Pattern: Narrative spaces
Pattern: Narrative spaces
| Summary |
Constructing narrative is a fundamental mechanism for making sense of events and observations. To leverage it, we must give learners opportunities to express themselves in narrative form. |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Status 
| alpha | Confidence
| 0 | ||
| details... | Group | Participatory learning
|
|||
Problem
Narrative is a powerful cognitive and epistemological construct (Bruner 1986; 1990). Science and Mathematics appear to be antithetical to narrative form, which is always personal, contextual and time-bound.Context
Digital environments for collaborative learning.Solution
Provide learners with a narrative space: a medium, integrated with the activity design, which allows learners to express and explore ideas in a narrative form:- Allow for free-form text, e.g. by supporting soft scaffolding.
- Choose narrative representations when possible.
- Clearly mark the speaker / author, to support a sense of voice.
- Date contributions to support temporal sequentiality ('plot').
- Use semi-automated meta-data to provide context.
Related Patterns
list other patterns related to this one, under categories such as component, assisting, conflicting, uses this, etc.
Used by:
.. and othersAssisted:
Support
* Source and Additional Supporting Cases
Source Case (chosen from Case Studies)
Other Cases (chosen from Case Studies)
- Streaming Theatre
- Blogging4Educators
- Architecture 4 Participatory Learning workshop, Singapore, Aug. 2008
- PED 2
- How to write a story
Links to External Case Stories & Examples
* Rationale (theoretical justification)
Theoretical justification.
In terms of the Conversational Framework (Laurillard 2002) this pattern relates to the aspect of 'the learner's conception as practice'. In terms of Black and Wiliam's (2009) theory of formative feedback, this is an example of key strategy 2 'Engineering effective classroom discussion and other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student understanding.' Bruner (1986) has made a strong argument for the role of narrative thought in learning: "There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) are irreducible: to one another. Efforts to reduce one mode to the other or to ignore one at the expense of the other inevitably fail to capture the rich diversity of thought. Each of the ways of knowing, moreover, has operating principles of its own and its own criteria of well-formedness. They differ radically in their procedures for verification. A. good story and and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can be used as means for convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different:arguments convince. one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal to procedures for establishing formal and empirical proof. The other establishes not truth bur verisimilitude."* Verification (Solutions that were derived from this pattern)
Scenarios / solutions which were developed using this pattern.
Notes, Links and References
Liabilities, potential risks, extensions, expected side-effects
Licensing
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
