Partial Understandings Research Articles

Enemies of the Trees? Subsistence Farmers and Perverse Protection of Tropical Dry Forest

Abstract As deforestation and habitat degradation proceed worldwide, the elaboration of realistic policies to protect and sustain forests assumes increasing urgency. Experience from one area of threatened tropical dry forest illustrates, however, that staunch environmental regulation based on partial understandings can have strikingly contradictory effects. In this study from the Dominican Republic, extensive dialogue and field observation with local residents offered a glimpse beyond the obvious proximal causes of forest loss–the subsistence farmers and charcoal makers regularly seen felling trees–to important influences of their socioeconomic and legal contexts.

“Love, love, and more love for children”: exploring preservice teachers’ understandings of caring

The development of an ethic of care is seen as a central concern of teacher education, however little attention has been paid to the preconceived conceptions of caring held by preservice teachers. In this article we share the results of a recent study of a group of preservice elementary teachers in which we examined the understandings of the relationship of caring and teaching brought by these novices to their first field placement experiences. Rather than seeing our students’ partial and limited understandings as problematic, we argue that the student teachers’ preconceptions can be an ideal starting point for productive, educative dialogue about caring and elementary school teaching practice.

Learning in the social context of ambulatory care clinics.

Social learning theory describes the process by which medical students and residents become members of the professional community of physicians. According to this theory, learning is enhanced when students and residents can share with each other their partial understandings and when they can observe and emulate the thinking and actions of expert role models. The authors make several recommendations for how social learning theory may be applied to education in ambulatory care settings: (1) preceptors should pay careful attention to orienting learners and creating legitimate roles for learners appropriate to their levels of training and ability and their educational needs; (2) since students and residents learn by observing and interacting with preceptors, competent role models should be provided; (3) to be most effective, learners should be told in advance what will be modeled, observe the demonstration, discuss what occurred and why it did or did not work effectively, and, finally, be given the opportunity to practice new actions, first with guidance and later independently; (4) when debriefing about modeled interactions, preceptors should encourage self-monitoring and self-assessment; (5) preceptors should create opportunities for collaborative learning, because collaboration with peers allows learners to discover their own misconceptions and help others to develop a richer understanding of medical practice. Implementing these guidelines in ambulatory care training will enable learners and preceptors to arrive at the shared meanings and common understandings that form the foundation of the professional medical community.

Recent Trends in the Study of Cognitive Development: Variations on a Task-Analytic Theme

The purpose of this article is to review recent advances in task-analytic techniques for studying cognitive development. Task analysis involves breaking down problems into component operations and then combining the components into models of performance. Two early influential task-analytic techniques were those of <i>Gagné </i>and <i>Simon; </i>each of these is briefly described and evaluated. Next, three recently-developed techniques are explored. <i>Sternberg’s </i>componential analysis approach is an effort to identify components that are general across many tasks. <i>Gelman’s </i>analysis in terms of principles is intended to uncover knowledge underlying the choice of performance routines. My own rule-assessment approach is aimed at revealing the sequence of partial understandings preceding conceptual mastery. The article ends with the speculation that investigation of learning represents a likely future direction for application of task-analytic techniques.