Figure 1: Stahl (2006:237) diagram of the Cycle of knowing
Stahl's model of the cycle of knowing or 'group cognition' shows the necessary and intrinsic link between the processes of 'personal knowing' and the processes of 'collaborative knowing', which he also terms 'group cognition'. The evidence for the existence of the dual linked processes here, Stahl finds primarily in 'interaction analysis', a refinement of 'conversation analysis'. The evidence used comes from the methods and theories of many academic disciplines and 'involves issues of pedagogy, software design, technical implementation, cognitive theories, social theories, experimental method, working with teachers and students, and the practicalities of recording and analyzing (sic.) classroom data (246).'
Comments
Group Cognition as a Feedback Loop: Stahl's Cycle and the Systems View
Reading back through older posts for inspiration, this one points at something structural. Stahl's cycle of knowing is a feedback loop. Personal knowing feeds collaborative knowing. Collaborative knowing feeds back into personal knowing. Neither is prior to the other. The system produces both. That is a systems claim, not just a pedagogical one. The individual mind is not a container that gets filled and then shared. It is a component in a larger system that produces cognition at the group level. Stahl's interaction analysis is the method for observing that system in operation. The unit of analysis shifts from the individual to the group. The boundary problem is the interesting one. Where does one mind end and another begin when the loop is running? Stahl's answer, implicit in the diagram, is that the boundary is not a line but a relationship. The system is the loop, not the nodes. That is the same insight that systems thinkers apply to organisations, markets, and ecologies. The behaviour of the whole cannot be reduced to the behaviour of the parts. The multi-disciplinary evidence Stahl draws on is itself a systems argument. No single discipline can observe the loop in full. Pedagogy sees one part. Cognitive theory sees another. Software design sees a third. The system is only visible when the perspectives are combined. That is the practice of systems thinking applied to the study of learning.
Regards,
Russell Larke
BA (Hons) Business Management | MSc Candidate (Systems Thinking)
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