The idea of guided participation and my work.

Bruning talks about "guided participation" on page 199 of the text. When I first saw this phrase, I immediately thought about the inquiry based learning that we emphasize at the Science Center. We prefer not to give visitors the answers: we gauge their knowledge by asking certain questions and then evaluate the direction the activity will go afterwards. Even after we've made a quick evaluation, the interaction is still a matter of asking leading questions that provoke the visitor into thinking critically about the exhibit/demonstration in front of them. The terms we use, the length of the question, and possible options within the question (a sort of vocal multiple choice) arise out of the initial and subsequent interaction. Although inquiry dwells in the realm of constructivism, I think Bruner had more in mind when talking about guided participation.

Bruner's guided participation (via Rogoff's work on the subject) encompasses both inquiry based learning, which on the scale of guided participation would be on the formal side of the spectrum, and spontaneous social interactions between adults and children. Our interactions at the Science Center are spontaneous to the learner, but to us, it is not (seeing how we're cognizant of the situation). We have developed strategies to identify these learning opportunities and we take advantage of them as much as possible. The visitors like it (usually: it may come off as condescending if we're attempting to get the adults to learn) and it's very challenging to the gallery staff.

I also asked myself if guided participation includes modeling. Upon reading this section carefully, I firmly believe that guided participation is not modeling. Certainly, there's a spontaneous aspect to modeling, but learning how to do something via modeling is different from learning from guided participation. Social interaction separates guided participation from modeling: when an adult helps a child order food from the menu (using the example in the text), that is fundamentally different from a child observing then mimicking the adult. With the adult guidance, the social interaction allows the adult to do more than correct the child, but to lead the child into critically examining the menu then communicating those food/drink decisions to the waiter. This could save the child considerable embarrassment if the child mimicked the adult, and the child did not understand what "A choice of 2 sides" meant or used a tone of voice inappropriate for a child. (As a server for many years, I really encourage parents to do this!) Don't get me wrong, modeling is critical to learning because it happens by default: it puts more burden on the adult because he or she needs to be "on" at all times. A little slip up can create the wrong impression, and because of this, I think adults need to be more aware of opportunities for guided participation: I think it's a much more effective educational tool!