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83 Yotam Hod, Dani Ben-Zvi
Proceedings of the Chais conference on instructional technologies research 2012: Learning in the technological era
Y. Eshet-Alkalai, A. Caspi, S. Eden, N. Geri, Y. Yair, Y. Kalman (Eds.), Raanana: The Open University of Israel
Enculturation in Action:
Developing Understanding about Technology-
Enhanced Classroom Learning Communities (Poster)
Yotam Hod
University of Haifa
yotamhod@edtech.haifa.ac.il
Dani Ben-Zvi
University of Haifa
dbenzvi@univ.haifa.ac.il
Abstract
This case study describes, analyzes, and elucidates students' developing
understanding of technology-enhanced classroom learning communities
(TCLCs). Recognizing that an important aspect of students’ developing
understanding is enculturation, where students transform their participation to
build competency within the TCLC culture, this research also examines the
emergent social norms of communities within a classroom. The importance
that the learning sciences have assigned to learning communities and the
growing trend of technology-enhanced learning in educational practice,
provide the grounds for this study’s importance and relevance. Until now,
research on TCLCs has focused more on their design and outcomes and little
on how students’ understanding of what they are actually emerges and
develops. This research has drawn on data from a semester-long course that
is both designed as a TCLC and teaches about TCLCs, by integrating unique
reflection sessions and online collaborative activities with relevant content
from the learning sciences. Data collected from classroom observations,
interviews, and writing in an online Wiki collaborative editing environment
are the basis for an interpretive micro-analysis to develop a more
theoretically-based framework of students’ changing understandings of
TCLCs. Educational implications are guidelines for the design of future
TCLCs
Keywords: Enculturation, group social norms, classroom learning
communities, reflection, understanding.
Introduction
This poster represents the main theoretical ideas underlying our research. It is based upon
previous research on how people develop their ideas of learning communities (LCs). Novel in
this study is that it examines a technological component to support learning in communities, as
well as other distinctive course design components. Also, it examines the view that learning is a
process of transforming participation (Rogoff, 1994) through a new lens, that of emergent group
social norms.
Technology-enhanced classroom learning communities
A general definition of LCs that is used here to frame discussion is based on Beilaczyc and
Collins’ (1999) synthesis and comparison of various such communities. Moreover, since this
research is limited to classroom settings that employ technology to support collaboration, their
definition is further narrowed preliminarily to be the following: A TCLC is a classroom that
demonstrates a culture of learning in which participants are actively involved in a collective
effort of understanding and where technology is involved meaningfully in supporting the
learning process towards these ends. This research uses LC design principles that have been
collected from the previous two decades of research (e.g. Brown and Campione, 1994) as a
84 Enculturation in Action: Developing Understanding about Technology-Enhanced Classroom Learning Communities
preliminary basis for determining the content of students’ developing understanding of TCLCs.
The different ways in which the principles are understood, as well as the order, relative
importance, and omissions or additions are part of what this research may contribute to the
learning sciences.
Theoretical roots of TCLCs
This research is based in the situated perspective, viewing learning as a transformational process
of participation (Rogoff, 1994), or otherwise, enculturation (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).
Enculturation is the development of competencies, such as language, rituals, and values, of a
person who is immersed in a particular culture (Barry, 2007). Social norms, an important
regulator of social behavior (Hechter & Opp, 2001), can be investigated to describe this. This
research uses an exploratory framework of individual and shared understanding to demonstrate
the negotiation of social norms and, more broadly, the development of understanding of TCLCs.
Research Questions
Primary Research Question: How does understanding of TCLCs develop?
1. What are students’ initial understandings of TCLCs?
2. What are the changes in students’ understandings of TCLCs as they actively participate in
one?
3. Under what circumstances do students’ understandings of TCLCs develop?
4. How do emergent group social norms relate to students’ understandings of TCLCs?
References
Barry, J. (2007). Acculturation. In J. Grusec & P. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: theory and
research (pp.543-560). Guilford Press: New York.
Bielaczyc, K., & Collins, A. (1999). Learning communities in classrooms: A reconceptualization of
educational practice. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models, Vol. II.
Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Brown, A. L. & Campione, J. C. (1994). Guided Discovery in a Community of Learners. In K. McGilly
(Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice. (pp. 229-272).
Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning.
Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Hechter, M., & Opp, K. (2001) Social norms. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture, and
Activity, 1(4), 209-229.
