EPS 408: Epistemology and Education: Constructions of Knowledge in Contexts of Teaching and Learning

Overview. This course examines both philosophical and empirical literatures on the nature of knowledge in educational contexts. Contemporary theories of knowledge and theories of learning show a striking convergence around ideas of constructivism, social context, and practice as the conditions under which certain beliefs come to be held as knowable or true. This is true for scientists in research laboratories no less than for elementary students struggling to interpret novel texts.

There are three main sections of the course: (1) theoretical and philosophical readings that represent the different versions of constructivism that have influenced contemporary thought; (2) readings drawn from current work in the sociology of knowledge, examining how communities of inquiry and practice define what they count as confirmed knowledge; and (3) readings in the educational literature, discussing from a variety of perspectives, and in different content areas, the implications of constructivism for problems of teaching and learning.

Readings. There are four books on order for this course, which will be available at Horizon Books: Wertsch, Voices of the mind; Lynch & Woolgar, Representation in scientific practice; Lave & Wenger, Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation; and Nelson, Megill, & McCloskey, The rhetoric of the human sciences: Language and argument in scholarship and public affairs.

Additional readings will be available.

Assignments. Participants will be expected to come to class having read the material and being prepared for discussion; this course is designed as a seminar, not a lecture class. Your preparation, in terms of careful and thoughtful reading of the material, writing down questions of your own for discussion, and reviewing your notes before class, will directly influence how much you can contribute to the discussion and how much you can expect to get out of it.

In addition, we will ask students to take a turn moderating the class discussions: During the semester, students, in pairs, will be asked to plan and lead a class session. The faculty will also be prepared with material, of course, but this structure is intended to reinforce the idea that this class, too, is a community of inquiry, in which all participants have a significant role.

Another aspect of creating this sense of community in the class will be an electronic-mail (e-mail) bulletin board for class participation outside the formal constraints of the classroom. Students will be encouraged to participate (this is not a mandatory assignment), along with the faculty, as a way of sharing reactions to the readings, questions, new sources or ideas we might come across, and funny jokes in a more interactive and informal context. For those who have never used e-mail, a brief seminar in how to use the Eudora software will be offered; most computer users have found e-mail to be an exciting way to maintain communicative interactions with people across the country and around the world; to discover new colleagues with common interests; and to gain access to information and points of view from a rich, varied range of sources.

The chief writing assignment for the course is to work in teams of two or three members to carry out an observational study of some community of inquiry in an educational context. The basic styles of this sort of study will be clearer after some of our reading and discussion of the essays in Lynch and Woolgar. The assignment will be to analyze the textual, practical, and/or discourse activities in this community to see how they serve to construct a view of knowledge and learning. Examples of the kinds of educational settings that might be studied include: observing a doctoral exam here in the college; observing a faculty committee planning curricular or program changes; studying a high school science classroom; etc. The essay should be a product of the team as a group, and should be a minimum of 7500-8000 words (about 25-30 pages in 12 pt. type size and normal margins). The due date is May 14.

Evaluation. The final course grade will be based primarily on the project. Students submitting an essay together will share in that grade. Class participation will be a factor in deciding borderline cases (e.g., from a B+ to an A), for individual students.

Schedule of class sessions.

Jan 14 Overview of the course structure and requirements

Jan 20 MLK Birthday, no classes

PART I

Jan 21 Constructivism and individualism: schema theory

Jan 25 Constructivism and individualism: Piagetian theory

Jan 28 Constructivism and individualism: Piagetian theory

Feb 1 Social constructivism I:

Feb 4 Social constructivism I:

Feb 8 Social constructivism II:

Feb 11 Social constructivism II:

Feb 15 Constructivism and realism:

Feb 18 Radical constructivism: The autonomy of communities of inquiry

Feb 22 Radical constructivism: Feminist epistemology

Feb 25 Are there ground rules? Or is it true that Anything goes?

PART II

Mar 1 Introduction to the sociology of science

Mar 4 Visualization and cognition

Mar 8 Spring break

Mar 11 Spring break

Mar 15 Documentation as a form of validation

Mar 18 Illustration as a form of validation

Mar 22 Inquiry in domains of practice

Mar 25 Rhetoric and the construction of knowledge

Mar 29 Rhetoric in the disciplines

Apr 1 Journals and citation procedures as forms of knowledge-construction

PART III

Apr 5 Constructivism in math and reading

Apr 8 Constructivism and whole language theory

Apr 12 Constructivism and science education

Apr 15 Discourse and inquiry

Apr 19 Situated learning, pt. I

Apr 22 Situated learning, pt. II

Apr 26 Constructivism, scaffolding, and reciprocal teaching

Apr 29 Constructivist teaching and learning

May 3 Final class meeting: summary and conclusions

May 14 Due date for essay