Comments on "Ding" in Communities of Practice: Examining Learning as Legitimate Peripheral Participation in an Everyday Setting

It's nice to be introduced to a problem that I have faced as I began to read the essay: How do we define learning. The author quoted ancient Greek philosophers (Heraclitus and Parmenides) both of who had very different views on the world they were teaching about. One believed the world an ever changing thing, the other saw it as never really changing. The author introduces the problem this creates for researchers who study learning.
 One anecdotal story is told in which researchers interviewed and then observed math classes. In the interviews the teachers and students claimed to be following traditional styles of math but in practice they were not. Not only is this an excellent example of why observation is necessary along with interviews to get the complete picture, but also is an example of why there is so much confusion over learning (inadequate/ unclear definitions of what is the researcher is considering to be the style of learning or of learning in itself).
Next the author begins to talk about the reasoning, or lack there of, between the organization and purpose of learning materials and future activities in the business world.
  Lagache points to a need for quantifiable tests in regards to learning styles, materials, etc. One way to do this he says is to recognize that each place of learning (schools in this case) is it's own micro-world, with a micro-culture that the researcher must take into account.
To do this Lagache suggests researchers gain access to the social climate through befriending the participants on the edge of the learning environment and progress with them through the journey. This sounds remarkably like what Dr. Griffith has described when she talks about her research techniques which is really no surprise as we have talked about Lave and Wagner and Peripheral participation.
Further in the author elaborates on the intricacies of peripheral learning through the example of scuba diving and becoming a master scuba diver. While it was an interesting topic the most research related thing to report about this section is the elaborate use of diagrams to describe what the author is talking about. I'll have to look back over the paper and be sure to include more diagrams in the finished product, they are incredibly helpful in communicating ideas. Does that make me a visual learner?
The author concludes by pointing out how diving is an excellent hobby because it's learning sphere is so removed from the typical life that a person  might have allowing them the break they need in a hobby, however it is not without it's influences by deep cultural effects (such as effects of race, class, gender, etc).
It was a very well written article that related greatly to the learning type of community I will be studying, I think I may try to find more articles written by Lagache.




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