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The Dialectical Relationship between Prior and Present Learning: Mapping Vygotsky’s Activity Theory to the Prior Learning Portfolio Process. Jessica Kindred, Ph.D. The College of New Rochelle School of New Resources Brooklyn, New York. Jessica Kindred, Ph.D. The College of New Rochelle
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The Dialectical Relationship between Prior and Present Learning: Mapping Vygotsky’s Activity Theory to the Prior Learning Portfolio Process Jessica Kindred, Ph.D. The College of New Rochelle School of New Resources Brooklyn, New York
Jessica Kindred, Ph.D. The College of New Rochelle School of New Resources Brooklyn, New York Industry Experience Workplace training (manufacturing & transportation maintenance) Past Future Present Academic Experience Teaching psychology Integration Teaching PLP
Industrial Context Workplace research and training 1990s: international competition; new technologies; focus on planning; customer / market orientations 1993: changing job requirements (college degree for engineering and supervision) 1999: outsourcing and job loss
Academic context: Developing experiential learning activities for the classroom
Theory:Practice • Cultural Historical Activity Theory Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) • Prior Learning Portfolio (PLP) Production, support, and evaluation
Prior Learning Process Identify knowledge from work experience and life history Represent prior learning in academically relevant ways Qualify learning as college level
Learning Expertise Academia work school informal formal implicit explicit intuitive explanatory concrete abstract performative declarative practical conceptual experiential representational spontaneous scientific
Somewhere between the experience and the representation is the learning.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Activity theory Historical materialism Developmental perspective Dialectical dynamic of thought and sign Internalization (Transformation of interpersonal to intrapersonal)
“Schematically, we may imagine thought and speech as two intersecting circles. In their overlapping parts, thought and speech coincide to produce what is called verbal thought… There is a vast area of thought that has no direct relation to speech. The thinking manifested in the use of tools belongs in this area, as does practical intellect in general.” (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 88)
Verbal Thought thought speech Practical Academic intellect intellect
Vygotsky’s Knowledge Kinds • Theoretical Abstraction • Spontaneous Scientific • Informal Formal • Empirical Theoretical • Empirical Generalization
Spontaneous Scientific • Everyday Systematic • Informal Formal • Learned Taught • Empirical Theoretical Dialectical interaction between kinds of knowledge in the developing mind
“Thought, unlike speech, does not consist of separate units [...] the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words [...] Experience teaches us that thought does not express itself in words, but rather realizes itself in them” (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 250).
Mediation of thought by language of meaning by other people of prior learning by present context
Scaffolding • Facilitative role of mentor toward learner’s generative reflection and effective articulation of prior learning
Dialogue • The role of dialogic processes in realizing knowledge and prior learning • (interview as process of cultivation)
ZPD • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) • typically applied to the assessment of potential for learning • Zone of Proximal Reflection • adapted to the situation of prior learning as a zone of • active reflection
Generative Reflection of PLP Present Prior Dialectical interaction between times of knowledge in the developing mind: the emergence of new learning
PLP: prior internalization to present reflection to future externalization
