Reality By Design

The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in Education

Joseph Petraglia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1998
• eBook ISBN: 9781135692100
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

In the first paragraphs of this volume, the author identifies an "authenticity paradox": that the purported real-worldedness of a learning environment, technique, or task is so rhetorically potent that educators frequently call attention to it in pedagogical conversations to legitimize their undertakings, while at the same time, terms such as "real-world" and "authentic" do not require (and even resist) precise delineation.

Using the language of authenticity as a keyhole through which to view contemporary educational theory, Petraglia draws on theories of cognition, education, and knowledge to articulate the interdisciplinarity of "constructivism" and to expose the unsettling combination of constructivism's social scientific and epistemological commitments. He argues that a full-bodied embrace of constructivist theory requires that educators forgo "knowledge as we know it" and recommends a "rhetorical" approach to constructivist instruction that recognizes the cultural, social, and behavioral practices which play an enormous role in defining learners' "real worlds." Applying this critique to the field of educational technology, the author does not merely lament constructivist theory's current shortcomings, but offers a means by which these shortcomings can be engaged and, perhaps, overcome.

Subject Index

A

Accommodation, 47–48

Activity theory, 55n, 58, 76,

see also Leontiev;

Vygotskian thought

definition, 165

mediational tools and, 51–52, 64

Affect, 12, 68, 101

cognition and, 129–131

AI, see Artificial intelligence

American education, 10, 22, 31,

see also Progressivism;

Republicanism

apprenticeship and, 24

elite idealism and, 25–26

American psychology, 34n,

see also Behaviorism;

Information-processing paradigm

Anchored instruction, 5

apprenticeship and, 89–90

CTGV and, 100

goal-based scenarios and, 82–83

Antifoundationalism in constructivism, 7, 11, 159,

see also Constructivist epistemology;

Foundationalism

definition, 165

knowledge and, 103–106, 112–113, 115

reconciling education to, 162

rhetorical perspective and, 160–163

scientific method and, 160

social constructionism and, 103–104, 168

Apprenticeship learning, 5, 20, 23, 66, 101,

see also Cognitive apprenticeship

American education and, 24

anchored instruction and, 89–90

constructivism and, 69, 94

mediated collaboration and, 88

situated cognition and, 77

Argument,

see also Rhetoric

education and, 12, 158

kno...

Table of contents

• RHETORIC, KNOWLEDGE, AND SOCIETY
• Contents
• Editor’s Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why an Interest in the Authentic?
• ONE Under, Alongside, and on the Table: A Brief History of Authenticity in Education
• TWO The Cognitive Evolution
• THREE Constructivism and the Technology of Authentication
• FOUR Constructivism Lost
• FIVE Arguing and Educating
• SIX Negotiating the Real World: Conceptual Obstacles and Opportunities for Education
• SEVEN Conclusion: Slowing Down for the Rhetorical Turn
• Glossary
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index