Learning-centered environments: The design of strategies for sociocultural interaction and their role in solving complex problems

This study intended to research the sociocultural interaction that resulted when participants engaged in complex problem solving. The learning centered environment was a college photography course with 53 participants. The term "sociocultural" refers to theories of learning, development, and instruction as cultural and personal. The goal of the study was to investigate the possibility that sociocultural strategies for instruction could be incorporated into the systematic design of instruction.; The theory stated that the more complex the problem students must learn to solve the more likely they are to rely on higher levels of social interaction. To put theory into practice the study proposed a framework made up of three items. The first item defines learning as simultaneous mediation by the individual with and for the group between data, information, knowledge and culture. Transitions between data organized create information, which usable or "actionable" becomes knowledge. Culture evolves as values and practices are defined by the sharing of knowledge. Learning is the appropriation of those values and practices or culture. Four external overlapping, contiguous levels of interaction and two areas of individual internal processes define the second element. The four levels are defined by didactic, apprenticeship, situated and intersubjective activities. Internal processes are knowledge, control and sociability. The third item interprets the analysis of motive and action as developmental stages in which instruction is interpreted as purpose informing action. This particular tool enables the analysis of complex subject matter and embrace rather than avoids ambiguity.; The questions that framed the inquiry addressed the effect of social interaction on performance in a learning-centered community and the affect sociocultural instructional strategies have on learning. Quantitative analysis looked at what learning differences could be attributed to collaboration. One group was assigned to a small group and the other was not assigned but not restricted from group collaboration. Qualitative analysis addressed the second question by reviewing differences the highest and lowest performers.; The results of the inquiry validated assumptions about instruction embedded with social interaction strategies. As the most successful performing students mediated solutions to the complex problem they shifted to higher levels of social learning strategies. Generalizations of the results are limited due to the unique course, environment and the role of the instructor, who was also the researcher for this study.