, the “holding power” of the school is endangered. In this respect, school-going may well be approaching a crisis of new qualitative dimensions. Whether this will mean a breakthrough into learning activity at school – that remains to be seen.’ If students are not dependent on school as a pre-condition for producing and consuming in economic and social contexts, they are less likely to engage with school and will thus bypass it, in terms of their commitment and participation if not their actual, physical attendance. Conversely, learning activities that recognise students’ existences as consumers and producers are more likely to connect with students.

Engestrom goes on to define what is meant by learning activity: ‘The essence of learning activity is production of objectively, societally new activity structures (including new objects, instruments, etc.) out of actions manifesting the inner contradictions of the preceding form of the activity in question.’ Hence, when one element of an Activity System (Vygotsky, 1927) contradicts another, it generates conflict, but thus also an opportunity to construct new knowledge. Learning activities expose contradictions in systems, and imagine what can be constructed out of the contradictions. In this sense, learning activities may be seen to define some of the conditions and outcomes of artistic and scientific production: ‘The learning actions inherent in scientific and artistic activity are those of learning to imagine, learning to “go beyond the given”, not in the privacy on the individual mind but in the public, material objectifications.’

For Engestrom, therefore, problem-based learning is itself problematic because it makes students passive recipients of problems, not active constructors of their own learning journeys. He opposes problem solving with expansive learning activities, which acknowledge contradictions within activity systems and produce new structures out of those contradictions.

References
Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 20 April 2011).

Vygotsky, L. S. (1927/1997) The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, vol. 3: problems of the theory and history of Psychology, ed. by R. W. Rieber, and J. Wollock, New York, Plenum.

August Literature Review round-up

Cole and Engestrom (2006) sumamrise Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, a model drawn from Vygotsky’s work in the early-twentieth century. It involves a reconsideration of the relationship between theory and practice; while theory is often thought to precede practice, Vygotsky argued that practice is sovereign, identifying the problem and comprising the ‘truth criterion’ of theory (Vygotsky 1927, repr. 1997, pp. 305-06, cited in Cole and Engestrom 2006, p. 484).

Vygotsky and other Russian psychologists explored double stimulation, whereby ‘children or medical patients were provided with potential tools to carry out tasks that were beyond their current capabilities.’ More recently, Finnish researchers have built on this work to create Change Laboratories (p. 492). By giving people the means to solve a problem but not the strategy, the researchers prompt expansive learning, whereby people construct a solution by themselves (often collectively) without the presence of a clear expert in the form of a teacher or lecturer who already knows the answer.

Change laboratories have been applied in specific organisational contexts (see p. 492), and so actual, practical outcomes are required by the participants (the practice validating or repudiating the theory): ‘Practioners are interested in actual changes in their work practices, including new objects, tools, rules and divisions of labor [sic]’ (p. 494). This is learning that gets applied, and therefore tested. Moreover, as this process often takes place in workplaces, the outcomes are important, and need to be tangible.

The Change Laboratory is an interesting, practical application of the expansive learning approach. However, one question that arises is, ‘How do we know when the learning ends?’ The safe, lifelong learning answer is ‘never,’ which is comprehensive, but unhelpful. The removal of aims and objectives (and the non-presence of an expert) creates a problem of narrative; participants will not know when they have come to an end. One possibility, if the learners have been given a problem to solve, is that the learning ends when the problem has been solved. This, however, could just be aims and objectives reconfigured in language, but not in essence. The problem replaces the aim.

Toiviainen et al (2009) take a next step with expansive learning (in workplace learning) by understanding what they term ‘co-configuration’ as a collective relationship between designer, producer and consumer, such that a finished product is never arrived at, but a collective network develops between the various stakeholders, leading to continual reinvention (p. 510). Formal learning thus features as a milestone point, an opportunity to combine talent for a given purpose, but the evolution of knowledge or products is ongoing, and never static. Thus learning has no ending, but periods of accelerated and focused development in specific learning contexts.

Expansive learning has far-reaching implications. It removes a centre of authority, and eschews learning where the answer is already known, and facilitated by an expert. However, de-centred learning goes against the grain of learning and teaching practice, which tends to be about the reaffirmation and transmission of existing knowledge and values. Will State-run education systems back a theory that isn’t focused on pre-ordained, empirical outcomes? Moreover, expansive learning can lead to the repudiation of a community’s existing values.

References
Cole, M. and Engestrom, Y. (2006) ‘Cultural-Historical Approaches to Designing for Development’ http://gse2.berkeley.edu/~uclinks/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ch23-cole-and-engestrom.pdf (accessed 9 August 2010).

Toiviainen, H., Kerosuo, H. and Syrjala, T. (2009) ‘“Development Radar”: the co-configuration of a tool in a learning network’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 21, no. 7, pp. 509-524.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1927/1997) ‘The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology: A methodological investigation’ in Rieber, R.W. and Wollock, J. (eds.) The collective works of L. S. Vygotsky, vol. 3: problems of the theory and history of Psychology, New York: Plenum.

‘Peer-mediated learning beyond the curriculum’ (2008)

Havnes’s (2008) article does not contain new research, but it is a useful overview of relevant learning theories.

First, Havnes summarises Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, whereby the presence, at an optimal distance, of a more experienced other or others guides the learner to levels they wouldn’t have been enable to attain by themselves. This is useful because it gives a name and a theory to the ‘scaffolding’ metaphor much used in H.E. learning and teaching, encapsulating the ‘guide on the side’ approach to H.E. learning and teaching, as opposed to the ‘sage on the stage.’

Havnes also uses Vygotsky as a route by which to better understand Engestrom. Havnes argues that Engestrom ‘makes a distinction between the learning of the given new and the created new.’ The zone of proximal development implies a learner reaching a level hitherto unknown for them, but not necessarily unknown to the facilitator. The pursuit of the created new comprises expansive learning, whereby the learners do not attain adaptation to the world; instead, they shape the world (p. 200).

In the absence of an a priori correct solution to a problem, vertical models of learning (e.g., Bloom, Haslow) become inapplicable. Instead, the learning model is horizontal, with peers sans expert collaborating towards a goal which is not, a priori, fully known. Maybe it is perceived through a glass darkly, but that is another story.

The replacing of a vertical with a horizontal learning model suggest an affinity between Engestrom’s analysis and the communities of practice theory, the difference being that, in the latter, the centre is at least recognisable, comprising the full members of the learning community. There is no reason why centres have to be fixed in the communities of practice model, but they are there, whereas they do not pre-exist in Engestrom’s analysis.

Havnes concludes ‘that academic learning goes beyond curricular learning’ (p. 201). This is not surprising, but it is a useful reminder of the problems of assessment, because assessment tends not to encompass the whole of learning, or perhaps not even the most interesting parts of learning. One of the most fascinating aspects of technology-enhanced learning is that technology, in the hands of learners, can do things that have not been done before, or undertake learning in different ways. For example, why shouldn’t a student use Prezi or Wallwisher for an assessed presentation? Why shouldn’t a student maintain a blog for the duration of a course and get assessed on that rather than on combinations of tests, essays and exams, none of which will necessarily enhance activities that the student will go on to undertake for work or recreation? We are still tied to making the measurable important in H.E. as Havnes, valuably, reminds us.

Reference

Havnes, A. (2008) ‘Peer-mediated learning beyond the curriculum’ Studies in Higher Education, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 193-204.