This three-part paper presents Gordon Pask’s conversation theory (CT) and interaction of actors theory (IA) and outlines ways to apply these cybernetic approaches to designing technologies and scenarios for both formal and informal learning. The first part of the paper covers concepts central to CT and IA, explaining the relationship between conceptual and mechanical operators, and machines mediating informal and formal learning. The second part of the paper applies visual representations of CT and IA to understanding the use of Pask’s (...) course assembly systems (CASTE and THOUGHTSTICKER), created between the late 1960s and the 1980s, and the ThoughtShuffler search interface, created in the 2010s. The third part proposes two pathways for design based on CT and IA: firstly, the potential for designers and observers to reformulate the qualities of tools and learning scenarios to augment human thinking and collective action; and secondly, the possibility to create tools with malleable interfaces that allow users to become intermediaries rather than consumers of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper discusses operationalization of open educational practices (OEP) using innovative, Internet-influenced pedagogies to expose dangers of post-truth narratives. The first part reviews interpretations of OEP (associated with open-access and tools, collaboration, problem-centered learning, and democratic pedagogy) and explores possibilities for creating educational initiatives where students learn to create problem-solving communities mirroring an informationally healthy society. The second part suggests our society has reached a post-truth crossroads. Post-truth was initially discussed in the 1990s—a reification of critical theorists’ pessimism of social (...) structures, controlling narratives and ways members react to critical events, whether through obedience to institutional authority or support for destructive adventurism, creating situations producing cybernetic double binds. The third part contextualizes OEP as ecologically grounded pedagogies through an open source educational processes framework focusing on productive many-to-many online communication and community formation, offering practical examples of open source educational processes curricula implemented in a higher education setting. (shrink)

This three-part article reinforces crosscurrents between cybernetician Gordon Pask’s work towards creating responsive machines applied to theater and education, and Vygotsky’s theory, to advance sociohistorical approaches into the internet age. We first outline Pask’s discovery of possibilities of a neoclassical cybernetic framework for human–human, human–machine, and machine–machine conversations. Second, we outline conversation theory as an elaboration of the reconstruction of mental models/concepts by observers through reliance on sociocultural psychological approaches, and apply concepts like the zone of proximal development and perezhivanie (...) to Paskian aesthetic technologies. Third, we interpret Pask’s teaching/learning devices as zones of proximal development, and outline how Paskian algorithms in digital devices like THOUGHTSTICKER have been generalized on today’s internet, supplemented by corporate interests. We conclude that Paskian theory may offer understandings of the roles of internet technologies in transforming human thinking, and suggest (re)designing tools incorporating algorithms that contextually advance conceptual understanding that deviates from current indexing approaches. (shrink)

This qualitative study presents 27 students’ insights about four teachers’ implementation of an immersive Native American history curricular unit designed to equip students with digital skills to critically navigate complex, polarizing social issues. The Digital Civic Learning (DCL) curriculum used Google Suite and Google Classroom or Schoology to provide collaborative slides supporting immersive 2D-graphics, children’s books/resources, immersive activities/artefact-creation, and multimodal tools (e.g., discussion posts, Flipgrid video-essays). Teachers regulated student thinking/behavior towards cohesive outcomes, and encouraged open-ended exploration, operationalizing the design framework (...) as a zone of proximal development (ZPD). The history unit incorporates four cybernetic design features (DF) that enable teachers to steer student-centered collaboration within the curricular unit. The teacher serves four diverse roles (guide, facilitator, modeler, participant observer) mapping onto the DF. Results of focus group interviews with students, which were analyzed based on a theory-informed coding scheme and narrative inquiry, suggest ways for social studies teachers to operationalize the DCL immersive history unit as a cybernetic ZPD by adapting its basic structure to technologies accessible in their schools by adapting its basic structure to technologies accessible in their schools. (shrink)

This article outlines links between cybernetics and psychology through the black box metaphor using a tripartite narrative. The first part explores first-order cybernetic approaches to opening the black box. These developments run parallel to the decline of radical behaviorism and advancements in information processing theory and neuropsychology. We then describe how cybernetics migrates towards a second-order approach (expanding and questioning features of first-order inquiry), understanding applications of rule-based tools to sociocultural phenomena and dynamic mental models, inspiring radical constructivism, and also (...) accepting social constructivism. Psychology, however, enters the cognitive revolution, adhering to the computer metaphor of first-order cyberneticians to streamline human consciousness. The article concludes by outlining how second-order cybernetic approaches emerging in the 1990s may provide cues to psychologists to adopt mixed methods, and bioecological models in the information age, uniting understandings of observable human activity, inner perceptions, and physiological processes across contexts to understand consciousness. (shrink)

Current distance education practices can be susceptible to the types of content-heavy, top-down instruction often seen in physical classrooms. These practices are similar to the activities of corporations, which use recommendation systems and game theory to mold the public sphere and fragment it. We propose that free knowledge creation through open, multichannel communication needs to be used in distance education to permit both individual and collective agency for students to process knowledge and develop higher order reflectivity. Such frameworks would help (...) students of distance education and instructors to use critical thinking to discuss concepts as equal stakeholders and develop varied ideological outcomes that could contribute to creating social change. This conceptual paper places current distance education practices within Habermasian theory, discusses ways in which the Internet and its educative potential has come to be viewed thus far, and suggests platforms that could open distance learning to new possibilities. (shrink)

The Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky was immersed in theater and the arts through much of his life, collaborating with scholars of the psychology of acting, including Konstantin Stanislavski’s close confidante and long-time editor Liubov Gurevich, on terms and theories expressed in his historically defining text, An Actor’s Work. This article connects linguistic, theoretical, and methodological aspects of Stanislavski’s work with Vygotsky’s quest to develop a new psychology, finding its apogee in the works of his final years, especially after he (...) gained access to an extended draft of Stanislavski’s chapters. As Vygotsky’s theories continue to influence the field of psychology, this article looks to provide a guidepost for refining understanding of Vygotsky’s theories based on archival evidence and a close reading of contemporary translations of Vygotsky’s major works. (shrink)

Studies suggest college students/adult learners interacting with current search tools like Google display tendency to power-browse and adhere to page-ranking order in choosing sources to supplement writing. Such limitations may limit critical reflectivity. We present a tool, ThoughtShuffler which allows users to malleably alter neighborhoods of keywords and presents results as arrays of cards and collections that can be compared and contrasted. We conducted binary qualitative coding of essays produced by 39 users divided into experimental and control conditions and computed (...) a one-tailed t-test to understand if using ThoughtShuffler produced greater likelihood for higher-order reflectivity expressed in writing about efficacy of varied healthcare models in the US, compared to the use of Google to write about the same prompt. Our results suggest that updating search engine interfaces to afford capacity for lateral reading may present potential to augment reflective information search. (shrink)

Despite iterative learning design being increasingly implemented, such approaches are often delineated by well-defined periods of design/implementation. However, second-order cybernetics, which suggests a participatory approach to learning design, involves responsively adapting learning environments to meet students’ needs, treating them as agentic participants in the classroom. In our mixed methods study, we investigate whether such a process can facilitate egalitarian participation and collaborative interactions in a technology-assisted classroom. We use the example of a graduate psychology class of 17 students and suggest (...) that adaptation of live-chat activities by a participant observer on the Reddit social media platform that supplemented the in-person lecture dynamically, using a network analysis and qualitative ethnography as a modelling facility mimicked the ongoing feedback loops of social media platforms, enabling students to use social media with a critical eye, and engage in productive collaboration. Our quantitative results present network graphs for weekly eigen centrality to understand the egalitarian nature of the network, and transitivity to understand the likelihood for collaboration between more than two agents. Our qualitative results elaborate selected Reddit posts, and weekly field notes to explain how redesigning the chat weekly helped augment lecture-based discussion with the instructor and critique of student presentations, spurring egalitarian participation through a space-place dialectic. Students also provided end-semester feedback that was analyzed using inductive coding, to design future courseware. (shrink)