An issue that comes up across several threads of discussion, including Diana Laurillard's paper and clarifications on learning activities, Steve Draper's rebellion against "learner-centeredness," and Tom Reeve's reflection on "authentic activity" is the ability of the learner to be a "self-learner."
[A pause as Clark puts on his curmudgeon hat...]
We (and the university academics Diana is trying to help look at learning from the students' views) are the people for whom schooling didn't destroy the love of learning. In addition we are the ones adept at self-learning. We have the ability to relate activity we are engaged in to a description (and manipulate that description).
We can, and do, attend lectures (conferences) and read books (as Archie Zariski [1 May 96] points out) and gain from the experience. Yes, we often do have subsequent discussions "in the halls" (as do our students), but not ALL interesting learning happens there. Many of us, the shy ones, may go away and ruminate on the discussions privately, and still find them valuable.
Of course, we are engaged in activity, and only particular talks or books are going to hit us at the right stage to make the connection. (It also depends on the skill of the author to facilitate that "accessibility.") Yet we have the ability to access and utilize new descriptions that make our endeavors meaningful and to enhance our abilities to perform the tasks. We do benefit from feedback, but we often know when and how to obtain this feedback.
This is a special, hopefully trainable skill (the "transfer to life-long learning" interests of Tom [Reeves, 1 May 96]). Steve Draper is right when he claims that many students cannot make this connection without aid. While it's good to consider all the qualities of good design that make the activities meaningful to the domain and to the learner and connect them to the shared description, I wonder whether we shouldn't also be ensuring that our students will acquire and exercise the ability to be engaged in activity and be able to relate that activity to passive presentations of descriptions. How else are we going to empower our students to continue their learning beyond our influence?
So here I wish to disagree with Archie, perhaps, and say that it is not those particular events that make teachers in a discipline able to associate specific practice with a related description, though that is valuable, but it is the more general ability to relate activity to a description. Do we want to accept that only some of us will have this ability? I'm not willing to concede (at least not yet) that this skill isn't malleable. I am not trying to be elite (though at other times I may argue for this), but instead to sincerely question whether we should not be supporting students to become self-learners by gradually removing the scaffolding in higher education. This does not, of course, remove the requirement for careful design of the activities (and obviously raises the question of whether it is even our role).
Even more provocatively: Perhaps our "enculturation" is to model the process of self-learning [Bigum, 2 May 96]. And does this then move back to the "learning companion" model that Steve Draper [29 Apr 96.b] accuses Gibbons [4 Apr 96] of espousing?
[He now removes his hat and...]
In reflecting on the above words, it brings me back to Diana's point: as scientists, we negotiate our descriptions. Perhaps we also need to help students understand that part of the process as well (as suggested in the Cognitive Apprenticeship approach of Collins, Brown, & Newman), and have them engaged in the process of criticism and revision of descriptions.
It occurs to me that one criticism of Diana's model is that it could be used to argue that the "objectivist" point that there is one "truth" that the teacher assists the student in internalizing (not through a didactic process but through a dialogue). That is, the descriptions of the teacher are too enshrined in her model. While it is not explicit, it is implicit; the negotiation is not to a shared understanding but for the student to acquire the teachers conception. (Diana, can you clarify the status of the teacher's description in your model?)
How do we, rather, have the student realize that the description we want them to internalize is merely the latest and best approach to a description but that it is continually under negotiation/revision? I would be inclined to argue that, for at least university education, this is an important part of the outcome.