Toward a Descriptive Science of Learning Practices

对教学实践的严格理解需要发展一门描述性科学，捕捉复杂学习情景的多个认知和社会方面。这个项目建立在现有的微观分析方法的基础上，既有认知学的，也有社会学的，同时仔细考虑到在这些传统中应用的既定的严格标准。我们将通过分析特定学习情景中的一组特定实践(参考实践)来探索这些方法的前景和局限性。指称是所有人类交际的基本特征。它是我们在我们共享的环境中发起和实现对对象的共同定向的手段，因此是学习的组成部分。通过提供互动如何在特定情况下完成参考的描述，我们希望有助于我们对人们如何进行学习的发展理解。我们的目的是在繁忙的教学医院的手术室(OR)学习学习实践，重点关注医学生早期使用内窥镜手术的经验。在这类手术中，外科医生使用光纤透镜在患者体内进行观察和手术。这带来了多重感知挑战，尤其是对新来者。试点工作表明，这是一个丰富的网站，可以检查与学习有关的参考做法。此外，这些手术代表了一个分析紧凑的活动周期，有助于使描述学习内容和方法的高度雄心勃勃的任务变得易于管理。初步调查表明，建立共同参照并不总是那么容易做到的。参与者可以继续进行，就好像已经建立了共同的参考，即使他们面向场景的不同方面。手术后的采访突出了研究参与者如何在自然环境中展示他们的理解的一些复杂性。该项目将由六项连续研究组成，每项研究都涉及实地考察、参与者访谈和分析阶段。在手术室进行录音时，将采用标准的人种学田野调查方法。手术后将与参与者进行访谈，以手术视频为讨论对象。这些访谈将有助于增强我们对手术室中使用的参考实践的理解，并记录所展示的解剖学和专业专业知识的形式。将举行一年两次的项目小组会议，对数据进行协作分析。这些数据会议将被组织起来，以鼓励一种有纪律的通知形式。计划开展社区建设活动，以促进在其他学习环境中工作的其他研究人员发展描述技能。

Rigorous understanding of teaching and learning practices requires the development of a descriptive science that captures multiple cognitive and social aspects of complex learning situations. This project builds upon available micro-analytic methods, both cognitive and sociological, with a careful regard for the established standards of rigor applied within these traditions. We will explore the promise and limitations of these methods by analyzing a particular set of practices (referential practices) in a particular learning situation. Reference is a fundamental feature of all human communication. It is the means by which we initiate and achieve a common orientation to objects in our shared environment and as such is an integral part of learning. By providing an account of how interactants accomplish reference in a particular situation, we hope to contribute to our developing understanding of how people do learning. Our intent is to study learning practices in the operating room (OR) of a busy teaching hospital, focusing on medical students' early experiences with endoscopic surgery. In such surgeries, surgeons use fiber-optic lenses to view and operate within the patient's body. This poses multiple perceptual challenges, particularly to newcomers. Pilot work shows that this is a rich site for examining referential practices as they relate to learning. Furthermore, these surgeries represent an analytically compact cycle of activity, helping to make manageable the highly ambitious task of describing the content and methods of learning. Preliminary investigations have revealed that establishing shared reference is not always easily accomplished. Participants may proceed as if a common reference has been established even though they are orienting to different aspects of the scene. Post-surgical interviews highlight some of the complexities of studying how participants display their understandings in natural settings. This project will consist of a series of six sequential studies, each involving phases of fieldwork, participant interviews, and analysis. Standard methods for ethnographic fieldwork will be employed when taping in the OR. Post-surgical interviews will be conducted with the participants, using the video from the surgery as an object for discussion. These interviews will serve both to augment our interpretations of the referential practices utilized in the OR and to document the forms of anatomical and professional expertise displayed. Biannual project teams meetings will be conducted to do collaborative analysis of the data. These data sessions will be structured to encourage a disciplined form of noticing. Community building activities are planned to foster the development of descriptive skills by other researchers working in other learning settings.