Principles of Self Organization

Principles of Self Organization: Ecologizing the Learner-Instructor System

Sasha A. Barab, Indiana University @ BloomingtonSasha A. Barab

Mariam Cherkes-Julkowski, University of Connecticut @ StorrsIndiana University

Steve Garrett, University of Connecticut @ StorrsDept. of Inst. Sys. Tech.

Rod Swenson, University of Connecticut @ StorrsRoom 2232, 201 N. Rose Ave

Robert E. Shaw, University of Connecticut @ StorrsBloomington, IN 47405

The assumptions we hold about human nature and what it means to know and learn influence the selection of phenomena considered relevant for research, the types of research questions we ask, and ultimately, how we interpret results (Ennis, 1992; Kuhn, 1970). Rooted in Cartesian dualism and Newtonian mechanics, learning approaches predicated on objectivism and constructivism have at their basis an incommensurability between knower and known. According to Decartes, and supported by the physics of Newton, the world was said to consist of an active, striving, end-directed psychological part (that is, the perceiving mind), and a ÒdeadÓ, physical part (that is, matter and particles). It was the function of the striving, immaterial mind to impose order on the inherently qualityless particles, which Boltzman argued were governed by a rigidly deterministic law that was continuously working to destroy order (Swenson, 1996; 1997a).

Dominant Newtonian paradigms of cause and effect further emphasized concepts such as linearity, deterministic predictability, and isolated systems, in which order is rule-governed, other-organized (Ennis, 1992; Turvey & Shaw, 1995). This mechanical, sometimes referred to as artifactual, view has frequently served as a model for understanding non-artifactual systemsÑthat is, systems that are law, as opposed to rule, governed. For example, the predominant view in cognitive science is to liken the mind to a computer, depicting the mind as a computational machine that arranges cognitive symbols residing in the brain (Simon, 1995). However, using artifacts as models for non-artifactual systems is a Òcategory error,Ó producing ÒniceÓ models that are inconsistent with everyday experiences. In different terms, simply put, these are impoverished models of the world. Implications of the artifactual view for education have included the treating of learners as recipients of information, the process and content to be determined by the “informed other” (e.g., lesson, parent, teacher). In education, the ÒorderÓ to be created is in terms of arranging the content so as to facilitate the learnerÕs understanding. For many students this order is determined by the teacher and imposed on the learner who is expected to rotely memorize this structure that, ostensibly, can be matched up in a meaningful way with some real-world phenomena. The effort to understand this latter act of attributing meaning to content has been the challenge of educators and philosophers alike (Dennet, 1996). Still housed in Cartesian dualism, constructivists have suggested that learners create their own personal views of reality. Although intuitively appealing, such an approach sets up a closed-loop in which the learner can never know about an external world or another individualÕs view of it (Swenson, 1991; 1997b).

Because the Cartesian and Newtonian paradigms do not explain the world, they fail to form the basis for informed and effective instruction and, in fact, may actually mitigate against it. It has been argued that our educational system, characterized by a didactic pedagogical base intended to most efficiently cause the learner to master specific objectives, is an ineffective, if not dehumanizing, model, one that may not achieve more than rote learning (Bruner , 1985; Dewey, 1963; Whithead, 1929). This model, consistent with an artifactual view of mind, stands in sharp contrast to an autocatakinetic or self-organizing model of human development (Swenson, 1996). This latter model, which is grounded in current principles of self-organization, contextualizes (ecologizes) the learning situation and seems not only to capture the world as it is but appears also to dramatically potentiate the learner/instructor interaction.

Many researchers and theoreticians have put forth this alternative self-organization description of the physical world, human systems, and the relationship between the two (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Swenson, 1997a; Thelen & Smith, 1994). Isolated systems are considered atypical, with much of the world operating as autocatakinetic systems, sharing energy and information in a nonlinear fashion (Barton, 1994; Doll, 1986; Ennis, 1992; Swenson, 1997a; Turvey & Shaw, 1995). Predicated on principles of self organization (Bertalanffy, 1952; Prigogine & Stengers, 1994), Swenson (1997b, p. 38) argued that the world Òwill select order whenever it gets the chanceÑthe world is in the order-production processÓ. In systems with the proper boundary conditions, order is not imposed externally, rather it has the potential to emerge through an autocatakinetic process (Swenson, 1996). Autocatakinetic systems are those that: 1) continuously self organize; 2) whose invariant, global identities are maintained through continuous dynamic activity; and 3) maintain themselves Òby pulling potentials or resources into their own self-productionÓ (Swenson, 1997a, p. 14).

It has been argued that such a system underlies the emergence of cultures, as well as the identity and functioning of individuals living within the culture (Carneiro, 1987; Swenson, 1997a). Cultures expand and contract in relation to their biological, physical, and socially negotiated components, of which humans comprise a central element. Humans both serve the culture, as they become active participants in the maintenance and propagation of its structures, and are served by the culture, as they access available resources. The types of order that emerge for a culture are those specific acts, socially-negotiated norms, and supportive structures that maintain individuals and create the culture. This order is not externally determined by some agent existing outside of the system, rather it emerges within the context of the role that it serves for its individual members. The production of order is not an infrequent occurrence, rather it occurs continuously as part of the autocatakinetics of the system (Bertalanffy, 1952; Swenson, 1996, 1997a, 1997b). Further, central to the formation of an autocatakinetic system is the emergence of macrosctructures whose existence expands the space-time continuum beyond those possible for the individual microstructures (Swenson, 1997b). We argue that the role of education is to help expand the space-time continuum of the learner so that she can access more potentialities.

If the physical world, the cultural surround, and, we will argue, humans are continually involved in order production, than the task of educators is to facilitate those interactions that are likely to give rise to the kinds of order that will create a proper fit for individuals and their culture. These types of order need not be externally arranged by the teacher for the student, rather they can be ÒseededÓ by the instructor within the context of a system that has the requisite boundary conditions. The essence of instruction, on this view, is to create the initial conditions that seed the intention. When this cannot happen immediately, either due to an intention too far afield from the learner's ability to perceive it or to a disorder in the process of setting and holding an intention, it is the role of the instructor to recruit those goals currently held by the learner and either displace them or allow them to be a gradual step along the way. The instructor, whether a teacher in a school or a parent in the home, is guided by her membership in a series of nested communities, i.e., school, town and culture. She is a vestige of the larger culture and as such, a field resource from which the learner can draw. Thus, the interaction is asymmetrical with the instructor having the responsibility of initiating the learner into those acts, cognitions, and socially-negotiated forms indicative of the greater culture. As long as a (any) joint intention maintains the learner and instructor within the same system, the instructor has the potential to influence the learner toward these goals from within.

Predicated on the theory of intentional dynamics (Shaw, Kadar, Sim, & Repperger, 1992), it is argued that a shared intention serves to conditionally isolate the system, thereby providing boundary conditions on the emergence of the shared psychological space. Further, it is argued that the types of interactions necessary for the acquisition of higher level skills or expertise involve solution paths that are uniquely emergent from within the individualÕs ecosystem for a task, and cannot be borrowed from the outside (someone elseÕs), whole cloth. As such, the instructor must enter and become part of the learnerÕs ecosystem, where she can resonate with the internal dynamics, as part of the evolving order. As the learner begins to resonate to the new order, the instructor gradually removes the scaffolding (Bruner, 1985). While the instructor served originally as a resource for the learner, a stand in for the larger culture, now she can remove herself from the dynamic so that the learner can create and maintain his or her own relationship with the information field. By allowing students to self organize, as opposed to handing them some pre-ordered structure, they are able to develop their own internal, autocatakinetics; quite literally, they are engaging in the process of creating self.

This paper begins with a description of an autocatakinetic system, highlighting some of the principles that we believe to have implications for instruction, including: the emergence of self, macrodeterminancy, formal cause, and equifinality. The culture and its constituent members are defined as autocatakinetic systems, illuminating the co-determinancy and function of a culture for the individual and the individual for the culture. In an effort to ÒecologizeÓ instruction, it is suggested that learning should center on those acts and cognitions that aid learners in functioning within, and expanding the boundaries of, the cultural system in which they are a part. the instructor is viewed as a stand in for the culture; one whose goal is to support the learner in adapting culturally relevant intentions. A systems approach is then used to present an instructor/learner model for building interactions that facilitate learning in general and learning in young children at biological risk in particular (Cherkes-Julkowski, 1996, in press; Cherkes-Julkowski, Sharp, & Stolzenberg, 1997; Ford & Lerner, 1992). This discussion includes concepts central to selforganization, dynamical systems, and intentional dynamics in an attempt to illuminate what is often overlooked; the fact that a properly designed learning context has the potential to become a dynamically organizing system, one which forms itself around an intention (Shaw et al., 1992; Shaw, Effkin, Fajen, & Garrett, 1997). From this perspective, learning and instruction are processes involving perception and action, not products involving storage and delivery (Young, Kulikowich, & Barab, 1997).

Four stages of learning/instruction are proposed progressing from 1) building the coupling around a shared intention, 2) interacting within the loop with the instructor taking a highly informative role, 3) interacting within the loop with the instructor becoming an affordance resource, and 4) generative learning in the absence of the instructor. Instruction of this kind is particularly relevant for learners who may have a dysfunction in formulating and holding an intention, learners with an attention deficit disorder (ADD) in particular. The identification of ADD might be thought of as evidence of failure of the child to progress to the stage of independent, generative learning.

Section II offers an example from the literature and a case study from our own researchis used to discuss these concepts in light of dysfunction and learning (Cherkes-Julkowsi & Mitlina, in press). A case of a child with developmental disability and prototypical cases of children born prematurely, at-risk for ADD, and those born full term with no identified risk are presented and interpreted in terms of the proposed learning/instruction model. Specifically, we attempt to illuminate the process of emerging order in mother-child instructional interactions where shared communication is necessary to reach a common goal; and to show how context (referring to people, artifacts, culture, prior-experiences, etc.) can support, but not dictate, the interactionÑallowing learning, and in some cases maladaptive efforts at learning, to evolve in situ as an emergent event (Thelen & Smith, 1994). In contrast to telling learners about a pre-sorted structure, these children are provided the opportunity to engage in a practice of differentiation, potentially expanding their functioning within the larger culture.

The last section presents a theoretical reflection on some of the implications for learning and development, and on what we understand as dysfunction. Specifically, weview the parent/instructor as co-participant in the emergent understanding. S/he has the responsibility of determining when to provide constraints designed to work in-concert with the naturally emerging dynamics of the learner’s own intrinsic intentions. In this way she facilitates the creation, and continually maintains the stability of what we call anÒemergent choreography,Ó referring to the process in which two individuals co-construct the boundary conditions as the learning situation unfolds. However, over time as the learner becomes ÒcoupledÓ with the intention and resonates to the boundary conditions, it is the responsibility of the parent/instructor to gracefully remove themselves from the interaction, allowing the learner to establish new effectivity/affordance relations with the cultureÑthereby, extending his or her sense of self.

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