Learning in Interaction: Interacting Scales of Research

Abstract

Research on learning has progressed toward accounts of dynamics at a wide range of scales. For most of its history, PER has focused on the scale of individuals, with researchers working to model what takes place in students' minds as they make sense of phenomena or solve problems. At another scale, and for some time, many in PER have treated groups or classes of students with their teachers as the units of analysis, working to understand what the group is doing as it engages in learning. Most recently, connected with education research more broadly, PER has started to consider how larger scales of dynamics, of culture and society, shape learning. Our charge in this chapter is to investigate and characterize different perspectives on “learning in interaction,” and we do so in two ways. First, we reflect on how researchers within PER have conceptualized learning and interactions and propose three scales for organizing the scholarship: (1) models of minds as complex systems with many parts in interaction; (2) models of groups of people in interaction with each other; and (3) models that include cultures and systems in interaction, including communities of physics. We reflect on interactions among these scales and highlight the importance of considering all three for a more complete account of learning, particularly for PER scholars going forward.