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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created:August 27, 2006
Latest Update:August 27, 2006
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu
The Importance of Process Learning in Community-BuildingEssay and Explanation of concepts.
Discussion Questions
- What is process learning?
Consider memorizing formulas for algebra problems has never given anybody a good sense of how to solve a buiilding problem in which algebra is needed. When might such a problem occur? Well, suppose you know that you need 10 6-foot long mahogany boards to complete a home entertainment center project. Suppose three of your friends are so impressed they ask you to build centers for them? How many mahogany boards will you have to buy? A word problem. Oh, horrors!
Visualize. Visualize.
Drawing a quick sketch of the problem.How many boards for one entertainment center? Look at the sketch. 10. So X = 10.
Now, if we want enough boards for three entertainment centers, how many will we need? 3 times x = 3X.
If X= 10, how much is 3X? 3 x 10 = 30.
Look at the sketch. Mark down 10 boards for Larry. 10 for Jean. 10 for Henry. Add them up. 10 + 10 +10 = 30
Multiply 3 times the number of boards you will need for each entertainment center you've been asked to build. 3X = 30. It checks. look at the sketch and imagine how you would figure this out on your own. The X is just a shorthand way of walking around and looking at what you'll need and thinking about it.
If you're trying to teach this to young children, it works best if you use real materials. Concrete reasoning precedes abstract reasoning. (Vygotsky and Piaget.) But if you hated math, you might find it helps you to go back, too, to concrete examples. That's why I said to sketch it out. This is the part they left out in school. The part where you got to walk around and move the boards about concretely and mull the problem over until you had that "aha" experience, and saw how it was all just shorthand for what some of us do naturally anyway.
This won't make algebra crystal clear to you. You would need to practice doing this kind of problem. But it helps to see that you would have figured this out anyway, on your own. Turning the number of boards into X just makes it easier for us to do it abstractly. Working this out is process learning. If you don't ever get to apply the algebra to anything real, and have the solution make sense to you, chances are that you're going to forget everything you learned about it.The process is what counts.
- What does Vygotsky mean by "the zone of proximal development"?
Consider that some of us have more experience than others. I can make a lamp base. But I don't know how to put the lighting mechanism in. Michael knows how to put the lighting mechanism in, but doesn't know the glass technique for making the lamp base. By working collaboratively, we are able each to learn from the other, and a lamp shall be born. The sone of proximal development is that bit of stretching we'll each have to do to learn what the other has more experience in. Because we get to live with or sell the lamp, we'll each have accomplished not the only the learning, but we'll know how to use that learning. And in the process we've come to know and respect each other as thinking, creative humans. And that helps build the network that becomes our community.
"The theories of Russian psychologist Lev S.Vygotsky have had the greatest impact on the principles of social constructivism. Vygotsky ’s best-known concept is termed “the zone of proximal development,”which describes the developmental gap between a student’s actual ability to independently solve complex problems and his or her potential ability to solve the same problems with the assistance of adults or more knowledgeable peers."- How does this idea of social constructivism and process fit with community-building?
The very process of developing a deeper consciousness of the many perspectives and differences in our own local communities, and our application of a critical approach to understanding why and how we are shaping our beliefs on current issues engages us in the very process we are trying to build. We are becoming more conscious of not accepting what the 6 o'clock news says ipse dixit, just because it says it. Hopefully, we are also becoming more aware that what the preacher or the teacher or the newscaster says is constrained by the preacher's and the teacher's personal experiences and understanding, and if we are to believe fervently in the truth of what we are told, we must personally take some responsibility for how that "truth" was shaped and manipulated by others we may not know. Is money and the power of money involved in shaping the messages we receive? Is the very human desire for limitless power over others (testosterone-affected, claim some) involved in shaping those messages? Do the messages exploit anyone? Do the messages further the goals of this country to treat all with fairness and justice? Where does that leave the torture argument? Where does that leave the nation-state argument? Is he/she less as a human because he/she was born into a different nation-state, a different religion, a different class, a different family?
By actively engaging in the task of heightening our awareness and by actively sharing that awareness and the skills of critical analysis with others of all ages, all educational levels, all persuasions, we are immersing ourselves in "the zone of proximal development" in which each of us teaches another with less experience in some task, while each of us learns from another with more experience in some task. We do not test one another> For some will learn quickly and others more slowly. But all will learn as we slowly build our understanding of collaborative citizenship and our network of community grows in numbers and in depth of sensitivity.
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