Vol. 10 No. 4

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Identity Construction Environments: Developing Personal and Moral Values Through the design of a Virtual City

Marina Umaschi Bers

We live in a society where concepts of self, community, and "what is right and wrong" are constantly changing. This makes particularly challenging for young people to construct a sense and to identify their most cherished values. Therefore, there is an amounting pressure in schools and society to create learning environments to explore these issues. Two research questions are at the heart of the work presented in this article: What kind of learning environment will afford opportunities for young people to naturally engage in reflection and discussion about issues of identity, in particular personal and moral values? And How can technologies have an impact on character and moral education? I propose identify construction environments (ICE's) as technological tools purposefully designed with the goal of supporting young people in the exploration of these issues.

I first describe the design principles that distinguish these environments from other learning technologies. I also specify the learning experiences they do afford- namely the understanding of identify as a complex construction composed by different elements, including personal and moral values, Then I present the conceptual foundations and implementation of the Zora ICE. Zora is a three-dimensional multi-user environment that engages learners in the design of a graphical virtual city and its social organization. I describe a summer workshop conducted with a multicultural group of teenagers using Zora. The designed a virtual city populated with objects and characters representing aspects of themselves and their values. In this participatory microcommunity those values were put to test. Finally I conclude with reflections and future work that points toward a new agenda in the area of the learning sciences.


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Learning by Analogical Bootstrapping

Kenneth J. Kurtz, Chun-Hui Miao, and Dedre Gentner

Analogies are typically drawn from a well-understood situation to a situation that is poorly understood. In this research, we investigate a different route to Analogical insight. We suggest that mutual alignment - that is, comparison between 2 partially understood situations - can act to promote comprehension and abstraction. We presented participants with 2 analogies scenarios depicting heat flow. They were given measured insight into the common structure in three ways. Participants were asked to (a) specify differences between the two pictured scenarios, (b) write scenario descriptions and (c) rate the similarity of the 2 scenarios. The results show that carrying out comparison promotes greater insight into the common causal structure, but only when the comparison is intensive. The best results were obtained when participants were asked to jointly interpret the scenarios and to list specific correspondences. In a second experiment designed to further pinpoint the sources of the comparison advantage, participants were asked to make correspondences between the elements of the 2 scenarios. These results suggest that mutual alignment is an effective means of promoting insight.


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Discourse, Cognition, and Chaotic Systems: An Examination of Students' Argument About Density

Jeffrey W. Bloom

This article examines an extended argument about density among a small, multi-graded middle school class of 10 students. The argument is examined from several perspectives with the primary focus on (a) the argument as an example of a chaotic and complex system, (b) the emerging development of understandings, and (c) the underlying cognitive structures affecting the students' understandings. Student talk during the class sessions were audio and videotape recorded. A single video recorder was used to capture excerpts of each group's dialogue, as well as intergroup dialogue. The argument began after students predicted which of an assortment of different objects would or would not float. The specific case of a block of ebony initiated the argument and acted as the initial attractor, which developed into 2 opposing assertions: 1 side proposing that the pressure on a large volume of water affects the density and the other side proposing that the molecules of water cannot be compressed. Extensive conceptual development occurred as the argument progressed with a variety of bifurcation points leading to new but related conceptual themes and higher levels of complexity. Several underlying structures, which have been referred to as interpretive frameworks (Bloom, 1992a) and p-prims (diSessa, 1993), played a central role in the development of both understandings and argument itself. Such interpretive frameworks included (a) uniformity of molecular size and weight across different substances, (b) directionality of pressure, (c) external forces (e.g., gravity) affect pressure, (d) pressure affects density, and (e) surface area affects action of external forces on pressure.


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Commentary

The Problem of Transfer, and the Sociocultural Critique of Schooling

Martin Packer

It is often suggested that transfer is central to our system of education. Yet transfer has proven hard to define, difficult to investigate, and perplexingly controversial. This article compares 1 of the earliest critiques of transfer - Dewey's (1916)- with 1 of the most recent- Lavešs (1988) - to explore how the debate over transfer is linked to competing views of the goals and aims of schooling. It is proposed that if sociocultural theory is to make good on critique of schooling, it must be extended in 2 respects: in its ontology of the person, and its conception of the society in which we live. A preliminary sketch is provided of each of these extensions, to develop the sociocultural suggestion that learning and schooling both involve transformation of the person. The debate over transfer rests on but obscures divergent views of the goals and aims of schooling. Both critiques of schooling and calls for school reform presuppose conceptions of the kind of person we want children to be, and the kind of society we wish to foster.

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