Exposition as act of learning

General Summary

Exposition can feel the most straightforward and yet still the most frustrating of educational practices.  Straightforward because there is a logic that says “if you want them to know something, just tell them”.  Which works for “the capital city of France” (although even then there is a worry about learner retention), but certainly ‘telling’ is a lot less fail safe for more tricky concepts (like the laws of motion). As an “act” it also seems to be more an act of teaching than one of learning. And yet for it to work, it depends upon how the learner responds to the ‘telling’. Thus, this chapter is about the (often awkwardly hidden) ‘acts of learning’ that are the response to exposition.

Exposition resembles tutoring (Chapter 2) in that the learner is in relationship with an authoritative voice,  However, it differs in that the relationship is one-to-many rather than one-to one. 

To accommodate exposition in the present framework, this chapter must design its own exposition: one that addresses the learner’s ‘act of involvement’ (with an expository text). ‘Text’ is an important term here as exposition has a media dimension – talk, writing, digital, video, live, displaced etc. The chapter is launched by Dr. Johnson’s quote regarding the pointlessness of lectures.  This allows some definitional movies – including recognition of the variety of formats and media which are expository.  

We identify three varieties of involvement. This owes something to cognitive psychology but also narratology and theories around digital gaming.  Unfortunately, terms are not used consistently across these areas. The distinctions here are moderately uncontroversial.

Exposition: three acts of involvement with an expository voice/text

These three with be outlined in general terms with most of what then follows being devoted to the case of engagement

1) Engagement
Figuratively speaking, to act this way is to exercise a duality, to take part in an implicit dialogue (invoking the previous chapter on tutoring). The expository text is presented by one agent (author), but a second agent (student) interrogates it and from that ‘interrogation’ constructs new understandings, or re-configures old ones. The author is not telling the subject but doing it. The student is (ideally) not receiving the subject, but engaging with it. Self-explanation but self-interrogation. Relationship with flow. Particular text designs may evoke both immersive and engaging experiences.
2) Distraction
Ways in which the learner can decouple for an exposition, being neither immersed or engaged. This may arise from external factors or internal (mindwandering). Theories relating to mind wandering and an acknowledgement of its recurring significance as a management demand within acts of learning.
3) Immersion.
High on distraction, low on engagement. Most typically this is the response when exposition unfolds in a manner that carries the learner seamlessly from one step to another.  Classically felt in the narratives of tight story telling. Aspirations towards a more immersive learner experience are linked to different media designs.

What is entailed in acts of engagement?

– Engagement as dialogue. The text as conversation partner
– Reading for meaning
– Self-explaining as generic descriptor of engagement
– Intersubjectivity and theory of mind as mediating engagement
– Presence as managed in self-study expository environments
– meta-comprehension

Implications for expository structuring

Coarse level (or external) structuring of exposition
          Time for telling – productive failure

‘Internal’ expository structuring
            Rhetorical devices in voice
            Embodied communication
            Visual annotation
            Prolepsis
            Desirable difficulties
            Uncertain instruction
           Textual and digital prompts

Learner expository annotation strategies
          Note taking practices
          Annotation and working memory
          Encoding specificity
          External offloading
          Annotation media and cognitive load

Media demands
          Multiple document processing

Learning theory concepts exercised (including re-visited)

–          Self-explaining        

–          Dialogue         

–          Intersubjectivity          

–          Cognitive load           

–          Perceptual decoupling           

–          Meta-awareness          

–          Presence           

–          Flow           

–          Meta-comprehension         

–          Productive failure           

–          Schema             

–          Embodied learning