ETEC530-66A-Melanie Briar Jamieson, Assignment #1

I walked the Road to Nowhere in Iqaluit, Nunavut in the late 1980s as an embodied
female undergraduate. In the mid-2000s, I added wife and high school teacher to my identity,
and this time I walked the Road to Nowhere in the company of my yet unborn child. I initially
viewed the road as a destination to drink with friends, 15 years later the roads significance
changed to a healthy hike to appreciate tundra beauty. My view from Nowhere changed as my
situated experience of the world developed. My non-objective view from Road to Nowhere
challenges the empiricists agent who transcends subjectivity to allow a view from nowhere
(Cole, 1995; Harding, 2002). This composition explains my route to understanding the
intersection of knowledge, constructivism and learning.

I was frustrated by Prichards (2013) epistemological approach to knowledge that it is

objective truth (location 334 of 5433), that can be separate from emotion (location 1237) and
that epistemic norms can be taught wrongly (location 1302). My disinclination to empiricist
epistemology was realized during the first study group meeting. My inability to articulate my
opinion of Prichards (2013) presentation of epistemology was limited because I lacked the
knowledge and language to adequately defend my point of view (Jamieson, May 16, 2016). I
thoughtlessly accepted the authority of Prichard (2013) because it is a core course text. Further, I
attempted to fit my view that a culturally steeped agent could never know the real world
(Jamieson, June 17, 2016).

I have since learnt through further readings in ETEC530, that my understanding of

knowledge is more in alignment with feminist scholars who defend knowledge as socially
situated (Harding, 2002). These academics critique the classical model of knowledge because it
is culturally disembodied (Harding, 2002), presumes universality (Harding, 2003) and is defined
by homogenous dominant knowers (Code, 1995).

Fosnot & Perry (2005) provided the constructivist perspective that knowledge is an
individual construction that cant be produced by another person (Fosnot & Perry, 2005, location
212 of 6917). This new information provided the disequilibrium (So, 2002) or cognitive
dissonance (Baviskar, Hartle, & Whitney, 2009) essential for building on my prior knowledge of
Prichards writing.

I am reminded of a time when my colleagues were discussing Open Educational

Resources, I had assumed because we were speaking about OERs we had the same
understanding. When we released our content staff argued that materials should be behind logins
with more restrictive licensing; each of us had very different mental constructs of Open. Over
the next several weeks we worked hard to navigate our individual meanings.

Learning can be hard and uncomfortable, having struggled through the disequilibrium of
new knowledge in this course, I will try as an instructor not to jump in with answers. I will try to
support and encourage my learners to develop their own mental map for understanding new
concepts. I have learnt from my own experience of learning about constructivism that presenting
learners with a deterministic lesson that does not provide opportunities for building their
knowledge.

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ETEC530-66A-Melanie Briar Jamieson, Assignment #1

From Iqaluit, NU, I was at the top of the world, but very much in and of the world. I deny
the premise that knowledge can be a view from nowhere because I believe that knowledge
must be situated with a sociocultural lens and the view has a someone, that is somewhere,
sometime, some culture, some gender, amongst some people.

References

Baviskar, S. N., Hartle, R. T., & Whitney, T. (2009). Essential criteria to characterize
constructivist teaching: Derived from a review of the literature and applied to five
constructivist teaching method articles. International Journal of Science Education, 31(4),
541-550. Retrieved from:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09500690701731121

Code, L. (1995). Taking Subjectivity into Account. In Ruitenberg, C. W., & Phillips, D. C.
(Eds.). (2012). Education, Culture and Epistemological Diversity: Mapping a Disputed
Terrain (Vol. 2). Springer. Retrieved from: http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?
bid=5824478

Fosnot, C.T., Perry, R.S. (2005). Constructivism: A Psychological Theory of Learning, in

Fosnot, C. T. Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice.(2nd ed.). New York:
Teachers College Press.

Harding, S. (2002). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What isstrong objectivity.

Knowledge and inquiry: Readings in epistemology, 352-384. Retrieved from:
https://www.msu.edu/~pennock5/courses/484%20materials/harding-standpoint-strong-
objectivity.pdf

Harding, S. (2003). Representing reality: The critical realism project. Feminist Economics, 9(1),
151-159.

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ETEC530-66A-Melanie Briar Jamieson, Assignment #1

Jamieson, B. (2016, May 16). ETEC530 Weekly MeetUp. [Collaborative Notes]. Retrieved
from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ASebaExYTeXqtfPxFs_kVD1XU-
QL1q1BM0uxj-4dW4U/edit?usp=sharing

Jamieson, M.B. (2016, June 17). Thread: If there is no 'external world' then what is a 'real
world' task? [Online discussion group]. Retrieved from
https://connect.ubc.ca/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?
action=list_messages&forum_id=_325382_1&nav=discussion_board_entry&conf_id=_2
43562_1&course_id=_78783_1&message_id=_2616602_1#msg__2616602_1Id

Pritchard, D. (2013). What is this thing called knowledge?. New York: Routledge.

So, Winnie Wing-Mui. (2002). Constructivist Teaching in Primary Science. Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 3, Issue 1, Article 1. Retrieved from:
http://www.ied.edu.hk/apfslt/v3_issue1/sowm/sowm2.htm#two

Image

Illustration depicts stages of my situated learning through time and centered in the world and
intersecting with past constructs of the world. Baby, K-12, University, Career, ETEC530 (where
I briefly accepted a mind-independent world), and future self-understanding that there is a place
for emotion in situated learning and constructivism. These stages loosely reference Piagets
stages of cognitive development and Vygotskys zone of proximal readiness.

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ETEC530-66A-Melanie Briar Jamieson, Assignment #1