Distributed practice and practical negotiation in a tech ed classroom : the way things are done in technology education

• Main Author: Kozolanka, Karne.
• Other Authors: Jackson, Nancy (advisor)
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 2000
• Subjects: Technical education > Social aspects.; Active learning.
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36774

This inquiry is about the sense-making of students in a technology education class as they build a prototype electric car in a secondary school manufacturing shop. I make sense of their sense-making by examining their talk and interaction in the interplay of the social, material, institutional, and organizational resources constituting what I call "distributed practice." This involves a move away from defining understanding and learning as self-contained structures in the minds of people, but instead sees learning as spread out in the broad social context of activity and participation. Distributed practice theorized in this way is about the interplay among "complex social relations, technologically constituted." Technologies and their use in practice provide us with a realm through which we can discuss issues related to the understanding of learners. In many respects, this dissertation is an exploration of how "the way things are done" becomes understanding and alternately, how understanding becomes "the way things are done." The analysis moves towards a social and cultural practice view of learning I call "practical negotiation."