Presentation on Activity Theory
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Overview of Activity Theory
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Presentation on Activity Theory
- 1. ACTIVITY THEORY LEARNING THEORY PRESENTATION Viviane Vladimirschi Assignment # 3 EDDE 803
- 2. The legacy of Lev Vygotsky (1934- 1986): “The Mozart of Psychology” (Toulmin, 1981) Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) the development of human personality takes place during its upbringing and teaching, and has a specifically historical character, content, and form; the development of a personality takes place during changes in the social situations of a person's life, or during changes in the types and kinds of his personal activity; the basic form of carrying out activity is in joint-collective enactment by a group of people through their social interaction; the individual way of carrying out activity is the result of internalizing its basic form; an essential role in this process of interiorization is played by systems of signs and symbols, created through the history of human culture.; the assimilation by a person of historical values of material and spiritual culture in the process of that person's teaching and upbringing takes place through that person's carrying out of personal activity in collaboration with other people. Davydov & Kerr (1995)
- 3. Introduction to Activity Theory 1920s Vygostsky, Luria, Leont'ev Subject and object mediated through artifacts/tools ‘Activity’ is the basic unit of analysis 1970s Engeström
- 4. What are Activity Systems? historically developed; mediated by tools; dialectically structured; analyzed as the relations of participants and tools; changed through zones of proximal development. What the child is initially able to do only together with adults and peers, and then can do
- 5. Is Activity Theory a learning theory? “Activity theory is not a methodology. Rather it is a "philosophical framework for studying different forms of human praxis as developmental processes, both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time" (Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy, 1999, p. 532). Praxis vs. Practice
- 6. Example of an Activity System Developmental, educational and organizational psychology; Cognitive science; Curriculum and teaching; Literacy, writing and rhetoric; Information technology; Design; Geography
- 8. Second Generation (Learner) (Learner) (Successful learning) Engeström (2001)
- 10. Expansive learning Standard learning theories offer little insight for understanding important transformations in our personal lives and organizational practices. Expansive learning activity produces culturally new patterns of activity and new forms of work activity. It is aimed at getting people or groups of people to radically question the sense and meaning of the context and to construct a wider alternative context. It is geared towards fostering significant sideways learning. Tackles real life problems through problem solving; learning is driven questioning existing practice; learning opens up wider possibilities for participants. Engeström (2001)
- 11. The eight-step model: Mwanza & Engeström (2005) Step Identify the: Question to ask: 1 Activity of interest What sort of activity am I interested in? 2 Objective Why is the activity taking place? 3 Subjects Who is involved in carrying out this activity? 4 Tools By what means are the subjects performing this activity? 5 Rules and regulations Are there any cultural norms, rules, or regulations governing the performance of activity? 6 Division of labour Who is responsible for what, when carrying out activity, and how are the roles organised? 7 Community What is the environment in which this activity is carried out? 8 Outcome What is the desired outcome from carrying out this activity?
- 12. Distance Education: 3 Activity Systems Organizational Core business and strategic directions Financial sustainability Technological Stable, reliable, scalable Standards and procedures Pedagogic Dominant pedagogic approach Needs and preferences of learners Teacher’s disposition towards technology adoption Robertson (2008)
- 13. The DE Activity System Organizational, Technological and Pedagogic Sustainability Expansionist Learning
- 14. References and resources for further study Davydov, V. V., & Kerr, S. T. (1995). The influence of LS Vygotsky on education theory, research, and practice. Educational Researcher, 12-21. Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of education and work, 14(1), 133-156. Retrieved from http://www.handover.eu/upload/library/jimaw6szeyuluh4tho6oq.pdf Holzman, L. (2006). What kind of theory is activity theory? Introduction. Theory & Psychology, 16(1), 5-11. Jonassen, D. H., & Rohrer-Murphy, L. (1999). Activity theory as a framework for designing constructivist learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(1), 61- 79. Kaptelinin, V., Kuutti, K., & Bannon, L. (1995). Activity theory: Basic concepts and applications. In Human-computer interaction (pp. 189-201). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Retrieved from http://www.ulfblanke.com/downloads/activity_theory/kaptelinin-basics.pdf Mwanza, D., & Engeström, Y. (2005). Managing content in E‐learning environments. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(3), 453-463. Retrieved from http://www.qou.edu/english/scientificResearch/eLearningResearchs/managing.pdf Robertson, I. (2008, November). Sustainable e-learning, activity theory and professional development. In Ascilite (pp. 819-826). Retrieved from http://ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/robertson.pdf?origin=publication_detail Roth, W. M., & Lee, Y. J. (2007). “Vygotsky’s neglected legacy”: Cultural-historical activity theory. Review of Educational Research, 77(2), 186-232. Russell, D. (1995). Activity theory and its implications for writing instruction. Reconceiving writing, rethinking writing instruction, 51-78. Retrieved from http://comphacker.org/comp/engl431/files/2012/08/Russell-Activity-Theory.pdf
Editor's Notes
- Hi everybody! My learning theory presentation for Assignment # 3 is on Activity Theory, not quite a learning theory as you will all notice throughout this presentation, yet a very effective psychological, educational and research approach. During this presentation I will be addressing Vygostsky and his legacy, origins of Activity Theory, what the theory in Activity Theory is, the different generations of Activity Theory, Expansive learning and how Distance Education fits into this activity system. So to start off, let me introduce you briefly to Lev Vygostsky..
- More than seven decades ago, the Russian psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky noted that (educational) psychology was in a state of crisis because of the “atomistic and functional modes of analysis . . . [that] treated the psychic processes in isolation. More, specifically, he pointed out that the separation of intellect and affect as subjects of study [was] a major weakness of traditional psychology, since it [made] the thought process appear as an autonomous flow of “thoughts thinking themselves,” segregated from the fullness of life, from the personal need and interests, the inclinations and impulses of the thinker. Vygostsky championed a kind of holistic integration in educational research – one of knowing and learning in and out of schools. Vygotsky's views were formed in Russia's revolutionary years and reflected the scientific and social ideas of that time, ideas connected with a well-defined understanding of the regularity of human historical development. This kind of understanding was presented, in particular, in Marxist philosophy. Thus, Vygotsky made it the basis of his world view. According to Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory,… therefore, in different historical eras, we see different types of individual psychological development. CHAT penetrated Anglo-Saxon academia rather late; historians may come to identify in Michael Cole the single most influential person for acquainting Western scholars to this tradition, both through his writings (e.g., Cole, 1988) and through the mediating role of his Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition (LCHC) at the University of California, San Diego (Cole, 1984).
- “Activity Theory is a tradition of psychological theory and research originating with the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the late 1920's and early 1930's. It was first developed by his colleagues A. N. Leont'ev, who coined the term, and A. R. Luria. Beginning in the 1970's, developmental psychologists and educational researchers in several other nations elaborated the theory and conducted empirical research, both quantitative and qualitative” (p. 3). Engeström stands out for his work with Expansive learning, which will be addressed later on in this presentation. Two fundamental assumptions that uderpin AT is that knowledge is mediated through tools and artifacts and it is the basic unit of analysis which defines an activity. Basically, an activity can be anything from something quite large to something quite small. The next couple of slides will provide you with a better understanding of what AT is, including a simple example of an activity system. “It is interesting to note that scholars basing their work in Vygotskian philosophy generally term their approach “sociocultural,” whereas those walking in the footsteps of Leont’ev prefer their research to be known as “cultural-historical.” (p. 190).
- Activity theory has ben defined in many ways. Holzman provides us with a holistic definition: “Activity systems are 1) historically developed, 2) mediated by tools, 3) dialectically structured, 4) analyzed as the relations of participants and tools, and 5) changed through zones of proximal development” (p. 5). The theory of developmental education allowed Vygotsky to introduce into educational psychology the concept of the zone of proximal development, which has the following sense: What the child is initially able to do only together with adults and peers, and then can do independently, lies exactly in the zone of proximal psychological development” (p. 18).
- Is Activity Theory a learning theory? According to Jonassen & Rohrer-Murphy… *** “It focuses on the interaction of human activity and consciousness(the human mind as whole) within its relevant environmental context. Activity theory does not include a theory of learning per se, instead, activity theory-oriented pedagogical concepts are incorporated in Engeström’s (1987) theory of expansive learning. Moreover, Activity theory posits that conscious learning emerges from activity (performance), not as a precursor to it. So activity theory provides us with an alternative way of viewing human thinking and activity” (p. 62). In this context, praxis denotes the moments of real human activity that occur only once (Bakhtin, 1993), which distinguishes it from the notion of practice, which is used to denote a patterned form of action, inherently a theoretical signified. For example, when a person teaches some subject matter, he or she participates in praxis, in which there is no time out from the situation, and everything she or he does has consequences. When a person reflects about what he or she has done, the patterned ways that characterize her or his actions, she or he articulates practices, not praxis” (p. 191).
- “In an activity system, the object(ive) remains the same while the mediational means, the tools, may vary. In a very simple activity system, for example, a two-year-old child (subject) wishes to reach a toy on a high shelf (object[ive]). She might drag a chair (one mediational means or tool) under the shelf and climb up to reach the toy. Or in frustration she might cry out for her father (another mediational means or tool—a verbal sign) who might get a chair for her. Or her father might point to a chair (another—an indexical sign), describe what to do (another verbal sign), or even demonstrate its use in this activity (another—a gestural sign). An invariant function (reaching an object out of reach) may be performed by variable mechanisms, but the functional system, the activity, is the same” (p. 5). *** “That there is not a unified theory is not seen as problematic by activity theory’s developers and practitioners, who take what they find useful in the theoretical writings and utilize it in diverse areas, most notably developmental, educational and organizational psychology; cognitive science; curriculum and teaching; literacy, writing and rhetoric ; information technology and design; and geography” (p. 6).
- The first generation, centered around Vygotsky, created the idea of mediation. Vygotsky’s idea of cultural mediation of actions is commonly expressed as the triad of subject, object, and mediating artifact. The subject represents who is the important actor or actors in this particular activity and whose perspective are we wanting to look from. Tools, artifacts and symbols mediate between the subject and the object. The object is the objective, in other words, what are we trying to achieve here that leads to an intended outcome. Limitation – unit of analysis individually focused
- The limitation of First Generation AT was overcome by the second generation, which centered around Leont’ev. In his famous example of ‘primeval collective hunt’ (Leont’ev, 1981, pp. 210–213) Leont’ev explicated the crucial difference between an individual action and a collective activity The Second generation builds on the First generation Activity Theory by putting a base on it. Second generation AT proposes that when an activity is undertaken there are several rules that are implicit or explicit that will influence the way in which the activity occurs. There is also a community of actors who are involved. The other addition is division of labour which refers to who does what. In other words, how the labour of the activity is broken up and divided.
- The third generation of activity theory developed conceptual tools to understand dialogue, multiple perspectives, and networks of interacting activity systems. It is primarily based on the idea there can be two activity system and when they interact, the objects start to interact. If the people involved in the two activity system engage in open discussion, open debate, and open reflection, then there is potential for expansive learning, a learning theory posited by Engeström in 1987. Driving principles of third generation activity theory are a collective, artifact-mediated and object-oriented activity system, seen in its network relations to other activity systems, is taken as the prime unit of analysis; is the multi-voicedness of activity systems: source of trouble and source of innovation; is historicity: problems and potentials can only be understood against their own history; is the central role of contradictions as sources of change and development: when an activity system adopts a new element from the outside (for example, a new technology or a new object), it often leads to an aggravated secondary contradiction where some old element (for example, the rules or the division of labor) collides with the new one; the possibility of expansive transformations in activity systems: An expansive transformation is accomplished when the object and motive of the activity are reconceptualized to embrace a radically wider horizon of possibilities than in the previous mode of the activity. It is used a lot for problem solving.
- The pedagogical stance of the activity-theoretical concept of expansive learning differs from traditional types of learning in that: • Contents and outcomes of learning emerge as new forms of practical activity and artefacts constructed by both students and teachers in the process of tackling real life projects and during problem solving. • Learning is driven by genuine developmental needs in human practices and institutions, manifested by means of disturbances, breakdowns, problems, and episodes of questioning the existing practice. • Learning proceeds through complex cycles of learning actions in which new objects and motives are created and implemented, opening up wider possibilities for participants involved in that activity” (p. 458).
- These are the ideas of what are the tools, who are the subjects, what are the objects, …. It provides you with 8 categories of information to work with. “The eight-step model is a requirements abstraction tool, which is incorporated within the Activity-Oriented Design Method—a requirements capture methodology grounded in activity theory (Mwanza, 2002)” (p. 459).
- Let me give you an example of how Activity Theory can be put to practice through the idea of a model of AT for sustainable distance education. There are three main perspectives that need to be taken into consideration in order to achieve sustainability in the implementation of distance education. The organizational, technological and pedagogic perspectives. Each of these perspectives are interested in different things. So from the organizational perspective, fundamentally represented by management, the aim is to increase distance education (the object) and the desired outcome is to achieve organisational sustainability which is defined as the capacity to meet present and future demands in respect to political, legal and social obligations. Within the technological perspective, mainly represented by a community of programmers, developers, designers, hardware and software specialists, which vary depending on the nature and size of the organization and whose division of labour can be both vertical and horizontal, the desired outcome is to achieve technological sustainability by means of the tools available (hardware, software, systems and procedures) to ensure the security, reliability and scalability of the system. And finally from the pedagogic perspective, tools at the disposal of the pedagogic activity system include curriculum, learning/teaching resources, political influence, human and intellectual resources, which are influenced by official and tacit rules. Official rules include the need to achieve curriculum outcomes within the available resources. Tacit rules relate to normative behaviours and beliefs of teachers, vocational disciplines and learners. Teacher’s disposition towards the use of technology in teaching is fundamental to decisions about adoption. The community involved in this activity system includes teachers, learners and support staff such as librarians and counselors. Whilst the division of labour varies depending on the pedagogic model adopted, it is not unusual for there to be insulation between the roles and the responsibilities of the major groups. The common object for all of these different perspectives is to increase distance education.
- So, Activity theory provides a common lexicon to describe the organisational, technological and pedagogic perspectives proposed by Jochems et al (2004) in terms of subjects, tools, object and outcome, rules, community and division of labour. In this slide you can see the three different perspectives represented by their particular activity system. Labour division in the organizational system is usually hierarchical and organisational sustainability might be achieved through decreased costs, increased income, increased return on investment, increased surplus etc. This might also be measured by the level of customer recognition and acceptance. From a political perspective, improvement in relationships with those who control public funding. In educational systems this is often represented by the ability to meet the present and future educational needs of particular groups or individuals as measured by quantum of provision, quality of provision and measurement of outcomes against performance indicators. In education, most organisations are subject to political, legal and social obligations (rules) represented in laws, policies and regulations that are frequently under the control of government agencies. Under usual circumstances, through control over the distribution of resources, this activity system has a strong level of influence over the technological and pedagogic activity systems. Technological sustainability might be defined as a system of financial, physical, virtual and intellectual resources that are capable of meeting present and future demands of technological needs. The division of labour, both vertically and horizontally, within this community varies depending on the nature and size of the organisation. As one moves from an operational to a systems perspective it is not atypical to find that hardware, software and knowledge management sections become more insulated with their own hierarchical arrangements. In general, the organisational activity system has power over the distribution of resources throughout the organisation and is able to set performance outcomes for various sections. Whilst it is common for people with teaching experience to be represented within this activity system, and it would be unrealistic to suggest that these people do not hope to achieve what they perceive to be high quality educational outcomes, their primary concern, as determined by the nature of their position is organisational welfare. Through control over financial, physical and other resources, the organisational activity system adopts a powerful position in determining that fate DE within an organisation. In many, if not most cases, sections responsible for information technology report directly to management. Given the central importance of technology to support business processes as well as teaching and learning, the technological activity system might be seen as a functionary of the organisational activity system being privileged in respect to influencing the distribution of resources. The pedagogic activity system is dominated by those directly involved in teaching and learning. In most educational organisations, the pedagogic activity system is divided into departments on the basis of factors such as discipline, or age range of learners. Through departmental managers, actors in the pedagogic activity system have links to the organisational and technological activity systems. Influenced by discipline norms, and individual values and beliefs, when organisational pedagogic discourse reaches this level it is further recontextualised at the discipline level and/or the individual level. Through the identification of tensions and contradictions both within and between activity systems expansionist learning becomes possible such that sustainable distance education can be facilitated.
- Thank you for watching this presentation. I hope it has been informative and has shed some light on Activity Theory and its many applications. I leave you with some references and resources for further study.