Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Remembering is a reconstructive process whereby we use the memory traces
to help build new thoughts that (we trust) are close to those we had that triggered
the original trace. The process does not give perfect fidelity, so remembering is
creative: it involves making sense of the available trace as best as possible. This
explains, of course, why the same student seems to know something one day, but
to have forgotten it the next: the same memory trace will be sufficient to gener-
ate thinking similar enough to the original thoughts under some conditions, but
not others. It also explains how students can remember a teaching episode, but
manage to recall it as supporting their own alternative conceptions, even when the
teaching was specifically designed to challenge those very conceptions. Recalling
(correctly) that the teacher showed us electrical circuits and measured the current
flow at different points can be the basis of a (reconstructed) narrative where the real
details are interpreted in terms of the students' understanding: so the student remem-
bers (incorrectly) how the teacher showed that current decreases around the circuit
(Gauld, 1989)—and has no awareness that only parts of the memory are based on
the original events.
The important point here is that any simplistic notion of whether someone
“knows” something or not will not do justice to human cognition. People will give
reports of thinking that seem to indicate certain knowledge under some conditions
when perceptual cues, and preceding thoughts, allow memory traces to generate
ideas that will not be “recalled” under other conditions. This explains some of the
variation sometimes found in research into students' scientific thinking.
Situated Knowledge and Distributed Cognition
There has been a good deal of work exploring “situated” knowledge, where a person
can apparently demonstrate knowledge only in particular situations, such that the
knowledge cannot be considered to reside in the individual as such, as in other
contexts it is apparently not demonstrated (Hennessy, 1993). This again relates to
what we mean by “having” or “holding” knowledge. Here we need to consider how
a person's cognitive apparatus accesses both memory traces and perceptual cues in
the environment when processing (thinking).
If familiar environments cue activation of particular memories, leading to
behaviour (e.g. talking or writing) that we interpret as demonstrating knowledge and
understanding, then we will find that the context dependence of performance varies
between individuals—that is some will demonstrate knowledge at most times and
places; others only when conditions closely match those of the learning episodes.
This raises issues for assessing student learning.
Indeed the distinction between only being able to offer accounts we judge as
demonstrating knowledge in certain contexts, and the ability of an individual to pro-
duce similar reports through reading information directly from a reference source
may need to be seen as separate points on a continuum. When teachers adopt
