abstract
the fundamental nature of learning entails a connection between subject matter and human affairs. activity theory coupled with a communication perspective of learning-as-transmission, learning-as-sharing, and learning-as-interaction provides a framework within which to structure online learning and teaching programs to account for this connection. in this framework learning is more than a concern with types of information already existing. learning is also about the communicative activities of exploring and constructing new information. these activities are manifested in the informative practices of seeking, sifting, sorting, and sharing information as students engage new informational boundaries. the activity-process model is tool for designing instruction for online courses to better account for the fundamental nature of learning.
keywords: activity theory, learning, activity-process model
introduction
the fundamental nature of learning entails a coming together of subject matter with ongoing human affairs. this vital connection between learning and the social and historical context of human life has been expressed in a variety of forms by different scholars (billett, 1998a, 1998b; bruner, 1962; dewey, 1916/1966; kolb, 1984; vygotsky, 1934/1962, 1978; wegerif, 1998; wenger, 1998) . much of this discussion has focused on the theoretical importance of communication in bringing about the union between learning and human affairs.
over and above the notion that communication plays out merely with respect to expository methods of instruction is the view that communication is the process through which understanding takes place, meaning is generated, and learning is never-ending (berger & luckmann, 1966; daloz, 1986; merriam, 1994; merriam & heuer, 1996; mezirow, 1994; pearce & cronen, 1980) . in this view, learning occurs within the communicative activities of individuals making sense of the world as they negotiate meaning within their own social environment. dewey (1916/1966) believed that all communication is educative and that communication should insure “participation in a common understanding” (p. 4). novak (1990) pointed out the importance of communication in developing communities of inquiry and constructing an educative society. wenger (1998) put forth a theory of learning that assumes learning is a social phenomenon and that negotiation of meaning takes form and occurs within communities of practice. thus, the importance of communication as a focal point of learning is elevated beyond a traditional transmission model of expository learning.
this elevation of the role of communication is twofold in relation to learning. on the one hand, it is especially relevant in contemporary society as new communication technologies expose individuals to a broad array of new informational boundaries that reveal alternative realities, challenge existing knowledge, and provide assorted opportunities (berger & luckmann, 1966; cooley, 1902/1956; gergen, 1991; giddens, 1991) . on the other hand, these new technologies offer an opportunity for educators to reach out to learners and for learners to take advantage of educational opportunities as never before in a rapidly changing world. as kolb (1984) has pointed out, learning has become “a personal challenge for millions of adults who find learning is no longer ‘for kids’ but a central lifelong task essential for personal development and career success” (p. 2). many adults today are facing up to this challenge by enrolling in online teaching and learning programs.
although the fundamental nature of learning is the same, the means of learning is changing. the task for educators is to develop online teaching and learning programs that work effectively and efficiently to meet the needs of adult learners in contemporary society and also ensure that the fundamental nature of learning is taken into account. educators must create and put into practice instructional methods for online programs that do more than send material to students for their own individual perusal. they must also provide for the communicative activities of a community of learners involved in making sense of the world and negotiating meaning as they encounter new informational boundaries.
my purpose in this paper is to propose a practical model for designing online teaching and learning programs, a model that goes beyond a simple expository method of instruction to incorporate the basic nature of learning as a social phenomenon. by necessity, the construction of this model relies upon theoretical insights from communication, information studies, education, and psychology. i approach the task by addressing the following: (a) activity theory; (b) communication, information, and learning; (c) the idea of informational boundaries; and (d) a model for course design. i close with an example of how the model helped in developing an online research methods course.
activity theory
activity theory is based on the “classical german philosophy of kant and hegel, which emphasized both the historical development of ideas as well as the active and constructive role of humans” (jonassen & rohrer-murphy, 1999) . activity theory articulates the primacy of the interaction between human activity (e.g., work and study) and consciousness within a cultural-historical context such that activity precedes learning and development rather than the other way around (jonassen & rohrer-murphy, 1999) . it has been conceptualized in the “psychological and anthropological theory mostly connected with the russian psychologists lev vygotsky, alexander luria, and a. n. leontiev” (hjorland, 1997. p. 79) .
rather than the traditional view that thinking is an internal and individual process that advances when we reach certain developmental stages, vygotsky (1934/1962; 1978) put forth the notion that thinking is firstan external process that develops through interactions with other people within a cultural context. vygotsky postulated that psychological processes are mediated by tools or signs (symbols) acquired in social interaction. as these signs become internalized, higher mental processes develop and symbolic activity increases. over time, thinking becomes internalized as we acquire the tools or signs necessary to direct thought along particular paths. learning to think develops as we acquire the ability to think about our actions and about our thinking.
karpov and haywood (1998) give the names cognitive mediation and metacognitive mediation to the two processes of thinking about our actions and thinking about our thinking. the first of these, cognitive mediation, is the “acquisition of cognitive tools that are necessary for solving subject-domain problems” (karpov & haywood, 1998, p. 28); that is, to think about our actions. these cognitive tools include the scientific concepts that are the tried-and-true “knowledge” of the culture and the spontaneous concepts that arise from experience (vygotsky, 1934/1962) . for example, we may learn how to cook from someone, but we develop our own thoughts over time about how to cook as we gain experience and learn to think about what we’re doing. vygotsky (1934/1962) believed that scientific and spontaneous concepts develop in relationship to each other; that is, “the development of a spontaneous concept must have reached a certain level for the child to absorb a related scientific concept. . .[and] scientific concepts must in turn supply structures for the upward development of the child’s spontaneous concepts toward consciousness and deliberate use” (pp. 108-109). the point is that we learn the ways of our culture and then develop our own ideas as we learn to think about what we’re doing.
as we learn to think about what we’re doing there is a growing to think about how we’re thinking and control thought. metacognitive mediation “refers to children’s acquisition of semiotic tools of self-regulation: self-planning, self-monitoring, self-checking, and self-evaluating” (karpov & haywood, 1998, p. 27). that is, children acquire the tools and signs needed to think about how they’re thinking of doing something. they become aware of their own thinking, and begin to review the knowledge at hand, define the problem, monitor and revise their plan, and evaluate the solution reached. self-regulation involves more than knowing what words mean; it also involves the ability to understand the relationships between words and put those words into a meaningful pattern.
just as cognitive processes develop within a social context, metacognitive processes develop as children interact with others within their cultural and social milieu. cognitive abilities, as well as metacognitive, develop within the communicative interaction that occurs within a social and cultural context. this acquisition of tools and concepts occurs through all three perspectives taken by communication scholars: communication-as-transmission, communication-as-sharing, and communication-as-interaction.
communication, information, and learning
as our communicative life expands with the development of new communication and information technologies, a willingness to engage new informational boundaries through the communicative activities of exploration and construction becomes essential to proactively and adaptively functioning in the world. thayer (1968) having recognized the central role of communication in human affairs, said that “communication can be looked upon as one of the two basic processes of all living systems—one, the transformation of food into energy; the other, the transformation of event-data into information” (p. 17). he went on to say, “the phenomena basic to all human communication is the intrapersonal process of ‘relevanting’ [sic] or ‘messaging’ the raw, unstructured event-data of our inner and outer worlds, of organizing and translating event-data into comprehendable [sic], consumable functional units of ‘messages’” (p. 113). there is a clear implication in these comments of an essential relationship between communication and information: communicating is an informing and information using activity.
schement and ruben (1993) have argued that “studies of communication and information as distinct entities date back to the early decades of the century” (p. x). they identified trends, however, that are drawing increased attention to the relationship between the two, such as the increased number of research agendas that integrate both and the establishment of combined communication and information studies schools and colleges. in their account, the backdrop of these trends is the coming information society.
schement (1993) further argued that the relationship between communication and information has always been present within three overall perspectives adopted by communication scholars although the relationship has not always been stated explicitly. the early communication-as-transmission perspective that has guided much of communication research this century establishes the basic relationship. this perspective views communication as the transmission of messages from a source through a channel to a receiver. the focus of the communication-as-transmission view is on the sending and receiving of messages. the focus in the second perspective, communication-as-sharing, is on the development of a common meaning or orientation among participants in a communicative act. participants share more than the denotative meaning of words; they also share in the shades of meaning that develop as they engage in social interaction. in the third perspective, communication-as-interaction, attention shifts to the process of communication. rather than simply describing how communication works, the focus is on explaining what communication does in the process of making sense of the world and negotiating meaning. for example, the pattern of communication can serve to reinforce the reality of a relationship, giving rise to an understanding of the roles in the relationship. schement’s point is that each of these perspectives taken by communication scholars implies the existence of something that generally is thought of as information.
the link between communication and information is also present in instruction. instructors transmit information to students through expository teaching. ausubel (1961) referred to this type of learning as reception learning. driscoll (1994) observed that “reception learning, then, is essentially the same as what commonly occurs in expository instruction, where learners are told information rather than discovering it for themselves” (p. 115). learning-as-sharing and learning-as-interaction find their way into instruction in approaches like constructivism where learners are actively involved in developing their own understanding through activities that promote shared meaning through interaction with peers.
mason (1995) has said that “theories of learning suggest that it is through interaction with ideas and other people, that the student develops understanding” (218). he also emphasized that it is not simply interaction with other people in which learning takes place; of greater importance is interaction with learning material. the crucial point in this view is that students must be given an opportunity to interact with others and learning material. otherwise, the information transmitted becomes nothing more than empty concepts without an immediate connection to the real world.
the idea of developing knowledge and skills that go beyond the memorization of empty concepts has implications for the design of online teaching and learning programs. at present, many online courses simply transmit information to students, who then make sense of it on their own with little or no opportunity to share understanding and interact with others. however, as robbin and frost-kumpf (1997) stated in reference to the gathering and use of statistical data, “information about the data, including its uses and limitations, is often revealed only through informal dialogues and conversations” (p. 97). although mason’s (1995) statement that interaction with learning material is of greater importance is true to an extent, it is perhaps better to think of both interaction with others and with material as equally important in the overall goal of learning.
the challenge for proponents of online learning is to incorporate activities and practices that foster the development of shared meaning and interactions with others so that students develop the necessary knowledge and skills to make sense of and negotiate new informational boundaries. as students explore new boundaries, they also are involved in constructing new information as they negotiate meaning and make sense of things. thus, information becomes more than a thing to transmit to students; it becomes a process of informing oneself as students engage new informational boundaries.
informational boundaries
although there are a number of typologies that categorize information, most all view information as a thing. for example, ruben (1993) has identified three distinct types of information-as-representation. the first type refers to stimuli or cues from the environment; this is information external to human systems and has significance only when actualized. the second type is “individualized, internal appropriations and representations” (p. 225) that results from transformation by the individual of existing information. the third type is information that arises and is validated within a social context and comprises “the shared information/knowledge base of societies and other social systems” (p. 226). although ruben’s typology serves well to distinguish among types of information, the difficulty with its application to learning as a social enterprise is that it views “information as phenomenon, or thinglike [sic]” (ruben, 1993, p. 224) . it emphasizes communication primarily as an exchange between people, overshadowing the role of the ongoing exploration and construction of new information in society.
information exists, but it also must be allowed to take on meaning to those who are attempting to learn it. in thayer’s (1987) words: “information is not something that inheres in the objects and events of man’s world. information is what a man endows those objects and events with. man literally informs himself” (p. 170). in connection with the idea of learning as a social phenomenon, this view of information implies the importance of ongoing communicative activities to make sense of information and negotiate meaning. information becomes something that exists but also something that must be negotiated in the communicative activities of exploration and construction and informative practices of seeking, sifting, sorting, and sharing.
rather than an immediate concern with types of information existing as products waiting to be transmitted to others, learning is as much about the communicative activities of exploring and constructing new information. in this scheme, exploration and construction are actualized in the informative practices of (a) seeking new information, (b) sifting through alternative impressions, (c) sorting impressions into relevant constructs, and (d) sharing constructions with others. these activities and practices are individual as well as social, behavioral as well as cognitive. activity and practice imply the exploration and construction of meaning in connection with everyday life and therefore allow that learning is not simply something existing apart from the ongoing communicative activities of human systems engaged in making sense of new information.
to account for this, i propose a model of three informational boundaries ordered by the complexity of the ongoing social interaction within that respective boundary, the place at which interaction with information and others might occur (table 2.1). the boundaries are ordered from least to most on a continuum of ongoing communicative activities.
