Victims of Outcomes:  Towards an Enactivist Model of Technological Literacy

Alan Cheville; John Heywood

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Technological and Engineering Literacy - Philosophy of Engineering Division Technical Session 3
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41624
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41624
Download Count: 216

Paper Authors

biography

Alan Cheville Bucknell University

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Alan Cheville studied optoelectronics and ultrafast optics at Rice University before joining Oklahoma State University working on terahertz frequencies and engineering education. While at Oklahoma State he developed courses in photonics and engineering design. After serving for two and a half years as a program director in engineering education at the National Science Foundation, he became chair of the ECE Department at Bucknell University. He is currently interested in engineering design education, engineering education policy, and the philosophy of engineering education.

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biography

John Heywood Trinity College Dublin

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John Heywood completed 60 years of membership with ASEE in June. His first paper to ERM was in 1973. He has some 190 authored and co-authored publications including 6 books on aspects of engineering education. His "Engineering Education. Research and Development in Curriculum and Instruction" received the best research publication award from the Division for the Professions of the American Educational research Association" . His most recent book Designing Engineering and Technology Curricula. Embedding Educational Philosophy was published by Morgan and Claypool as an e book this year.
He is a Professor Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin (The University of Dublin) where he was for twenty years Director of Teacher Education. Prior to that he was a member of the Faculty of Engineering, Department of Industrial Studies at the University of Liverpool. He directed the first attempt at a multi-dimensional analysis of the jobs done by engineers published in 1978 as "Analysing Jobs". His particular interests in engineering are in radio astronomy and space research and he participated in one of the radio observation programmes of Sputnik I. He is a Fellow of ASEE and a Life Fellow of IEEE.

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Abstract

Cyclical models are often used to describe how students learn and develop. These models usually focus on the cognitive domain and describe how knowledge and skills are learned within a course or classroom. By providing insights into how students learn and thus how an instructor can support learning, these models and the schemas drawn from them also influence beliefs about learning and thus how educational programs are designed and developed. In this paper the authors present an alternative cyclical model of learning that is drawn from a philosophy of enactivism rather than rational dualism. In comparison with the dualism inherent in viewpoints derived from Descartes where learners construct internal mental representation from inputs received from the external world, in enactivism development occurs through continual dynamic interactions between an agent and their environment. Enactivism thus emphasizes the role environments play in learning and development.

The model developed in this paper hypothesizes that the environment in which learning typically occurs can be represented by three elements: the learner’s identity and culture which informs personally significant goals and values; the affordances a degree program offers in areas of knowledge, identity, and context which informs the capabilities of the environment; and the implicit and explicit goals of education as they are negotiated and understood by learners and teachers. These three elements are strongly coupled and together define the ever-changing learning environment.

The paper explores how changing technologies and cultures affect each of these three elements in regards to students’ ability to become technologically literate. While rational or dualist views of education see such environmental changes as peripheral to developing accurate representations of truth, enactivism posits that environment significantly affects the process of education. Because each student or faculty member is a participant in a learning organization changes within the organization—whether externally or internally driven—change the learning process. If education is deemed successful when students can transfer learning to new contexts, dualist models assume transfer is weakly coupled to educational environments while the enactivist viewpoint posits that environments strongly affect transfer.

The enactivist model can inform efforts to encourage technological literacy. Like many areas in STEM, education technological literacy has sought to identify and support learning outcomes that specify effective teaching or content interventions which enable learners to become more technologically literate. From the enactivist perspective, however, technological literacy is achieved by placing individuals into an environment in which they must navigate technology-induced challenges, with success defined as learning processes that allow learners to manage tensions inherent in their environment. Because most students already live in such environments teaching definable or enumerable outcomes makes less sense than helping student to be metacognitive and reflective how they manage and relate with technology.

Citation
Format

Cheville, A., & Heywood, J. (2022, August), Victims of Outcomes: Towards an Enactivist Model of Technological Literacy Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41624

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Cyclical models are often used to describe how students learn and develop.  These models usually focus on the cognitive domain and describe how knowledge and skills are learned within a course or classroom.  By providing insights into how students learn and thus how an instructor can support learning, these models and the schemas drawn from them also influence beliefs about learning and thus how educational programs are designed and developed.  In this paper the authors present an alternative cyclical model of learning that is drawn from a philosophy of enactivism rather than rational dualism.  In comparison with the dualism inherent in viewpoints derived from Descartes where learners construct internal mental representation from inputs received from the external world, in enactivism development occurs through continual dynamic interactions between an agent and their environment.  Enactivism thus emphasizes the role environments play in learning and development.

The model developed in this paper hypothesizes that the environment in which learning typically occurs can be represented by three elements:  the learner’s identity and culture which informs personally significant goals and values; the affordances a degree program offers in areas of knowledge, identity, and context which informs the capabilities of the environment; and the implicit and explicit goals of education as they are negotiated and understood by learners and teachers.  These three elements are strongly coupled and together define the ever-changing learning environment.

The paper explores how changing technologies and cultures affect each of these three elements in regards to students’ ability to become technologically literate.  While rational or dualist views of education see such environmental changes as peripheral to developing accurate representations of truth, enactivism posits that environment significantly affects the process of education.  Because each student or faculty member is a participant in a learning organization changes within the organization—whether externally or internally driven—change the learning process.  If education is deemed successful when students can transfer learning to new contexts, dualist models assume transfer is weakly coupled to educational environments while the enactivist viewpoint posits that environments strongly affect transfer.   

The enactivist model can inform efforts to encourage technological literacy.  Like many areas in STEM, education technological literacy has sought to identify and support learning outcomes that specify effective teaching or content interventions which enable learners to become more technologically literate.  From the enactivist perspective, however, technological literacy is achieved by placing individuals into an environment in which they must navigate technology-induced challenges, with success defined as learning processes that allow learners to manage tensions inherent in their environment.  Because most students already live in such environments teaching definable or enumerable outcomes makes less sense than helping student to be metacognitive and reflective how they manage and relate with technology.
AU  - Alan Cheville
AU  - John Heywood
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Victims of Outcomes:  Towards an Enactivist Model of Technological Literacy
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41624
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41624
ER  -