Landmark Representation and Interactive Mediation

Jim Levin

  Education StudiesUC San Diego

http://edsserver.ucsd.edu/~jlevin/landmark-mediation/bb.htm

The color continuum

Discrete color names

Framework to combine continuous with

discrete

Landmark concepts with activity levels

Click on the "X".

Three landmarks

Click on the X in the color triangle.

Four landmarks in a different domain

Click on the arrow.

Number line landmarks & the development of

number conceptsClick on the number line.

Bob Siegler's studies of

children's knowledge of number

Siegler & Opfer (2003):People have two different ways of representing numbers:

logarithmic representations --> linear representations

Landmark interpretation

novices start with a few landmarks, mostly logarithmic

then acquire more and more landmarks that mark out an increasingly linear continuum.

Mediation

A classic mediational triangle

Subject Object

Mediator

Bud's mediational triangle

Engeström's expanded triangle

Spatial mediators

A line and its landmark subparts

Spatial mediators

Click on a line, its landmark subparts, and its spatial mediators.

Spatial mediators in action

More complex spatial mediation

Click on the "A".

Self-repair & self-organization

Click on the cartoon below, then

click on "Go" then "Scramble."

A more complex line

Click on the more complex line.

Approximations to a curved line

Click on the "P" and select "P".

Approximations to a curved line

Bi-stable mediation

An overly simple L

Click on the L and select "overly simple L".

Resulting "L"s

Support from invisible lines

Click on the "L" and select "L".

General properties

• Dynamic stability• Self-repair• Self-organization• Multiple stable states and reorganization

Applications of the framework

• Educational discourse analysis with multiple topic threads as landmarks and participants as interactive mediators

• Classroom artifacts as landmarks and participants as interactive mediators

• Educational reform

Potential applicationto educational reform

Analogies:• Multiple simultaneous interactive mediation as co-construction

• Near as affiliation; Apart as disaffiliation

• Self-repair as "failed" educational reform; Reorganization as "successful" reform

• Same side as coalition; opposite sides as opposition

S vs. 3

long short

Opposite vs. same side

• Vertical axis as some issue• Length of the invisible line as some mediator between two groups

• "Short" creates groups on the same side of an issue

• "Long" creates groups on the opposite side

Application to a reform setting

• Use of social network analysis to produce the structure of the reform setting

• Ethnographic study to determine the mediators and their nature

• Landmark representation of the structure and interactive mediation representation of the interaction

• Empirical test of the representation

Feedback

• How useful is this landmark representation and interactive mediation framework?

• What important educational issues might it help us understand?

Thanks!

Jim Levin jalevin@ucsd.edu

Paper: http://edsserver.ucsd.edu/~jlevin/landmark-mediation/

During Winter quarter 2009, EDS 297 "Distributed Learning" will further investigate these issues on Thursdays, 5pm-7:50pm, in PCH 348. Everyone is welcome.

Upcoming EDS brownbagshttp://eds.ucsd.edu/brown

bags.shtmNov. 25 Alan DalyDec. 2 Jim Levin: "Web-based collaborative tools for teaching, research, & service"

Dec 16 Rusty Bresser & Kathy MelaneseJan. 20 Cheryl Forbes & Luz ChungFeb. 17 Claire RamseyMar. 17 Practice AERA talksApr. 28 Alison Wishard-GuerraMay 19 Caren HoltzmanJune 16 Carolyn Hofstetter