Tag Archives: activity theory

The OoS Matrix: FrankenTheorizing Composition MOOCs

What Is A MOOC?

What Is A MOOC?

Composition MOOCs: Theorizing Pedagogy, Space, and Learning.

Why Here? Why Now? As argued in earlier case studies, the Composition MOOC is one of many different types of course offerings in an emerging trend (some would call it a fad) of online higher education. This is a site of considerable tension in our field of Composition studies, perhaps because many scholars see this as a step backward and away from the hard-won push for smaller-sized, learner-centered classrooms for freshman writing courses. Some of the most common concerns expressed by scholars and practitioners in our field about MOOCs are as follows:

  1. They will “devalue the current education system” (Friend).
  2. They will “disrupt” the same (Friend).
  3. MOOCs are a “lightning rod for virtually all that thrills and ails contemporary higher education” (Mitrano).
  4. They are simply another step in the commodification of higher education (Barlow).
  5. By that same token, “college leaders” see MOOCs as the competition, as MOOCs are – by nature – “open” and free of charge (“”What You Need to Know About MOOCs”).
  6. They are anonymous and diffused, thus threatening the teacher/student relationship.
  7. They foster or are founded on wrong-headed teaching practices.
  8. They threaten the role of and need for teachers.
  9. They turn teachers into mere “content developers” (Gardner).
Cover of Sullivan & Tinberg text, What is College-Level Writing?

Cover of Sullivan & Tinberg text, What is College-Level Writing?

Yet, there are other scholars in our field who argue that these digital spaces can, with careful attention to the space’s design, exemplify best-practice models of collaborative learning and scaffolded teaching practices found to be so productive in a face-to-face (f2f) first-year composition (FYC) course (Decker, Cormier, Downes, Hart-Davidson, Bourelle et al.). Some have even gone so far as to argue that many of the criticisms err by conflating MOOC classroom pedagogy design with higher education operations in general (Cormier, Gardner). This discussion reflects our field’s cautious approach to MOOCs in the spirit of Cynthia Selfe’s counsel on “the importance of paying attention” when it comes to 21st century technology literacies. As well, the debate itself seems to emerge from a common paradigm: the place-anchored classroom, one that often limits the “node-load” of a network to a basic binary structure of teacher-learner. However, as this semester’s case studies have demonstrated, a Composition MOOC encompasses a much broader scale of elements: it is a networked space filled with nodes and agencies that emerge from not only the basic system of learning (teacher to student), but ecologies of other systems as well (institutional, assessment, collaborative relations between students independent of teacher directives, software, texts, etc.). As such, when current theories of networks are applied to MOOCs, they are often done so as if all MOOC classroom designs are the same. As Decker points out, this is most certainly not the case (4). Indeed, some Compositionists argue that our field should consider a refreshed pedagogy for learning spaces like MOOCs (Debbie Morrison’s “A Tale of Two MOOCs”). The assertion is that traditional f2f methods and technologies cannot be simply overlaid onto such a complex system / space with any hope of success.

Be that as it may, this final case study is not intended to be an argument for or against Composition MOOCs. Rather, using key threads gleaned from the theories of Spinuzzi, Foucault, Bateson’s and Gibson’s ecologies, and Neurobiology, it is my intention to theorize the potentiality of such space by highlighting key areas of tension in the current debate.


Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge cover

Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge cover

Thread 1: Foucault’s attention to “unities of discourse” provides an open door through which to begin mapping an amalgamation of theory, and serves as the premise by which this theory will address the question of “why this / why now?” Put another way, Foucault’s concepts of gaps, hierarchies, systems, and traces are the elemental glue that holds this FrankenTheory partnership together, calling our attention to those theoretical areas of dissonance that often go unmapped (traces). Foucault’s rejection of a linear, universalist lens by which to explore networks of knowledge pushes at what often appears to be a primacy of Composition Pedagogy Theory (situated in an f2f paradigm) in many of the aforementioned tensions when it comes to MOOCs and English Studies. In essence, his theory establishes a primer for this FrankenTheory, as he defers to a concept of a web — of influences and events (a network) — as a more “realistic” way to see and explore knowledge and knowing (3). Indeed, he asserts that we must see knowledge in terms of a complex system through a lens defined by terms he uses to explain statements as nodes. He proposes a more productive network is not a stable system, but one of complexity and discontinuities which have the power to transform current theoretical frameworks (5). Foucault allows that his “notion of discontinuity… is both an instrument and an object of research” (9), and for this reason becomes what amounts to a genomic element to this attempt to create new theory for examining both the Composition MOOC and theories currently infusing the discourse.

http://www.learner.org/courses/biology/textbook/neuro/neuro_6.html

A Synapse, Image from Rediscovering Biology, Chapter 10 “Across the Synapse”

Thread 2: The field of Neurobiology contributes to this discussion in several important ways. First, as a metaphor, it frames the concepts of knowledge and learning in productive ways that can be extended into discussions of ecologies and complex activity systems, as well as the nature of discourse in technologically mediated / created spaces. The neuronal network mapping metaphor provides interesting ways with which to discuss learning and knowledge transfer within a networked system much like a classroom space. It also provides our field with a concrete look into the physiological network that is at the very heart of any learning space: the brain. Learning theories grounded in behavioral / psychology theories are all rooted in this central processing unit; considering the biomechanical processes situates the conversation in a way that moves the more theoretical and ontological discussions back into the realm of “how and where” of learning. Neurobiology, then, allows us to look at the potentiality for knowledge transfer in terms of “how” learners learn. However, the biomechanical will only move the discussion so far; the messiness of a “massive” system composed of many students from varying backgrounds, differently motivated, in many places, and mediated by diverse technologies may push a neurobiology-based metaphor beyond its limits. Alone, it is limited. Combined with these other threads of theory and operationalization, it becomes an important conceptual layer for discussions of the “how.”

Spinuzzi: Traffic Systems (image from NobleEd.com)

Spinuzzi: Traffic Systems (image from NobleEd.com)

Thread 3: Spinuzzi’s Activity Theory contributes in two important ways: (1) distinctive terminology that begins to move our focus from the biomechanical to the relational and (2) as a pragmatic illustration of complex systems operationalized. His work with Actor-Network Theory and Activity Theory illustrates the power of Foucault’s gaps and disruptions when seeking common borders at which this conversation can turn. For example, Spinuzzi points to the gaps of “designer vs. user,” which in turn can productively correlate to a Composition MOOC’s gap / borders between instructor vs. student participant. Further, Spinuzzi’s use of distributed cognition (Activity Theory) and interconnections maps onto MOOC spaces in potentially useful ways, particularly when focusing on “interrelated sets of activities” (such as those described in Downes’ description of a connectivist course) rather than the individual learner, or networked minds vs. an individual mind (62). MOOC classroom models vary widely, earning such monikers as xMOOC and cMOOC, the latter of which has been deemed most effective by several scholars due to its emphasis on coordinated collaborative networking (Downes, Cormier). As scholars and compositionists, we must remain critically aware of the design of the learning / teaching spaces we employ / deploy, and Spinuzzi’s discussion of mediation and mediators provides a means with which to explore these. Spinuzzi’s Activity Theory allows our focus to center on concrete nodes of activity within a system: where and how the participants interact (where the learners learn and connect).

School of Natural Resources & Environment, UF

School of Natural Resources & Environment, UF

Thread 4: Ecology Theory deals exclusively with complex systems, not classroom spaces. However, the potential for mapping a dynamic and complex “living” network of actors, boundaries, and affordances as described by Bateson and Gibson is one of the more productive connections for MOOC discussions.Given the mechanics of the numerous digital platforms and software needed to operationalize a learning/teaching classroom space, it is not surprising to see so many critiques of MOOCs more in line with Hardware Theory, focusing on the mediating structures, than Learning Theory. Bateson and Gibson provide a counterweight to such limitations by attending to the power of boundaries to serve as both frontiers as well as informational economies (Bateson 467). Ecology Theory can thus extend our focus upon a classroom system to a larger scale, allowing me to discuss systems within systems. As proof of this usefulness, Margaret Syverson takes an ecological systems’ approach to the subject of the Composition classroom on the premise that a student’s “process of composing” – i.e., learning – takes place within a dynamic “complex system” based squarely upon ecological principles (Syverson 2-3).

Shaffer MOOC crib sheet

Shaffer MOOC crib sheet

The networked nature of complex systems and the affordances of web technology-based classrooms create a discursive space where each of these theories find play. Building upon Foucault’s concept of traces and gaps, each of these threads serves as both lens and map for examining the nodes and networks that comprise MOOC learning spaces, as well as highlighting the misfits or gaps. Further, each of these theoretical lenses at some point hinges upon the concept of “relationships,” a key component for distributed cognition as well as collaborative, workshop-based FYC theories of pedagogy. Finally, each of these theories provide the means by which to explore collaborative learning as both node and activity, a step which may contribute to the design of future cMOOCs and shape the nature of English Studies.

In sum, exploring this Object of Study using such a FrankenTheory may allow our field to address not only those concerns listed above but others like them, utilizing a network theory that may offer an appropriately complex lens to account for and grapple with the complexity of emerging digital learning, teaching, and theorizing spaces. The design of this synthesis falls into three broad sections, each based on significant questions that seem to lie at the heart of our field’s treatment of MOOCs: (1) knowledge and learning (or, “what does it mean to know?”), (2) the locus or framework of learning (or “how does location shape learning?”), and (3) agency (“who has it and why does that impact the discourse?”).


Baseline Concept: Knowledge and Learning

The concepts of knowledge and learning are key to this attempt to create a viable synthesis using these four theories, becoming an effective organizing principle with which to explore how these theorists give shape or problematize integration into a new theory of networks. Of particular worth is how these theories align and diverge in terms of the theorists’ framing of the terms and how, once synthesized, they become a useful tool with which to describe Composition MOOCs.

Stephen Downes: Connectivism

Stephen Downes: Connectivism

First, spaces in which knowledge is acquired and disseminated are shaped by premises that undergird what we mean when we consider the term knowledge as a thing to be constructed and transferred. David Cormier asserts that in traditional models of online courses that base their knowledge delivery system on a one-to-many model, it is the institution or the instructor who possess the knowledge desired by the students. In their original design, MOOCs constitute “an ecosystem from which knowledge can emerge” as a result of “negotiation”… a nod toward their roots in Vygotsky and the “social nature of learning” (Downes “Connective Knowledge”). From this perspective, it is not enough to use the term “knowledge” as a Composition classroom’s outcomes. Rather, the term “connective knowledge” emerges, pointing to a “gap” in Composition discourse where a network-based FrankentTheory might prove useful.

The field of neurobiology describes the function of the human brain as a communications network that first “takes in sensory information” via neurons, then “process[es] that information between neurons” as thinking, with the end result or response described in terms of neuronal “outputs” (“Neurobiology”). In other words, knowledge, as treated by neurobiology, is to some degree a byproduct of neurotransmitter activity transferring electrical and chemical impulses that create memories (in essence, knowing a thing). However, the network system – and in particular relationships within that system — in which such processes take place are just as important to how we understand knowledge creation, or learning. Synaptic connections operate on a cause-effect basis, transmitting data in one direction over a gap between neuronal structures. It is important to note that these “synapses are not merely gaps but … functional links between the two neurons” (“Neurobiology”). Foucault might say that these synaptic gaps – like black holes – are significant areas of scrutiny because of their functional nature. The entire “communication infrastructure” in which these neurons exist, however, are not the origin of the process.” Rather, the process that occurs within this series of embedded networks (synaptic systems) “develops because there is something to communicate.” In sum, knowledge is both product and initiator of this sequence of events that result in what neurobiology calls learning. When used as a lens with which to examine MOOCs as a space for learning and sharing knowledge, it seems intuitive to utilize a neuronal network as a fitting and productive metaphor with which to explore this Object of Study (OoS) as not only an environment of constructed connections (from Learning Platforms like Blackboard to blog spaces for assigned student writing to student-created back channels in Facebook for student-directed discussions) but as a representation of cognitive transfer – how humans learn. In neurobiology terms, knowledge is both a material to be transferred between neurons but also an initiator that signals neuronal development, altering existing circuits and driving the creation of new neurons to make new connections (“Neurobiology”).

Stephen Downes refers to George Siemens’ definition of connectivism as “the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks” (Slide 15, Slideshare). Their MOOC, which he describes in a Slideshare presentation from 2009, explores the underlying learning theories informing the structure of the MOOC itself in light of their attention to how students best learn. While his course is not specific to freshman composition content, his theorizing of learning taking place within a network. Each component creates the “mechanisms to input, process and distribute content” (slide 27) – the course map or neuronal network — but students themselves “add to the map” (slides 46-56). The growth of this system — what student writers add and how they add it — might be discussed in terms of our neurobiology metaphor if we align Downes’ “mechanisms” with neurobiology’s initiating force of knowledge to be transmitted, addressing the questions, “how do we know?” and “what is knowledge?” Downes’ use of neurophysiology terminology illuminates a potential connection (what Foucault might say is a case of “minding the gap”) to the type of community networks typical of effective MOOC designs as “a ‘community of communities’” (Connectivism 120), a description which he illustrates using terminology drawn from the field of neuroscience. Downes’ description of a community-as-network asserts that “nodes are highly connected in clusters” and these clusters are defined “as a set of nodes with multiple mutual connections” which are instrumental in the movement or transmission of a “message from one community to the next” (Connectivism 120).

The parallelism to neurobiology is clear here: nodes, transmission, clusters, etc. However, for English Studies and Composition Studies in particular, while such a cellular-based network may ground this physiological process as a scientific set of facts, it does not address the broader question of how this translates to behaviors situated in dispersed cultural and social network systems. This is where Spinuzzi may fill the gap. For example, when Cormier writes of “knowledge networks,” it creates a point of intersection with Spinuzzi ‘s Activity Theory. Spinuzzi employs Hutchins’ theory of distributed cognition to illustrate how humans – not just freshman writers – learn most efficiently when in a collective and collaborative network of others.

Spinuzzi’s effort to correlate Activity Theory with Actor Network Theory provides a view of knowledge and learning from the perspective of activities performed in order to acquire or transmit knowledge. Spinuzzi distinguishes two competing discourse communities and their approaches to knowledge: designers and users, each creating very different hierarchies and relations to the other nodes within the network. His concept of centripetal and centrifugal “impulses” (20) creates a fascinating analogy with which to consider the discourse practices of these two communities and how that creates a perspective of knowledge or learning that could be useful within this FrankenTheory. His suggestion that the centripetal nature of a designer describes a discourse community that gravitates toward “formalization, normalization, regularity, convention, stability, and stasis” (20) may help us characterize a sort of knowledge creation privileging to which Foucault points in his work. The centrifugal nature of the user, on the other hand, represents “resistance…, innovation, — and chaos” (20), features that may also contribute to discussions of agency. This passage alone opens numerous connection nodes of analysis regarding the ways we envision networks functioning or moving knowledge. Spinuzzi’s identification of competing concepts of creation and operationalization of knowledge thus provides a useful tether to which the other theories may connect when examining this Object of Study.

Foucault argues that we must explore discourse “through the use of spatial, strategic metaphors” (emphasis mine) if we hope to perceive “the points at which discourses are transformed” (qtd. in Binkley and Smith). Not only are these points of transformation of a practical matter in the case of MOOCs (e.g., making choices between online platforms and applications to locate collaborative writing), they become the very “gaps” or “traces” (7) so key to Foucault’s theory of knowledge, revealing as they do points of contention and discontinuity where additional theorizing might take the discourse in new directions.

Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge offers this work a theoretical foundation with which to explore several key terms: knowledge and knowing (writing and learning), networks, disruptions of unities, différence and traces (169). With regard to knowledge in particular, Foucault argues that the reason some maintain that “the history of thought could remain the locus of uninterrupted continuities” creates a shelter “[f]or the sovereignty of consciousness” (12). Further, he argues that we must “question those ready-made syntheses” that inform current theories of the individual and society. For this FrankenTheorizing of MOOCs, this concept may provide a way to highlight the presence of a “status quo” element to current critical frameworks of knowledge and/or learning that are applied to scholarly treatment of MOOCs in Composition. Gardner and Cormier both point to ways the original MOOC design was more true to composition theory pedagogies of collaborative, decentered learning spaces. However, when MOOC spaces were corporatized through “Coursera, edX, and Udacity,” classes offered through MOOCs became prone to the “sage-on-stage teaching models” against which our field of composition has come to resist (Gardner). The “status quo” of decentering classrooms, however, always already exists within the larger “status quo” of an educational system that relies on assessment to measure what it deems “academic knowledge.” Within that system, MOOC designs are often perceived as “payload delivery systems,” making the online instructor complicit in this framing of teaching as a “content delivery expert” (Gardner).

black hole

From “Nature Communications” website: Black Holes

Foucault calls us to pay attention – much like Cynthia Selfe does – to ways in which points of disruption or tension in this discussion may actually define what we see. Foucault’s description on page 29 of how looking at absences or gaps (disruptions and displacements, the difference) actually helps define what we see makes its way into this FrankenTheory much the way black holes reveal the unseen by observing the actions of other bodies within its sphere of influence. Foucault writes, “in analyzing discourses themselves,” we should look for “the emergence of a group of rules proper to discursive practice” in order to see them as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (49). Foucault’s interest here is in the “discursive formation,” and I would argue at its core is the concept of knowledge and knowledge networks. With regard to previous comments on “delivery systems” and knowledge, this “disruptive” or transformative power of a MOOC creates a troubling gap in terms of how knowledge is conceptualized as content to be delivered, shared, and transferred within most academic communities. As a result, some Compositionists argue that our field must consider a refreshed pedagogy for learning spaces like MOOCs (Debbie Morrison’s “A Tale of Two MOOCs”). The assertion is that the traditional f2f methods and technologies cannot be simply overlaid onto the MOOC space with any hope of success.

Finally, theories of Ecology as advanced by Bateson and Gibson deal with knowledge in terms of more philosophical ideas rather than concrete transfers of material knowledge made within and between ecosystems. Bateson concerns himself with affordances and perspective within what he refers to as an ecology of the mind. Using a blind man and stick analogy to explore the “mental system” that is involved with knowledge and learning, “the stick” or the non-human node within the system that is considered an affordance serves as “a pathway along which transforms [or the effects] of difference are being transmitted” (465). For Bateson, then, the focal point of any discussion is not the “what” but the “how.” Gibson also focuses on the role of affordances – the environment – but in terms of knowledge, there is a considerable degree of unawareness that takes place between actor and activity. Perception is key. The human-centeredness may seem to situate the power of knowledge squarely in “the eye of the beholder,” but Gibson’s explanation of the role of other players in the environment (water, soil, animals) also suggests that the privileging of humans in the knowledge network may be tenuous.

Perhaps the most relevant “gap” in the discussion of MOOCs where Gibson’s theory may be helpful is his exploration of objects versus affordances. Gibson asserts that in an ecology network, objects should not be defined by their “qualities,” but by their “affordances” (134). He is careful to make the importance of this distinction clear when he observes that “to perceive an affordance is not [the same as] to classify an object” (134). He explains that such a distinction “rescues us from the philosophical muddle of assuming fixed classes of objects, each defined by its common features and then given a name” (134). In the case of a Composition MOOC, this distinction becomes especially relevant when our inquiry turns to the nature of distributed activities and network nodes in terms of student identity within the MOOC. By simply employing classifications such as instructor or student, too often these terms become infused with traditional connotations of power and knowledge creation a la “one to many” (Hart-Davidson) being transferred within a hierarchy of primary to secondary, rather than a pattern which follows a more diffused set of relationships fostered by the sort of collaborative-centered design of a cMOOC (Cromier). Further, Gibson’s theory points out that “[t]he richest and most elaborate affordances of the environment” are not even non-human agents. In fact, they are “provided by other…people” whose “behavior affords behavior” (135).Bourelle et al. describe MOOCs in this way, with knowledge being created and transferred (learning) as much between students as between student to instructor. The disruption created by the affordances of the networked and massive space itself thereby resists a fixed nature of objects. So, what does this mean for this OoS?

"Finding Meaning In Networks"  (www.ysc.com)

“Finding Meaning In Networks” (www.ysc.com)

Knowledge is closely aligned with the concept of meaning. In Composition theory, this pairing is typically framed within key rhetorical concepts of audience and rhetor (writer). Gibson asserts that his theory of affordances provides “a new definition of what values and meaning are,” particularly in terms of how these affordances are directed. Gibson’s theory insists that (unlike neuronal pathways), an “affordance…points two ways, to the environment and to the observer” (140-41). Within the network of a Composition MOOC, such principles of meaning and knowledge allow the discourse to shift to the gap which commonly houses a “chicken or the egg” dilemma: is the MOOC environment to be seen as machine interface housing the human interface (the student-student or student-teacher connections), or are the human connections and interfaces transforming the physical network structure itself?

In short, when it comes to a Composition MOOC, what does it mean “to know” – for both teacher and student? These theorists take the discussion out of the realm of assessment, assignments, and the writing process, and shifts us into the realm of how we learnin a complex system of networked relationships. I deliberately do not refer to “networked space” as these four theories facilitate a move away from the structural configurations of boundaries, tools, and computer-mediated access, and into the realm of social networks.

Baseline Concept: The Locus or Framework of Learning

highed-mooc_475x300_0Of all these lenses, some are more useful than others when it comes to interrogating the MOOC space as a learning and teaching space. Gibson argues that “a place is not an object with definite boundaries” but is instead more of “a region” (136). Bateson famously observes that “the map is not the territory” (455). What do these mean for a new network theory meant to analyze a Composition MOOC? It is Bateson’s map/territory equation that may be most productive initially, as we endeavor to discuss a MOOC as uniquely networked on a level that must be theorized differently than a physical Composition classroom space filled with desks, one teacher, 20 students, textbooks (or even eBooks). When attempting to theorize a space as massive and open as a MOOC, it soon becomes clear that we cannot talk about its practices or its situatedness using the same framework and terms we use to analyze a traditional Composition course following traditional paradigms of f2f classroom theory. In fact, Bateson’s theory is predicated on the assumption that we must “change our whole way of thinking about mental and communicational process” (458). When Bateson notes that the “differences are the things that get onto a map” (457), it is a phrase remarkably reminiscent of Foucault’s differences, disruptions, and traces as the more productive locus of our attention when it comes to theorizing knowledge and networks within MOOCs. But just what does this mean – “the map is not the territory” – for MOOCs?

Neurobiology may help address this if seen as a metaphor for the type of learning that happens in a MOOC. MOOCs have been cast by many skeptics (including many composition scholars) as a troubling “break” from traditional models of higher education. However, if seen through the prism of learning models, a Composition MOOC space may instead become one that facilitates creativity and independent thinking by participants who become co-creative powers within a network of learners. The concepts of neurobiology applied as both metaphor and learning theory may facilitate this view.

Hart-Davidson’s article recently published in Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Coursesfocuses on student learning – specifically learning to write — in digital environments.  He observes that digital technology like MOOCs may promote “peerlearning,” which he asserts is “the way most humans actually learn to write” (212).  His analysis relies heavily upon Lev Vygotsky’s theory of learning, and especially the “zone of proximal development” principle, or ZPD (212-213). Briefly, we might summarize this theory in terms of a composition classroom learning model as “I do – We do – You do”: the instructor provides the learner with a scaffolded structure of activity that is at first mediated through modeling, then co-created or co-supported with student involvement, until finally the student requires no further mediated support and proceeds independently. Hart-Davidson summarizes Vygotsky’s importance to his approach to writing in MOOC classrooms by pointing out that peer learning involves “networks” – each individual bringing to the mix “a rich set of resources” that “boosts the learning potential” (213). The “zone of proximal development” or “ZPD” allows students to perform (i.e., write) and learn “better than one of us alone because we are surrounded by resources – one another – to scaffold our learning” (214). In such a network, “[t]here may be no stable individual ‘experts’ at any given moment, but among the group there exists a collective ability for a successful performance” (214).

MOOC Web Wheel

MOOC Web Wheel

She asserts that one course failed because of its reliance on a pedagogy that had not adapted its methods to the characteristics that define the web space as a learning space. In particular, she argues that the failed course did so due to its reliance on a “learning model that most of higher education institutions follow – instructors direct the learning, learning is linear and constructed through prescribed course content featuring the instructor,” a method not unlike the way many face-to-face (f2f) Composition courses are conducted. Such methods, she argues, are unsuited for the ways in which the Web “as a platform for open, online, and even massive learning creates a different context for learning – one that requires different pedagogical methods.” Morrison’s observation may illustrate one of the limitations of the neurobiology thread because the metaphoric image of a neural network isolates the picture somewhat, “tuning out” the environmental influences surrounding the neural pathways. In other words, the neural network nodes are a very small part of a much larger system, equated only to the “basic cellular mechanism in the brain” (“Neurobiology”). The dilemma for this application is whether this “smallness” can correlate to the “bigness” and complexity of a MOOC. This gap may be usefully bridged by integrating Spinuzzi’s work with chained activity networks and the concept of “connectivism” as applied learning theory.

Spinuzzi defines Activity Theory (AT) as “a theory of distributed cognition” that “focuses on issues of labor, learning, and concept formation” (62). Further, this theory continues to evolve, moving “from the study of individuals and focused activities to the study of interrelated sets of activities” (62) – networks that may include collaborative learning and development, both of which play significant roles in Composition pedagogy and MOOC structural designs. Such concepts and terms create a framework with which to explore how using a network lens provides a means with which to locate this discussion in terms of borders. As Morrison observes, such concepts and terms create a framework with which to explore how using a network lens provides a means with which to locate this discussion in terms of borders. As Morrison observes, the nature of a MOOC space does not easily align with the nature of an f2f classroom space. While the basic principles of Composition pedagogical theory must ground both in terms of the aforementioned priorities of student learning (as outlined by the NCTE in “Beliefs About the Teaching of Writing”), the nature of the space – the networks that represent the physical, the theoretical, and what AT calls the “dialectical” qualities of that space – create tensions at those boundaries which represent how to implement that learning. Morrison refers to the importance of “connectivism” as a corollary to “social constructivism,” a thread woven into modern pedagogical theory (and connected to principles of Ecology as well as Neurobiology) that states “students learn more effectively” when they are actively involved in knowledge construction that includes their own knowledge bases.

Spinuzzi Structure of Activity, Networks

Spinuzzi Structure of Activity, Networks

Activity Theory as distributed cognition incorporates mediation as a key concept. Described by Spinuzzi as “tools, rules, and divisions of labor” (71), mediators are used by individuals within an activity system to “transform a particular object with a particular outcome in mind” in a way that is meaningful and connected to a (discourse) community (71-72). Composition MOOCs as networks are often seen through the filter of traditional f2f structural limitations, leading to concerns such as those described by Halasek et al., who assert that reflecting on “the MOOC learning environment” reveals the “ways we understood – and sometimes failed to understand – our roles as teachers of composition and our students’ roles as writers and learners” (156). Again, the example of the Discussion Boards serves as an example of how Activity Theory allows us to productively analyze the MOOC environment. Halasek et al. observe that Discussion Forums are typically conceptualized as nodes in which student participants depend on the “controlled exhanges…shaped and guided by teachers…and oriented toward assignment expectations” (159). In effect, these learning nodes are mediated in specific ways by a limited number of people who occupy academically hierarchical positions with relation to the student-to-teacher activity pathways. In the revised iteration of their MOOC class, Halasek et al. discovered that students “actively occupied” these learning spaces and mediated the activity as well as the flow of content when they “engaged and even tested the faculty team by making their needs explicit and articulating the problems the instructional context posed” (159). Such meta-participation is then makes students the mediators who transform the learning environment through their activity and co-creating of the space.

Finally, Activity Theory involves “chained activity systems,” a concept that may account for the sort of “organizational…boundaries” that create “informal linkages” between activities that could be interpreted as metacognitive nodes where transfer takes place (Spinuzzi “Networks” 74-77). As Spinuzzi explains, there are two types of work that takes place in systems: modular and net work (“How”). Complex tasks in Modular work is described as more compartmentalized and specialized, with clear boundaries and hierarchical orders of authority. Net work refers to the “coordinated work that holds” complex systems together (“How”). Foucault’s concepts of disruption and chaos as areas of transformation may fit here as Spinuzzi explains that modular work (a system of activity that emerged from the Industrial Revolution) has been “disrupted” or “destabilized” by technology’s impact. As a result, homogenous units of work gave way to “heterogenous networks…[that] form dense interconnections among people, texts, tools, etc.” (“How”).

Spinuzzi applies Activity Theory in terms of connected activity systems in which mediators – which in this case may be the digital space itself, the technology, or the pedagogical system that functions as a genre – provide the “tools, rules, and division of labor” (71) to create a system suited for “distributed cognition” (69). In terms of MOOCs, Spinuzzi’s characterization of “contradictions” as “engines of change” and transformation (a key component of Activity Theory) becomes a means of considering the impact of designers’ pedagogies as well as the agency afforded users in this learning space.

Further, Spinuzzi asserts that chained activities “don’t chain so much as they overlap and interfere with each other,” allowing the participants “to take on many functions” (“How”). This distinction is reminiscent of Syverson’s application of ecology to the Composition classroom in terms of how it allows us to treat a MOOC space as a “complex system” rather than a technology-mediated space. As a result of these theoretical combinations, discussions of the most productive teaching/learning models for a MOOC allow more credence to the “many-to-many” as opposed to one of “one-to-many” (Hart-Davidson).

For Composition, metacognitive transfer has become an increasingly foregrounded concept in discussions of student writing. For the Composition MOOC, AT becomes especially productive as a way to analyze it as a potentially viable mediator of student writing. It also offers a point of alignment with the neuronal metaphor (the way axons and dendrites constitute independent nodes of activity as part of the larger neuronal system that make up brain activity) as well as ecology theories.

But what of Agency within these complex systems? What of the students’ ability to co-create their learning and knowledge?

Baseline Concept: Agency

Foucault describes members of a discourse community as existing inside “a web of which they are not the Masters, of which they cannot see the whole, and of whose breadth they have a very inadequate idea” (126). These notions of control and scope are key to understanding and exploring the notion of agency in MOOC spaces, in particular how that impacts writing pedagogy. Because Foucault’s theories challenge the linear homogeneity of not only academic discourse but knowledge conventions as well, the notion of hierarchical agency as a power dichotomy comes under scrutiny.

As stated earlier, classrooms are often analyzed in terms of structural components: the mechanical, the hardware, the situatedness of student and teacher. In the case of any online classroom including MOOCs, it is easy to believe there is an individual mastery over the network, which Spinuzzi might refer to in terms of designer, as when the architects of that network exert an unseen filter in the form of a control system. Agency, then, within such networks must also be a point of analysis, and is a boundary where all four theories contribute to one degree or another.

Foucault’s Definition of Agency – Foucault resists essentialisms and absolutes. Therefore, his approach to agency is one that resists what he refers to as a “history of ideas” that promotes a linear approach to influences — a one-to-one, top-down hierarchy. Instead, he seems to locate that agency in moments of disruption and discontinuity, which networks facilitate in their “redistributions” (5). He argues that the “sovereignty of the subject” (12) is problematic, one fostered by the history of ideas. His assertion, through his archeology of knowledge, is to dethrone or decenter the subject. If we view “subject” as having the sort of primary agency as might a designer (Spinuzzi), a theory that decenters that subject’s hierarchical (and linear) primacy would fit a networked system in which agency is diffused. The MOOC’s essential networked structure can serve Foucault’s argument, but only if the hierarchical system of one teacher distributing knowledge to many students is disrupted. Some MOOCs, as Hart-Davidson points out, fail to operate in this way, but there are cases, such as the online classrooms cited by Bourelle et al. as well as Halasek et al., which operationalize a networked, student-prioritized course that diffuses the agencies of knowledge generation and transfer to tutors as well as students. Moreover, a consideration of how their online course failed to produce envisioned learning outcomes – a gap – served to focus their theorizing efforts to address these disruptions via a redistribution of agency. Foucault’s theory both frames the disruptive powers of networks as well as serving to illuminate the gaps where questions of agency may be asked.

Spunuzzi and Agency: Vygotsky’s theory of learning might locate agency in the relationship b/w nodes — teacher, student – which may be discussed in terms of scaffolding. The scaffolding, of course, takes on an entirely new location in a MOOC, but activity theory may allow this to be applied in a more decentered way than Vygotsky originally intended when he wrote about educational strategies for teaching children new concepts. While Vygotsky’s theories have been folded into Writing Center and even Composition theories, at their core is a collaborative activity. All too often, however, that collaboration still relies on a designer (tutor / teacher) who crafts the structure for that scaffolded behavior. In the case of MOOCs, the course design begins within the institutionalized origin of the course, but the networked system may allow designer agency to be diffused through the course through peerlearning nodes, some predesigned and others initiated and created by students (as in the composition MOOCs of Hart-Davidson and Bourelle et al.). As Downes observes, when MOOCs are designed following theories of Connectivism, students are empowered (i.e., are afforded agency) by the space itself to become “creators of learning” (Downes “Connectivism”). Teachers as well adopt “new roles” as “coaches and mentors” (Downes “Connectivism”). Due to this increased and diffused agency, learning then becomes “a network phenomenon” (Downes). Spinuzzi’s use of distributed cognition (Activity Theory) and interconnections also maps onto MOOC spaces in potentially useful ways, particularly when focusing on “interrelated sets of activities” (62) rather than the individual learner.

Ecology and Agency: For Bateson, meaning is “projected” onto the world by the perceptions and subjectivity of the viewer. Dividing potential agents into “creatura” and “pleroma,” he sets up a binary of subject/object. To set up the question, “what does it mean to know,” Bateson’s agency is diffused, but not shared. It is still very much a human-centered approach to networks, knowledge, and agency, an approach which Spinuzzi might find appealing. Gibson’s theory pushes back against the worldview born of the Enlightenment that sees the world in terms of mechanical cause and effect. Affordances are potential activity that allow agency, but have no agency of their own per se. The environment is not a “cause” of action, but instead facilitates it. The interactivity of an environment’s connectivity is one of give and take, self-regulating. Non-human actors (animals) are not simply machine-like, responding to environmental stimuli. His concept of agency is a theoretical one meant to disrupt a subject-object / subjective-objective dichotomy. Most interestingly, “[a]n affordance points both ways, to the environment and to the observer” (129). This relationship or network, while still privileging the human actor, opens up a means of exploring the structural elements of a created structural network (a system of connections that afford students and instructors to create relationships one with the other) of a MOOC. Affordances themselves, therefore, seem to possess agency of a kind. Their existence does NOT depend on their perception. Actions, then, reveal how animals are using those affordances, which Foucault might see as a trace or gap that results in new possibilities for analysis (statements).

Neurobiology and Agency: The neurotransmitters are the key to connectivity within the network, and specifically between synapses. Neurotransmitters are the key to movement within a neural pathway. A chemically-based reaction to stimuli, these “energy impulses” create a connection between two neurons. The very act of transmission transforms both neurons, opening “channels” and allowing movement through the phenomenon not unlike a differential seeking balance (“Neurobiology”). This action may be useful to discuss as a metaphor of how the types of peer writing practices employed in a MOOC writing class transmit and encounter text; emphasizing the rhetorical importance of audience by introducing the authority of “reader” may change or alter the writer’s perception of what he or she is doing and can have profound effects on a student’s understanding of the process and the text. (Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford wrote about this topic decades ago and more recently in a compilation that explores the current trend in English Studies to better foreground audience in Composition.) The usefulness of this metaphor is wide ranging, as the neurotransmitter’s role as agent or node can be applied to questions of student agency as well as affordances of the system itself (that is, technology choices made by both the course designers as well as the students to facilitate learning and/or writing).

Summation: Syverson offers a justification for an ecological approach to Composition, one which translates over to this OoS as well. As she observes, the layering of theory is “crucial in developing new knowledge” (Syverson 2). As well, we might argue that, just as MOOCs should be seen and theorized as a complex system, these theories are part of that system. In the end, as a unifying element of this FrankenTheory, Ecology seems the most productive of the four in terms of framing discussions of MOOCs as spaces for teaching, learning, and practicing writing. Too often, MOOCs seem to be cast in terms of a “simple system” of teacher-student relationships, when in reality – and as Foucault, Spinuzzi, Neurobiology, Bateson, and Gibson all demonstrate – it is far more complicated than criticisms based on “mechanistic explanations” permit (Syverson 2).

Indeed, as Syverson posits, the cMOOC is a “meta-complex system,” one wherein Ecology Theory may productively integrate (subsume) Neurobiology, Activity Theory, even Foucault. As Syverson argues, such ecologies allow us to discuss “writers, readers, and texts” as part of a complex system that is composed of “self-organizing, adaptive, and dynamic interactions” (3). This system, as she envisions it, is built of “interrelated and interdependent complex systems and their environmental structures,” structures that include “theoretical frames, academic disciplines, and language itself” (3) along with – I argue — assumptions about knowledge and agency.

In Music, It’s Called A Deceptive Cadence: I must admit, I’ve been suspicious of MOOCs as a productive place for freshman writing instruction since I first learned of them a few years ago. As a proponent of our field’s insistence upon smaller-scaled classrooms following a student-centered workshop / studio activity design, the sheer size and decentered nature of the MOOC seemed destined for trouble. I have taught freshman writing sequences online in the past, and it quickly became clear to me that the nature of the space cannot simply mirror that of the f2f classroom. The MOOC design takes this distinction to entirely new levels of complication.

But the very nature of our field demands flexibility and openness to new ground and new theories with which to best equip college-level writers for the demands of communication across disciplines and across technology-mediated spaces. MOOCs may be in their early stages of a full life in the realm of Composition Studies, or they may be on the road to extinction – a fast-burning flame. Another possibility is that they must simply be reclassified, recognized as a unique learning space for unique student populations. What the scholarly discussions seem to reveal is that we as a field are not yet certain how to deal with MOOCs, all the more reason why such theorizing (even after the fact) can be so productive.

Coda: If our field approaches the Composition MOOC as an ecology, how might the conversation change? How will it reflect the “enunciative function” identified by Foucault (88)? What new threads, nodes, or means of transmission might emerge as part of the discourse if we apply theories of learning like Vygotsky through the lenses of Neurobiology and Activity Theories combined? How might the goals and motives of our pedagogy evolve if we treat the technology of MOOCs as having productive, rather than reductive, agency in the ways students learn to write in a massive digitally-mediated space?

When these digital spaces are built as adaptive, complex systems rather than static delivery systems based on one-to-many models like Coursera and eduX courses (Hart-Davidson), how will the conversation be transformed?

Questions aside, as important is how we as a field of study will frame this discussion of the MOOCs place in 21st century higher education. Syverson’s question seems productive to our response: “Can the concepts currently emerging in diverse fields on the nature of complex systems provide us with a new understanding of composing as an ecological system?” (5). Her question posits the very behavior itself – composing – as a system (Spinuzzi might call it a networked activity) itself, not a learned behavior designed to produce a product. The transformation of our field of view afforded by this proposed FrankenTheory may allow those of us in the field of Composition Studies to bring this question, and these three key areas of theoretical overlap, to the forefront of this discussion in an effort to move us forward.


 

Works Cited:

Barlow, Aaron. “Teachers and Students: Machines and Their Products?”Academe Magazine 26 May 2013. Web. 1 May 2014.

Bateson, Gregory. Steps To An Ecology of Mind. New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1987.

Binkley, Roberta and Marissa Smith. “Re-Composing Space: Composition’s Rhetorical Geography.” Composition Forum 15 (2006). Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

Bourelle, Tiffany, Sherry Rankins-Robertson, Andrew Bourelle, and Duane Roen. “Assessing Learning in Redesigned Online First-Year Composition Courses.” Digital Writing Assessment and Evaluation.  Eds. Heidi A. McKee and Danielle Nicole DeVoss. Logan, UT: Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State University Press, 2013. Web. 2 Feb. 2014.

Cormier, David. “Knowledge In A MOOC.” YouTube. 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 1 Feb. 2014.

Downes, Stephen. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on Meaning and Learning Networks. 19 May 2012. Creative Commons. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.

Downes, Stephen. “The Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Course.” Slide Share. 24 Feb. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. < http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/the-connectivism-and-connective-knowledge-course>

Downes, Stephen and George Siemens. “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Getting Started.” MOOC course, University of Manitoba. 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. <http://elearnspace.org/media/GettingStarted/player.html>

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. Print.

Friend, Chris. “Will MOOCs Work For Writing?” Hybrid Pedagogy: A Digital Journal of Learning, Teaching, and Technology. 28 March 2013. Web.

Gardner, Traci. “The Misunderstood MOOC.” Bits: Ideas for Teaching Composition. Bedford / St. Martins. 5 June 2013. Web. 1 May 2014.

Gibson, J. J. “The Theory of Affordances.” In R. E. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1977. pp. 127-143.

Hart-Davidson, Bill. “Learning Many-to-Many: The Best Case for Writing in Digital Environments.” Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses. Eds. Steven D. Krause and Charles Lowe. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2014.

Mitrano, Tracy. “MOOCs as a Lightning Rod.” Inside Higher Education 31 May 2013. Web. 1 May 2014.

“Neurobiology.” Rediscovering Biology. Annenberg Foundation, 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.

Norman, Don. “Affordances and Design.” jnd.org. 2004. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

Spinuzzi, Clay. “How Are Networks Theorized?” Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications. NY: Cambridge UP, 2008. 62-95.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Tracing Genres through Organizations. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

Syverson, Margaret A. “Introduction.” The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition. Southern Illinois UP, 1999. 1-27.

“What You Need to Know About MOOCs.” The Chronicle of Higher Education: Technology. 1 May 2014. Web. 1 May 2014.

 

Case Study 2: AT + GT + MOOCs = Alphabet Soup

Shaffer MOOC crib sheet

Shaffer MOOC crib sheet

Introduction: In my first case study, I examined the Composition MOOC from the lens of structural theory, which provided a foundation upon which to build this second layer of analysis. There are a number of scholarly discussions concerning the technological “space” of MOOCs, including debates of access, politics of labor, and institutional economies. Those will not be the main focus of this case study, however, due to the limits of this project’s scope. Therefore, the second layer of analysis on which this study will focus reveals an area of tension and conflict that seems common to many discussions of Composition MOOCs: pedagogy.

This issue of pedagogy appears central to many debates over MOOCs, and especially for Composition. In her article “A Tale of Two MOOCs @ Coursera: Divided by Pedagogy,” Debbie Morrison argues that online classroom spaces are “transforming how people learn” and this “is driving the need for a new pedagogy” (emphasis mine). Morrison presents two case studies of MOOCs – one successful and one that was cancelled after only one week — offered by one of the leading platforms for educational MOOCs, Coursera. She asserts that one course failed because of its reliance on a pedagogy that had not adapted its methods to the characteristics that define the web space as a learning space. In particular, she argues that the failed course did so due to its reliance on a “learning model that most of higher education institutions follow – instructors direct the learning, learning is linear and constructed through prescribed course content featuring the instructor,” a method not unlike the way many face-to-face (f2f) Composition courses are conducted. Such methods, she argues, are unsuited for the ways in which the Web “as a platform for open, online, and even massive learning creates a different context for learning – one that requires different pedagogical methods.” If we accept this, then, as Porter suggests, “writing teachers will…have to change their fundamental thinking about teaching composition at the college level” (15). It is this premise that provides a framework for this analysis.

To this end, I have elected to focus on ways Genre Theory and Activity Theory may be used to illuminate, complicate, or obfuscate the field’s discussion of Composition MOOCs in terms of pedagogy, represented by the work of selected scholars integrated directly into the analysis. Morrison explores pedagogy in terms that are at times reminiscent of Genre Theory, but by highlighting the “variables common” to each course’s design (e.g., course platform, start and end dates), clear influences of Activity Theory may be seen as well. The elements of Genre Theory set forth by Bazerman, Miller, and Popham — in particular the concepts of classification, motives, and systems located in action (Miller 75) — productively draw attention to several key boundaries (or tensions). Especially important are assumptions made about learners and learning (what we might call “motives”) that inform teaching pedagogy. The online space and design of MOOC platforms, as well as assessment and delivery practices, may differ significantly from traditional f2f classrooms, depending on the course. If we explore these differences in terms of genre, these boundaries become sites of “contradiction” upon which to focus this analysis (Halasek et al.).

First, not all MOOCs are created equal. Design features and functions vary, so there is a risk in applying theories to this OoS as if the object is static. Decker defines two of the most prominent forms of MOOCs: xMOOC and cMOOC. The cMOOC is “based on distributed learning and connectivism” described as focusing “on knowledge creation and generation” (4). The xMOOC design “leans towards [theories of] Behaviorism and use more conventional instructor-centered delivery methods” such as “automated grading” (4). Fortunately, Composition pedagogy is a rather consistent node among ongoing networks of debate concerning the role of MOOCs in higher education in that our field’s (ideal) methodology seems well suited to the networked, student-centered learning models advanced by proponents of MOOCs. In fact, Dave Cromier (an early MOOC designer and proponent) asserts that knowledge in a MOOC is actually “an ecosystem from which knowledge can emerge,” a description that lends itself to alignment with the NCTE “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing” that is key to our current Composition classroom practice and pedagogy (WPA “Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition”).

[http://youtu.be/bWKdhzSAAG0]

However, pedagogy itself – whether discussed in terms of practice or ideological moorings – is a complicated and vast expanse with a wide-ranging history of debate. Therefore, the purpose of this study is not to justify or discourage using MOOCs for teaching Composition, but to locate key nodes and borders upon which these theories may play a productive and illuminating role for those who are assessing MOOCs as a space for teaching freshman Composition.

How Theories Define This Study

Activity Theory: Spinuzzi’s articulation of Activity Theory’s characteristics provides a useful starting point to begin outlining key areas in which to analyze Composition MOOCs and pedagogy. Current Composition theorists prioritize collaborative, process-based, and student-centered learning as underlying motives for classroom design.  However, how to best implement such priorities is a subject of much debate within the field. Scholarly publications highlight this range; from WAC, to vertical writing curriculum design, to the role of reading (specifically concerning literature as primary texts for teaching), how such learning takes place can be discussed productively in terms of networks. As such, networks imply the presence of nodes of activity, connectivity, and interactivity. Examining Composition pedagogy in these terms allows us to examine the border between f2f and online MOOC course environments using Activity Theory principles and vocabulary.

Characteristic #1: In his article, “How Are Networks Theorized,” Spinuzzi defines Activity Theory (AT) as “a theory of distributed cognition” that “focuses on issues of labor, learning, and concept formation” (62). Further, this theory continues to evolve, moving “from the study of individuals and focused activities to the study of interrelated sets of activities” (62)  – networks that may include collaborative learning and development, both of which play significant roles in Composition pedagogy and MOOC structural designs. Such concepts and terms create a framework with which to explore how using a network lens provides a means with which to locate this discussion in terms of borders. As Morrison observes, the nature of a MOOC space does not easily align with the nature of an f2f classroom space. While the basic principles of Composition pedagogical theory must ground both in terms of the aforementioned priorities of student learning (as outlined by the NCTE in “Beliefs About the Teaching of Writing”), the nature of the space – the networks that represent the physical, the theoretical, and what AT calls the “dialectical” qualities of that space – create tensions at those boundaries which represent how to implement that learning. Morrison refers to the importance of “connectivism” as a corollary to “social constructivism,” a thread woven into modern pedagogical theory that states “students learn more effectively” when they are actively involved in knowledge construction that includes their own knowledge bases. Porter’s “Framing Questions About MOOCs and Writing Courses” suggests that if we are to critically assess MOOCs as a space where we teach freshman Composition, we must be critically aware of the design of the space, as well as the “toolbox of [instructional] methods” employed (14). He also highlights the importance of recognizing the differing networks of students who enroll in MOOCs as “a broader audience than simply campus-resident students…in relatively small classes…or via 1-on-1 tutorial consultations” (14).

Characteristic #2: Further, such activities require interaction and, according to the dialectical underpinnings that characterize AT, constitute a means of analysis that relies on a “‘science of interconnections’” (Spinuzzi “Networks” 69) to reveal the importance of networks to development or (in the case of pedagogy) learning. Such interactivity, then, leads to change or growth as a result of operating within a system of activity, one which allows for participants to bring “their own internal rules and expectations as well as external relations with other activity systems” into an operationalized framework (Spinuzzi “Networks” 79). This allowance for individual experiences and/or cultures to become a valued part of the learning environment creates an opportunity for “boundary crossing” if we see the role of instructor no longer limited to the teacher of record. Indeed, in some Composition MOOCs, the common pattern of teacher/node-to-student/node of activity relationships is transformed, much like Spinuzzi describes users innovating to make a space better serve users’ needs (Tracing Genres). Analysis such as Spinuzzi’s can affect information design – including pedagogy and activity networks (course designs) of MOOC or f2f class setting. Halasek et al. describe how the initial course design for their second semester FYC sequence as a MOOC was based on traditional f2f pedagogies, or what they called “grand pedagogical narratives” of “a central doxological status” (157). As they began to modify the course, they created new pathways or activity system that transformed the roles students and teachers played as students began to take on increasingly “teacher-ly” roles as peer readers and co-facilitators in Discussion Boards (158-9). This increase in connectivity that takes place in a MOOC are principles that every teacher of a FYW course who prioritizes peer workshop would acknowledge is a key component of classroom pedagogy.

Spinuzzi structure of activity

Spinuzzi, Activity System, p. 71
“How Are Networks Theorized”

Characteristic #3: [Spinuzzi Triangle Diagram Insert} Activity Theory as distributed cognition incorporates mediation as a key concept. Described by Spinuzzi as “tools, rules, and divisions of labor” (71), mediators are used by individuals within an activity system to “transform a particular object with a particular outcome in mind” in a way that is meaningful and connected to a (discourse) community (71-72). Composition MOOCs as networks are often seen through the filter of traditional f2f structural limitations, leading to concerns such as those described by Halasek et al., who assert that reflecting on “the MOOC learning environment” reveals the “ways we understood – and sometimes failed to understand – our roles as teachers of composition and our students’ roles as writers and learners” (156). Again, the example of the Discussion Boards serves as an example of how Activity Theory allows us to productively analyze the MOOC environment. Halasek et al. observe that Discussion Forums are typically conceptualized as nodes in which student participants depend on the “controlled exhanges…shaped and guided by teachers…and oriented toward assignment expectations” (159). In effect, these learning nodes are mediated in specific ways by a limited number of people who occupy academically hierarchical positions with relation to the student-to-teacher activity pathways. In the revised iteration of their MOOC class, Halasek et al. discovered that students “actively occupied” these learning spaces and mediated the activity as well as the flow of content when they “engaged and even tested the faculty team by making their needs explicit and articulating the problems the instructional context posed” (159). Such meta-participation is then makes students the mediators who transform the learning environment through their activity and co-creating of the space.

Characteristic #4: AT involves “chained activity systems,” a concept that may account for the sort of “organizational…boundaries” that create “informal linkages” between activities that could be interpreted as metacognitive nodes where transfer takes place (Spinuzzi “Networks” 74-77). For Composition, such metacognitive transfer has become an increasingly foregrounded concept in discussions of student writing. In MOOC spaces, this feature of AT becomes especially productive as a way to analyze it as a potentially viable mediator of student writing. Porter’s concerns about MOOC spaces appears centered on the nature of the systems in which learning / teaching take place. He argues that the frame of reference used to classify what is a Composition course is one area of tension in our field’s discussions of MOOCs. This feature then becomes a shared focal point or bridge that links to the second theory of analysis.

Genre Theory: Bazerman and Miller effectively lay out the foundational elements of Genre Theory, while Popham provides helpful principles of practical application. In fact, Popham’s concept of border genres effectively frames a means of exposing the instructional “belief systems …that determine the pedagogical methods selected for instruction” in courses, both MOOC and classroom based (Morrison). If we interpret pedagogy as a genre / border, the classroom space – f2f or MOOC – becomes a network of activity within which we might conceptualize and theorize participants (who occupy both learning and instructional roles at various times), assessment practices, media, and even the genre itself as nodes within that network that can become sites of closer analysis. There are several characteristics of genre theory, but for now, I will apply two primary features to this discussion of MOOCs.

Characteristic #1: Bazerman asserts that we must correct the enculturated habit of seeing a genre as just a set of features (322). This contention is reiterated by Porter, Decker, Morrison, Halasek et al., and others who argue that MOOCs cannot simply be treated as a mere duplication of f2f Composition classroom pedagogy. For example, in their article “Digital Genres: A Challenge to Traditional Genre Theory,” Askehave and Neilsen draw heavily from Swales’ seminal work in genre theory to advance the argument that any discussion of digital learning spaces must include an “up-grade[d]…genre model” that incorporates the element of media. Further, they argue that the terms “genre” and “medium” are often conflated, obscuring the importance of “the borders between the two” as distinctive areas of analysis. They assert that such conflation occurs when characteristics of digital spaces push the limits of traditional text-bound frameworks for understanding and studying genre.  This leads to the observation that “media is not only a distribution channel but also a carrier of meaning, determining … social practices [such as] how a text is used, by whom it is used, and for what purpose” (138). Such observations demonstrate the productive potential of applying genre theory to this analysis of Composition MOOCs in terms of revealing key assumptions that drive not only the definition of “genre” but pedagogical ideologies as well. They also raise a question of separation, one which exposes yet another border tension common in discussions of MOOCs in our field: should we teach a Composition MOOC exactly the same way as we teach a f2f Composition class? This is a question that intersects this analysis on points of pedagogy in terms of genre or form as well as activity and agency.

Characteristic #2: Bazerman and Miller add the feature of exigence or motives to their expanded definition of genres. These factors allow us to think of delivery and interpretation (Miller) as ways of discussing participants in networks. When we consider Spinuzzi’s description of activity theory as “the study of interrelated sets of activities” (Tracing Genres 79), the networked nature of a MOOC seems to be a perfect object of examination using this lens to clarify relationships and hierarchies in terms of what Spinuzzi calls “sociotechnical networks” that create spaces for “distributed cognition” (62). Thus, the need to push past a concept of genre that creates a monolithic frame of “the thing” may be transformed and its usefulness for digital spaces expanded when we integrate users’ / participants’ / designers’ motives in terms of  “the role of individuals in using and making meaning” (Bazerman 317). As Miller points out, genres should be seen as a way to accomplish tasks and not simply as a form (151). Therefore, if we see the activity nodes as part of this work, the relationships between nodes in this activity system become an integral part of the pedagogy, and a marker of both pedagogy and MOOCs as potential genres. For a MOOC space, this highlights many of the contradictions or tensions of the boundary created between the f2f genre of composition pedagogy and that employed in effectively designed MOOCs.

Legend, map of Iraq 1970

Legend, map of Iraq 1970

When combined with Activity Theory, highlighting as I believe it will the importance of a networked conception of learning in MOOC spaces, exploring this object of study as a genre may open new possibilities to theorize pedagogies and classroom design. In fact, it is my assertion that this analysis suggests it may become fruitful to see modern Composition pedagogy as a genre that has evolved as our field has evolved, taking on canonical status within our field as theories of practice replace others in terms of dominance. Just as Prior et al.’s argument for “remapping the rhetorical canon” using a variation of activity theory (CHAT) is based on the boundary between print text-mediated ideologies and those informed by the evolution of digital media, our fields’ discussions of MOOC-based Composition pedagogy may require a bit of remapping as well. Genre and Activity Theories may provide the legend (or map key) for this endeavor.

Chris Friend illustrates the usefulness of such an approach in his blog post entitled, “Will MOOCs Work for Writing?” Friend argues that while “[w]e cannot teach all students every intricacy of writing…using a MOOC format, …we can use MOOC strategies to improve our existing in-class teaching efforts.” In a more strongly worded assessment of interpreting the MOOC as part of a genre system, he writes that “MOOCs force a paradigm shift in pedagogy as we consider education in different contexts and at different scales.” His list of “five essential MOOC philosophies that can be applied to face-to-face instruction” echoes Miller’s theory of genres as one that incorporates a social discourse dimension.

However, there is a danger here, one that genre theory illuminates: when we conflate MOOCs with other forms of online education, or see MOOCs as “one size fits all,” we highlight a site of tension common to studies of MOOCs. Friend’s assertion that MOOC practices can actually enhance – but not replace — f2f Composition classroom pedagogy is suggestive of Popham’s theory of boundary genres (283), in which the activity or action locates the site of analysis, typically embodied in an artifact of some sort. Popham’s focus is on forms shared between a medical community network and the insurance / business community network as part of the medical practice ecology. If we interlace elements of activity theory that examine “interrelated sets of activities” (Spinuzzi “Networks” 62), it is also possible the boundary form may become the pedagogy itself. Each boundary suggests a system of networks in play, carrying with them “influence” and “relations” (Popham 280) that stem from the social discourses and expectations described by Miller’s three-level model: pragmatic (action) + syntactic (form) + semantic (substance of the “cultural life”)  (Miller 68). This model highlights the nature of relationships inherent not only between theories but in their analysis as well.

Nodes & Agency: Relationships Defined & Transformed by Theories

Both Activity Theory as defined by Spinuzzi and Bazerman’s System of Genres are particularly helpful frameworks when theorizing Composition MOOCs as networks in terms of the relationship between nodes and agency. In their article, Halasek et al. argue that MOOCs are currently analyzed through two “grand pedagogical narratives” that create a system of “doxological status” informing such analysis. In these forms, the instructor and student occupy defined hierarchial positions, or nodes, with the teacher in the dominant knowledge-delivery role. The pedagogy of a more traditional f2f Composition classroom platform created by this model then serves as the “dominant hierarchical genre form” used to analyze all alternatives (157). Halasek et al. see these as “entrenched narratives” that “rigidly define the respective roles of teacher and student alike, making it difficult to imagine alternative learning dynamics” (157). Given the overlaid network of academic institutional histories, such systematized pedagogy may be read as part of a larger system that may be useful for mapping the “pathways” (Bazerman 99) or networks of learning as well as instructional design in any analysis of MOOCs as an object of study.

Spinuzzi applies Activity Theory in terms of connected activity systems in which mediators – which in this case may be the digital space itself, the technology, or the pedagogical system that functions as a genre – provide the “tools, rules, and division of labor” (71) to create a system suited for “distributed cognition” (69). With respect to Halasek’s argument, Spinuzzi’s characterization of “contradictions” as “engines of change” and transformation (a key component of Activity Theory) becomes a means of considering the impact of designers’ pedagogies as well as the agency afforded users in this learning space.

The most obvious nodes discernible in a network-theorized classroom such as a Composition MOOC are the participants (students, tutors, and instructors), as well as the means of mediating the connections between them: the technology itself. Such articulations of nodes function similarly whether seen through a lens of Activity Theory or Genre Theory. For example, by classifying participants as nodes of activity, pedagogical considerations driven by a student-centered learning environment are revealed to function along lines common to social constructivism, emphasizing collaborative features but also “cognitive orientations” of the pedagogy informing course structure (Morrison). If this “cognitive orientation” mirrors that of a writing course in which the instructor-to-student hierarchy of delivery is dominant, Genre Theory may prove effective as a means of identifying characteristics of that pedagogical style which informs the direction and function of network connectivities. If, on the other hand, the nodes are connected in multiple, non-hierarchical ways — such as the student-to-student group learning or embedded tutor-to-student conferencing described by Halasek — such characteristics reveal a pedagogy at work that may create sufficient differentiation that would require we examine Composition MOOC spaces as a separate genre within a larger system of Composition education. Such framing might lend credence to arguments that these cMOOC designs validate their place in higher education as a manifestation of the possibilities born of extended application of our notions of the student-centered theory of writing pedagogies.

Image from "MOOCs From the Student Perspective" Pepper Lynn Warner

Image from “MOOCs From the Student Perspective” Pepper Lynn Warner

Aside from the human participants engaged in this classroom network system, activities such as, writing, writing assessment, and collaboration can also be explored as nodes as well as sites of movement with the MOOC space. The forms they take are heavily influenced – as is true with any genre – by the dominant classification system at work. The pedagogy, if we accept this as a type of genre, dictates not only the participants or agency at each node but also what tools will mediate this activity. In the case of a Composition MOOC, the platform-as-node influences the means of writing and assessment. However, the pedagogy-as-genre will be reflected in these nodes and the relationships between nodes. For example, in a cMOOC, multiple layers of assessment are made possible by the non-hierarchical nature of the teaching model. Students and embedded tutors may be part of the assessment process, as well as the teacher of record (Decker 7). The dominant role of peer review in a typical f2f Composition classroom is expanded in ways mediated by the open, massive digital space of a MOOC. Such design is mediated further by the pedagogically-driven choices by the class designer – the instructor. However, student input driven by navigational habits may be interpreted as influential agency in determining the network activity and nodal importance.

However, there are tensions which cannot be so easily mitigated by framing MOOCs in this way. Friend’s article demonstrates some of the risks revealed by applying genre theory to discussions of Composition MOOCs, particularly in terms of pedagogies. Friend argues that “we can use MOOC strategies to improve our existing in-class teaching efforts” tends to conflate the two spaces, perhaps running the risk of narrowing this discussion into nostalgic frames. While his suggestions may at first glance legitimize the composition MOOC by validating its pedagogical methods as potential “levers” (Bazerman 79), it also exposes a controversial border space in which both Morrison and Porter situate their arguments. Such “space to space” transference points to the argument made by Glance, Forsey, and Riley that a conflation of these genres creates additional tensions in discussions of pedagogy, or what they refer to as “the potential disruptive nature of MOOCs.” They write, “A difficulty with the analysis of MOOC structure and its pedagogical foundations is the question of how similar a MOOC is to existing online courses offered for distance learning or as an extension of face-to-face delivery of courses as part of a so-called blended delivery. In some ways they are not and so the analysis of MOOCs is inherently not that different from research examining the benefits of online delivery of courses generally.” Therefore, even if we treat pedagogy as part of a genre system, there still remains the question of transfer when it comes to the “massive” environment of MOOCs.

Networks & Distribution of Content:  Meaning In Motion

Askehave and Nielsen assert that the multi-dimensional nature of the WWW promotes the argument that “the medium forms an integral part of the genre and should be” considered as an important part of any analytical model (128-9). Mapping paths within this networked medium used to distribute content or meaning-making (inherent to any discussion of pedagogy) raises the question of how MOOC spaces affect not only the relationships between participants but activities as well. If we accept the premise that everything is moving in the network that is a MOOC – student identities, navigation, student compositions, collaborative energy, instructions, links to materials, assessments and feedback – does the network alter this content or meaning in substantial ways that can be usefully theorized? Some Composition MOOCs, like the one taught at Duke University, crowdsource feedback and assessment to some degree. Bazerman’s observation that we consider systems of activity as a way to “identify a framework which organizes…work, attention, and accomplishment” (319) might be used to consider not only the MOOC as a networked space but also activities such as assessment and collaboration using such features as crowdsource response and Discussion Boards. The “Massive” quality of MOOCs significantly complicates the Composition practices as well as the pedagogy, but if we think how activities might be located at carefully constructed nodes that create parcels of space, a system within a system, would that mitigate this concern? Bazerman explains that a “genre system” focuses “on what people are doing and how texts help people do it, rather than on texts as ends in themselves” (319).  The problem arises when we see a genre (like pedagogy or like the Composition classroom space) as just a collection of features, that “makes it appear that these features of the text are ends in themselves, that every use of a text is measured against an abstract standard of what correctness to the form rather than whether it carries out the work it was designed to do” (Bazerman 323).  In the Composition classroom envisioned by most of our field’s scholarship on pedagogical issues, this work is process- and feedback-dependent. Yet, Activity Theory encourages us to see activities in terms of “modular configuration[s] of work” (Spinuzzi Tracing Genres 75). In a cMOOC, roles of student and instructor (and pedagogy) are transformed due to the nature and demands of the space upon the ways these “nodes” interact.

Digital Humanities Course Page, University of South Carolina

Digital Humanities Course Page, University of South Carolina

Conclusion: Activity and Genre Theories are productive lenses through which to examine the ways we might explore Composition MOOCs as pedagogically informed spaces. What these two theories do not allow me to explore is the very real impact played by technology itself in terms of exerting agency, mediating behaviors, and user navigation (whether in the formalized role of student or teacher) in the same way that Actor Network Theory might have allowed. However, seeing the technology as a mediating tool may fit more cleanly into discussions of pedagogy, providing a familiar node from which the conversation can proceed and evolve. Technology does play a role in transforming the way we read, the way we think, and the way we teach – the question becomes one of degree. Activity Theory foregrounds the movement, the relationships, and the connectivity of a network, perhaps neglecting the power of those elements that make activity possible – things like space itself.

What these two theories do allow me to explore is the motivation that shapes the choices a learner or a teacher makes in terms of transmission (knowledge, assessment, identity). Both lend themselves powerfully to pragmatic applications of pedagogy. If we accept Miller’s observation that genres must be “grounded in the conventions of discourse” (67), then in the case of a Composition MOOC, we must consider another system may be at work, another type of discourse that is native to online spaces. Miller asserts that genres change as cultures change, leading us to treat genres as “cultural artifact[s]” (69). Along these lines, can we approach pedagogy as a genre as well – and thereby as “cultural artifact” (Miller 69) – wherein our theories of Composition pedagogy become the determining forms of practice, static no matter what the space? When defined as “reproducible,” a genre should certainly carry over from space to space; and perhaps some features of Composition pedagogy do (for example, collaborative networking, activity- and student-centered classroom practices). Yet a MOOC is not the sort of f2f classroom envisioned by our field’s discourse community by any stretch of the imagination, which raises the question of whether a different genre of pedagogy is required when analyzing this Object of Study. Should we, like Prior et al. suggest, “remap the canon” of Composition pedagogy to account for the “contradictions” (Spinuzzi, “How” 72) created by that space? Should we treat pedagogy as exigence because it must be more than “form or event” and be seen as “social action” (Miller 164)? Such questions may remain unanswered until our field can avoid conflating many of the nodes of this discussion – what Porter refers to as “a dangerous elision” (16) – which are used to define or frame the nature of a MOOC as a space for learning. Some argue it is a platform of materials, “an object to be bought and sold as if it were a textbook” (Porter 17). Others argue that all MOOCs are defined as if all share a common delivery focus, yet as Porter observes, there are significant differences between xMOOCs and cMOOCS which can be described in terms of motivation and nodes of interactivity (Activity Theory) or in terms of applying a universalized “formalist frame” (Genre Theory) to generate a framework for analysis (25). For all of these reasons, it is clear that these pedagogical / conceptual borders and related tensions are far from being resolved.  Popham’s concept of boundary forms may offer a fruitful next step forward in this discussion. By treating cMOOCs as a genre whose boundaries often create sites of contention in discussions of Composition pedagogy, Popham’s strategies for “crossing boundaries” begins with locating “recognizable commonality of certain elements” like form (284). It may be that applying these two theories fulfill Popham’s recommended triplet of Translation, Reflection, and Distillation (284) to create a useful bridge over which we may navigate such boundaries in future discussions of the place of MOOCs in Composition. Theoretical lenses such as Genre and Activity Theories offer valuable framing devices with which to move such discussions forward — a necessary direction given the suggestion that MOOCs may not be a “fad” that we can easily dismiss.

Works Cited

Askehave, Inger and Anne Ellerup Nielsen. “Digital Genres: A Challenge to Traditional Genre Theory.” Information Technology & People 18.2 (2005): 120-141. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

Bazerman, Charles. “Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People.”  What Writing Does and How It Does It. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004. 309-339.

Cormier, Dave. “Knowledge in a MOOC.” YouTube Video, 2010.

Decker, Glenna L. “MOOCology 1.0.” Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses. Eds. Steven D. Krause and Charles Lowe. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2014.

Friend, Chris. “Will MOOCs Work for Writing?” Hybrid Pedagogy.  28 Mar. 2013. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.

Glance, David George, Martin Forsey, and Myles Riley. “The Pedagogical Foundations of Massive Open Online Courses.” First Monday 18.5. 6 May 2013. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.

Halasek, Kay, Ben McCorkle, Cynthia L. Selfe, Scott Lloyd DeWitt, Susan Delagrange, Jennifer Michaels, and Kaitlin Clinnin. “A MOOC With A View: How MOOCs Encourage Us to Reexamine Pedagogical Doxa.” Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses. Eds. Steven D. Krause and Charles Lowe. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2014.

Levine, Alan. “A MOOC or Not a MOOC: ds106 Questions the Form.” Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses. Eds. Steven D. Krause and Charles Lowe. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2014.

Miller, Carolyn. “Genre As Social Action.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70 (1984): 151-167.

Morrison, Debbie. “A Tale of Two MOOCs @ Coursera: Divided by Pedagogy.” Online Learning Insights: A Blog about Open and Online Education. 4 Mar. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/03/4/a-tale-of-two-moocs-coursera-divided-by-pedagogy>

Popham, Susan.Forms as Boundary Genres in Medicine, Science, and Business.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 19 (2005): 279.

Porter, James. “Framing Questions About MOOCs and Writing Courses.” Invasion of the MOOCs: The Promise and Perils of Massive Open Online Courses. Eds. Steven D. Krause and Charles Lowe. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2014.

Prior, Paul, Janine Solberg, Patrick Berry, Hannah Bellwoar, Bill Chewning, Karen J. Lunsford, Liz Rohan, Kevin Roozen, Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau, Jody Shipka, Derek Van Ittersum, and Joyce Walker. Re-situating and Re-mediating the Canons: A Cultural-Historical Remapping of Rhetorical Activity. Kairos 11.3 (2007). Web. 14 Feb. 2014.

Spinuzzi, Clay. “How Are Networks Theorized?” Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications. NY: Cambridge UP, 2008. 62-95.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

Latour & Spinuzzi Together Again: Reading Notes Post part II

Continuing from my previous post — I just couldn’t wait to share those two videos — So, back to Latour.

Let me start by saying — Flick’s facial expression in the image below captures my mindset while trying to correlate Latour and Spinuzzi‘s dance of AT-ANT. I rather feel as though Spinuzzi tossed me a lifeline toward getting a better handhold on Latour’s theory (which he says is not a theory at all), but I’m not quite on safe footing yet. In fact, even as I reread my marginalia, I find myself jotting down still MORE questions. So, to be safe, in this blog I’ll focus only on a few passages and concepts that provided discernible leverage for me on this climb.

Flik in danger A Bug's Life

(c) Disney A Bug’s Life

1.  Several of Latour’s ideas in the latter part of the book stood out to me, but I think it’s worth focusing on the chapter in which Latour creates an imaginary dialogue in the chapter entitled “The Difficulty of Being An ANT.”  Specifically, Latour’s assertion that ANT is a “negative argument” (141) at first seemed appropriate given the rather adversarial quality of his argument, and given Spinuzzi’s side-by-side look at AT and ANT as voices commonly treated as competing theories. But Latour also claims that it is “by comparison with other competing ties that any tie is emphasized” (32). Doesn’t a “negative argument” suggest a counter or negation rather than an illuminating relief, or potential “tie”? Certainly, that is how Spinuzzi approaches it, if I’m reading him correctly, when he writes on page 72 that such “contradictions” should be treated — not as binaries or negations — but as “historically accumulating structural tensions within or between activity systems” (quoting Engestrom). Indeed, I’m rather partial to the notion that we find more productive theorizing potential when we focus our lenses on areas of tension, borders (why, hello again, Monsieur Foucault), or threads of activity / movement. So, I seem to be standing on a bit of a fulcrum, but I find Spinuzzi’s approach to competing theories of networks to be a more compelling approach to this mapping expedition. Rather than choosing one path over another, seeking “common ground” (94) may be the more productive means of understanding these two lenses … reminding me at this very moment of our Case Study approach to a single Object of Study. Rather than seeing the dissensions as nodes of work-stoppage, I think I’ll find more productive leverage by seeking out — as Spinuzzi suggests — nodes or “points at which the approaches can inform each other” (95).

Mapping the Journey

Mapping the Journey

So, yet again, the borders are our friends — but what does that border look like? Is it a place? A space? An unseen trace? An actant? An acton? A Theoretical domain (like cultural historical nodes)?  A form? Is it the destination or the journey we need to be theorizing?

2. Latour’s critique of frameworks (137) led to a marginal comment of mine: “is this how a MOOC becomes a contested object / space when treated only as a genre of pedagogy / class type?” Latour points to the dangers of “descriptions” vs. “explanations” in his “Fifth Source of Uncertainty” chapter, which reminded me of a MOOC article I’m reading as part of my 2nd case study. He argues that once “a site is placed ‘into a framework’, everything becomes rational much too fast and explanations begin to flow much too freely” (137). I’m struck by how composition pedagogy over the decades has gone through stages of envisioning what “the perfect teaching classroom” should look like — from the Banker’s Model described by 1899classroomused_by_david_buckingham_in_-scaled1000Freire (see image on left on the predictions of an 1899 artist) to the “sage on the stage” to the student-centered / collaborative classroom we boast of today. But online classrooms have become contested borders, defining the “best” classroom model through the f2f standard. As Johnson-Eilola points out in Angels, the “nostalgia” (22) effect could be what Latour is describing as a “framework” into which all of our notions of learning are sealed. Is that what we want? Is that what a MOOC might challenge? And aren’t frameworks sometimes good things?

3.  Further, Latour defines a network as “a tool to help describe something, not what is being described.” I think this semester we’ve seen it applied effectively as both, and I wonder if it’s possible to use it only as one rather than the other, given the nature of network-noun / network-verb. There was a part of the Latour dialogue that led me down one of those “rabbit trails” that seem more and more purposeful, especially if we are to accept Latour’s claim that these trails are really where our focus should be.

4.  Finally, back to the imagined conversation between student and professor. Question: “what can it do for me?” (Latour 141). Answer: ANT is “a theory…about how to study things, or rather how not to study them — or rather, how to let the actors have some room to express themselves” (141). The learned professor goes on to point out that this may prove especially useful when “things are changing fast” and traditional theoretical frameworks are simply too rigid to follow suit. For my object of study — composition MOOCs — this may be useful. But wait — isn’t an anti-frame a frame itself? Latour-in-cognito-as-Professor observes that ANT “says nothing about the shape of what is being described with it” (142) — I rather like his twist on the word “worknet” as opposed to “network” (143) — but we are treating all of these theories as ways of framing a discussion about objects of study, a way of thinking and articulating concepts in a way that applying them in a practical way is more than possible — it’s productive. Does this mean that in exploring the ANT along all its twists and turns, it is more an “actor / actant” than a theory-as-tool?

There are plenty of other questions like these in my book margins, but I’m also finding a need for a running list of the vocabulary — especially since some of the terms are being contested and applied in varying ways. I’ve only just started creating this gloss, but I did locate a helpful List of Key Terms for Latour, while others that I’ll need to keep track of are:

  • Controversy – tracing the Nodes, connections
  • Actors
  • Informants
  • Intermediaries
  • Mediators

 

Works Cited

Latour, Bruno. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory.” New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Spinuzzi, Clay. “How Are Networks Theorized?” Network: Theorizing Knowledge Work in Telecommunications. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.

Latour & Spinuzzi Together Again: Reading Notes Post part I

I suspect that the following video has been sourced in others’ posts (I  spotted it on Daniel’s after posting), but I found it packaged Latour‘s sometimes rambling / sometimes ranting first half. I must admit, his critique of the Activity Theorists and Sociologists made me laugh at times — he’s clearly quite secure in his position as critic — but by the time I made it through the 2nd half of the book, I found his posturing a bit disconcerting, especially having just read Spinuzzi‘s chapter on Networks  encouraging common ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4G6ksJBr0

Latour‘s work seems to be both theoretical as well as application — given his  examples of “how it works” embedded throughout the text. But I actually found our second reading for the week, Spinuzzi‘s chapter “How Are Networks Theorized?,” to be a helpful translator for Latour’s book, written as it is to be an overview of the tensions between Activity Theorists and Actor-Network Theory proponents. Indeed, I’m finding myself drawn more and more to both Foucault and Spinuzzi’s ways of translating theory to real-world frames (certainly no surprise, given their alliances), all the while thinking of how much it seems we’re still grappling with genres — only this time, the theories themselves are the genres. This struck me especially when reading about the “contradictions” versus “alliances” Spinuzzi writes about in his “Network” article. The attempt by Latour to categorize ANT and AT by examining their conventions of practice and reference certainly reminds me of genre theory, and Latour’s and Spinuzzi’s insistence that we trace the contradictions and conflicts as a way of truly understanding the activity / actor node theorizing priorities, certainly echoes the advantages of genre tracing (Spinuzzi again).

But Latour’s attention to science as part of his argument really appeals to me, given my background. So much so, that when I found the following RSA – TED video, I thought to myself, “THIS captures so much of our discussion over the past few weeks.”

More thoughts on Spinuzzi’s Network Chapter and Latour’s 2nd half in Part II.

 

Once Upon A Time: Telling our Metacognition Stories (Padawan Style)

Mind Map for 25 Feb: http://popplet.com/app/#/1571354

padawan children image Star Wars

(c) Star Wars: young padawan learners

Story telling — long has this been a means of relaying vital cultural history and identity, as well as serving as the first-ever training regimen for molding the minds of young and old alike. But it’s clearly more than that: it’s reflective assessment incarnate. What better way to find out if your young padawans have absorbed the enormity of the Powers of the Force than to ask them to repackage the learning — the connections, the network nodes, the relationship movements, the buses, etc.?

So it would only be natural to replicate such learning practices in a classroom of

Luke Skywalker trains with Yoda StarWars

(c) Star Wars: Padawan Luke Training With Jedi Master Yoda

our sort, and certainly gave me new ideas for my own freshman writing courses! Networking our thinking, making visible the connections between course objectives & practices, revealing some of the borders and boundaries in new ways — all mediated by a specified space and time, creating a framework for our thinking that both limited it and gave it new range. Yep — pedagogy, Yoda-style. And, just like me / us, Luke is the older padawan — with all sorts of other networked connections from life and learning forcing their way into his training, distracting but also proving to be unexpected paths of action. Say hello to Yoda meets Actor Network Theory.

Google Images’ available image selections for networks is becoming increasingly less accurate in their potential to capture the types of connections we’re making. Many results reflect a dominance of either machine or organic, but not a mix of both. I think that’s telling, at least insofar as the thinking I’m doing about mediators (thanks Latour).

aha!ALERT:  Personal “Aha!” moment — (better late than never)  Some of my thinking has been whether or not we can start to think about THEORIES as GENRES, and if so, can we than apply genre tracing as a way to map the conflicts and the tensions — as this week’s reading of Spinuzzi suggests we do — in order to place them in a map that shows the productive relationships available to our continued work? Hello Popplets and Legos and Storytelling! I realize that Spinuzzi likely intended genre tracing to be applied to nodes or objects of study, but isn’t that exactly what we are doing with our activities?

While completing my Mind Map, I came across an interesting article of applied theory that reminded me of our Latour reading this week: “Spotting Boundary Spanner.” The article asserts that “Boundary spanners are a vital missing component in connecting practical theories and knowledge with real world applications.” Latour has asserted that this spanner / mediator is likely a person.

So I ask you: are WE padawan spanners? Learning the way of our disciplines (The Force) to mediate “all the theories.” By George, I think I may be onto something.

 

Reading Notes: Spinuzzi

Spinuzzi, Clay. Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.

Spinuzzi’s work is a practical application of theory, and as such serves as a fulcrum of sorts on which many of our previous theorists have “play.” Spinuzzi’s book illustrates a methodology which he refers to as “genre tracing,” a means of “examin[ing] how people interact with complex institutions, disciplines, and communities” (23), at times with results not unlike that depicted by the image above. More importantly to our approach to networks (especially those that develop by overlapping existing structures), I believe, is his insistence that this methodology concerns itself with the way workers develop “unofficial…work practices and genres, by adapting old genres to new uses” (23). He advances this method of analysis as a counterpoint to what he refers to as “user-centered design approaches” (x), which he critiques in subsequent chapters as one that creates a “victim narrative” as a way to create binaries of community and actions – in other words, dominant hierarchies. His work provides an interesting illustration of the work we’re doing, combining existing theories to create a new lens, one suitable to a specific object of study: information design. For Spinuzzi, this involves a study of traffic workers, a study that examines both “traditional” means of analysis (the designers at the top of the solution hierarchy) as well as the user-centered “innovative solutions.” Spinuzzi  resists choosing one over the other – perhaps what Foucault would refer to as applying a theory of “unities” (26) – and promotes an approach that blends Genre Theory with Activity Theory to information design problems or situations (4).

Spinuzzi’s work explores two competing discourse communities (designers and users), all the while echoing many of the works we’ve read thus far: Bitzer’s systematic rhetorical situation, Foucault’s ideas on unities and irregularities / roles, Popham’s  boundary forms and genres, Miller’s and Bazerman’s work with motives and action,  the work by Bourelle et al. on digital assessment, Biesecker and relationships, and agency as it relates to localized discourse patterns / needs (which all of our authors thus far have touched upon to one degree or another). Perhaps the most interesting passage, I found, was his integration of Bakhtin’s ideas as they relate to communication practices. The concept of centripetal and centrifugal “impulses” (20) creates a fascinating analogy with which to consider the discourse practices of these two communities: designers and users. His suggestion that the centripetal describes those discourse communities that gravitate toward the “formalization, normalization, regularity, convention, stability, and stasis” – the official line (20) – appears to effectively characterize the sort of knowledge creation privileging  Foucault points to in his work. The centrifugal, on the other hand, represents “resistance…, innovation, — and chaos” (20), features that seem more conducive to discussions of agency and the realism of the work place than its counterpart. This passage alone – combined with his list of justifications for using genre tracing as a methodology (22-23) – opens numerous points of connection to our course discussions regarding the ways we envision networks functioning and moving knowledge. This is a rich resource, which will no doubt make its way into my next Case Study.

As a final thought, the tensions Spinuzzi points to brought to mind several images: push-me-pull-you animal from Dr. Doolittle, as well as a very old Abbott and Costello movie – in particular the scene found at time hack 2:00. Both images suggest a unified network of organic origin, often faced with opposing impulses, very much like the average work place.

Abbott and Costello: “Have Badge Will Chase” (1955)