Abstract
My goal is to contribute to concepts that can explain aspects of social interaction and of subject-matter information content in cognition and learning. The approach I take, which I call situative, takes activity systems as the main focus of study and analysis, and attempts to understand processes in which participants construct information in common ground that they deem relevant to their progress on the task they are working on. I argue that this situative perspective and the individual information-processing perspective both are valid in a way that encourages development of integration between them. I cite previous research that shows that positioning in the participant framework is an important factor for explaining productive and not-so-productive cognitive phenomena. The analysis of FastPlant data that I present shows, further, that positioning of students can differ in different phases of activity in a task. Specifically, students’ agency can differ between activities that generate alternatives to be considered and activities that determine which alternative will be favored.
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This research was supported by the Spencer Foundation.
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Greeno, J.G. (2011). A Situative Perspective on Cognition and Learning in Interaction. In: Koschmann, T. (eds) Theories of Learning and Studies of Instructional Practice. Explorations in the Learning Sciences, Instructional Systems and Performance Technologies, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7582-9_3
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