| Motivating students to engage in rigorous academic work in math and science over sustained periods of time is challenging, particularly in the case of students who have not previously done well in school. In part, I argue, this is due to a pervasive and deeply held set of cultural tools for thinking about individuals, knowledge, and communication. In this thesis, I propose a new set of cultural tools and show how they can actually be used in transforming teaching and learning among "at risk," inner city middle school students in science.;With funding from the Spencer Foundation, The Talk, Text, and Identity (TTI) project (PIs: James Paul Gee and Sarah Michaels) developed an experimental after-school site, known as the Investigators Club, for which I served as co-designer, lead-teacher, and teacher-researcher. The goal of the I-Club was to engineer the induction of school-disaffiliated 7th- and 8th-graders into a culture and social practice which "recruited" school-based skills and knowledge. I describe the principles and practices of the I-Club, with emphasis on a recurring activity known as "Circle Up Time," and provide a range of indicators showing that the I-Club was a successful innovation, promoting motivation, learning in science, and a sense of academic efficacy.;In describing, and analyzing the Investigators Club, as both a set of principles and a set of practices, I bring together: (a) work on apprenticeship and intersubjectivity traditionally examined within the field of psychology; (b) sociolinguistic studies of participation and identity transformation; and (c) practitioner research focusing on teacher-student, student-student, and whole-group discussion.;Using video tapes and transcripts from the 1996--97 I-Club, I attempt to explore and explain the "architecture of intersubjectivity," that is, how it was that a shared world came to be created with the I-Club members, and how this supported them to develop skills, habits of mind, and identities as kids who, although perhaps failing in school, were nonetheless "smart" in the I-Club. Ragnar Rommetveit's work on "intersubjectivity" and the notion of "apprenticeship learning" provide a conceptual structure for understanding Discourse acquisition at the microgenetic level. Finally, I discuss the implications of this work both theoretically and practically. |
