Abstract
This dissertation is an examination of five years of research which includes: an ethnography of children's epistemologies--in-depth case studies of three children from the Logo constructionist culture called Project Headlight, at the Hennigan School in Boston; a theoretical discussion of the epistemological and ethnographic perspectives underlying the work; and, a description of the multimedia video methodology and design process. Three preferred thinking styles emerge from this study--the empirical, the narrative and the social/interpersonal. The success or failure of each child's appropriation relates to her/his preferred style of thinking. Preferred styles are shown to be pervasive throughout many diverse domains. The video data from which I drew my conclusions about their thinking were generated by engaging in personal relationships with these children over a two-and-a-half year period. I investigated, by recording these conversations on video, what we learn about children's thinking when we listen carefully to how they link their experiences together in coherent ways. The results of my research are four case studies--one is the overall school culture within Project Headlight, and the other three are in-depth case studies of one girl and two boys, who chose to tell their stories to me. What this study yields is very fine-grained descriptions of how children speak about themselves. Each child represents a preferred style of thinking: empirical, narrative and interpersonal. Description of Learning Constellations. Learning Constellations is the name I have given to the set of six videodiscs and a specifically designed HyperCard application which I designed with my development team to provide non-linear access to: (1) documentary style video observations; (2) the transcripts of the video; (3) textual annotations; (4) video annotations; and (5) this dissertation. Integral to the system are tools for navigating through the units of video and text, or stars; tools for searching through the different domains or galaxies; tools for clustering stars and building learning constellations; and tools for building theories. (Abstract shortened with permission of school.)(Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
