Textbooks | Assignments | Schedule | Policies

Course and Instructor Information

Course Number: ACN 6337 & HUHI 6395
Meeting Time: Monday, 1:00pm – 3:45 2:30pm
Meeting Location: JO 4.708 WebEx Meeting
Instructor: Professor Matthew J. Brown (mattbrown@utdallas.edu)
Course Website: http://classes.matthewjbrown.net/cognitive-ethnography
Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday 4-5pm (via phone, email, etc.)
Schedule an appointment: http://doodle.com/mattbrown

Course Description

Cognitive Ethnography is a method for the study of cognition in everyday practices and activities. Students in this course will learn to observe, document, and analyze cognitive processes in real-world settings. The course will challenge the assumption that cognition can be studied independent of environment, culture, social interaction, communication, and the body. We will build an understanding of the interaction between culture, cognition, and communication based on cognitive ethnographic methods, and on theories and concepts from distributed cognition, cultural psychology, and situated learning perspectives that provide the foundations of cognitive ethnography. The utility of these methods and theories for projects in cognitive science, cultural studies, science and technology studies, philosophy, and the humanities will be emphasized.

Textbooks and Readings

Required books:

• Edwin Hutchins, Cognition in the Wild (via UTD Library)
• Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts

The books have been ordered at Off Campus Books and might not be available at the on-campus Follett Bookstore. All other readings will be provided electronically as PDFs. It is my recommendation that you purchase a physical copy of the books, and you print all of the articles, as the research seems to show that paper texts are more effective cognitive artifacts for scaffolding learning and recall than most digital texts. However, you might have your own, more effective digital setup, so use your better judgment.

Student Learning Objectives

1. Students will learn and practice the qualitative methodology of cognitive ethnography. (Assessed via Cognitive Ethnography Project)
2. Students will gain the basic knowledge of embodied, situated, and distributed cognition approaches. (Assessed via participation in class discussion of readings and Cognitive Ethnography Project)
3. Students will produce original research on a field site relevant to their curricular interests using cognitive-ethnographic methods. (Assessed via Cognitive Ethnography Project)
4. Students will learn to engage in the professional academic practice of peer review. (Assessed via Peer Review Assignments)
5. Students will learn the basics of ethical conduct of human subjects research. (Assessed via Ethics Training component of Cognitive Ethnography Project)

Assignments and Grades

1. Cognitive Ethnography Project or Theoretical Paper
2. Attendance and Class Participation — Attend class each week having done the readings and being prepared to discuss them.

Detailed Schedule of Readings

1. 1/13 – Introduction: Cognition? Ethnography? Cognitive Ethnography?
   • Read Cognition in the Wild (CitW), Introduction and Chapter 9.
2. 1/20 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – No Class
   
3. 1/27 – Situating Cognition
   • Jean Lave, “What’s Special about Experiments as Contexts for Thinking?”
   • Jean Lave et al. “The Dialectic of Arithmetic in Grocery Shopping”
4. 2/3 – Distributed Cognition I
   • Read CitW, Introduction, Chapters 1-4
     • For the perplexed: Edwin Hutchins, “Cognition, Distributed.”
5. 2/10 – Distributed Cognition II
   • Read CitW, Chapters 5-7
6. 2/17 – Distributed Cognition III
   • Read CitW, Chapters 8-9
7. 2/24 – Transcription and Professional Vison
   • Elinor Ochs, “Transcription as Theory”
   • Charles Goodwin, “Professional Vision”
8. 3/2 – Cognitive Artifacts
   • Andy Clark, “Cognitive Technology”
   • Edwin Hutchins, “Cognitive Artifacts”
   • Edwin Hutchins, “Imagining the Cognitive Life of Things”
   • Gagan Deep Kuar, “Situated and distributed cognition in artifact negotiation and trade-specific skills: A cognitive ethnography of Kashmiri carpet weaving practice”
   • David de Léon, “The Cognitive Biographies of Things”
9. 3/9 – Cultural Models
   • Dorothy Holland and Debra Skinner, “Prestige and intimacy: The Cultural Models behind Americans’ Talk about Gender Types.”
   • Naomi Quinn, “How to Reconstruct Schemas People Share, From What They Say”
   • Roy D’Andrade, “A folk model of the mind”
10. 3/16 – Spring Break – No Class
11. 3/23 – Extended Spring Break – No Class
    
12. 3/23 3/30 – Cognitive Ethnography of Science I
    • Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life (esp. Chs 1-4)
    • See also: Bruno Latour, Science in Action
13. 3/30 4/6 – Cognitive Ethnography of Science II
    • Morana Alac and Edwin Hutchins, “I See What You are Saying”
    • Nancy J. Nersessian, “Interdisciplinarities in Action: Cognitive Ethnography of Bioengineering Sciences Research Laboratories”
    • Nancy J. Nersessian, Wendy C. Newstetter, Elke Kurz-Milcke, Jim Davies, “A Mixed-method Approach to Studying Distributed Cognition in Evolving Environments”
    • Nancy J. Nersessian, “The Cognitive-Cultural Systems of the Research Laboratory”
    • Elke Kurz-Milcke, Nancy J. Nersessian and Wendy C. Newstetter, “What Has History to Do with Cognition? Interactive Methods for Studying Research Laboratories”
14. 4/6 4/13 – Cognitive Ethnography of Education
    • Robert F. Williams, “Using Cognitive Ethnography to Study Instruction”
    • Sherry I. Pittman, “A Cognitive Ethnography and Quantification of a First-Grade Teacher’s Selection Routines for Classroom Management”
    • Bruce Dubbels, “Cognitive Ethnography: A Methodology for Measure and Analysis of Learning for Game Studies”
15. 4/13 4/20 – Cognitive Ethnography of Design
    • James Hollan, Edwin Hutchins, and David Kirsh, “Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research”
    • Linden J. Ball, Thomas C. Ormerod, “Putting ethnography to work: the case for a cognitive ethnography of design”
    • Stephen Viller and Ian Sommerville, “Ethnographically informed analysis for software engineers”
16. 4/20 4/27 – Distributed Memory
    • Edwin Hutchins, “How a Cockpit Remembers Its Speed”
    • Kristin Marie Bivens and Kelli Cargile Cook, “Coordinating Distributed Memory: An Environmental Engineer’s Proposal-Writing Process Using a Product Calculator”
    • Richard Heersmink, “The narrative self, distributed memory, and evocative objects”
    • Optional: Mattias Forsblad, Distributed cognition in home environments: The prospective memory and cognitive practices of older adults
17. 4/27 – Wrap Up / Flex day

Course and Instructor Policies

Contacting the Instructor

Feel free to contact me whenever you need to.

Before you contact me, I suggest checking the syllabus, course website, and all handouts to see if the answer to your question is there. For more complex questions, you should see me in office hours or make an appointment. You can send me an email, but this is not a good way to get in touch with me about either trivial matters (which are almost certainly on the syllabus or best discussed in class) or difficult issues (which should be discussed in person). I will not accept work or provide feedback via email. Email has generated many unreasonable expectations in our lives that we should all think more critically about, and I encourage you to do so. Of course, you should feel free to email me to remind me about something, or if you need to contact me urgently (if, for instance, you will miss an assignment due to a dire medical issue). If I do not reply to your email within 48 hours, please send me a reminder.

Late Work, Make-Up, and Completion

I’ll do my best to work with you on due dates, but please do your best to email me ahead of time if you anticipate a problem.

No late work or make-up exams will be allowed without consent of the professor prior to the due/exam date, except in situations where University policy requires it, or in case of truly dire circumstances. All non-optional assignments must be completed in satisfactory manner in order to receive a passing grade in the course.

Class Attendance

While reading and writing are crucial parts of the course, a central part of intellectual activity is in-person discussion. (Hence the continuing importance of talks and conferences in every academic field.) While class will occasionally involve bits of lecture, this is merely an instrument to a more well-informed discussion and other structured activities. Attendance is thus considered mandatory. Missed classes will count heavily against your participation grade, and egregious absenteeism will be grounds for an F in the course at the professor’s discretion. In-class assignments and activities likewise cannot be made up unless the professor agrees to it before the class is missed. Disruptive or extremely late arrivals or early departures will be considered absences.

Classroom expectations

(For videoconferences and online discussions.)

You are expected to have read the assignments before class, and it would be to your benefit to also read them again after class. You are expected to bring a copy of assigned readings for each day’s class, and have them available to refer to. You are expected to listen respectfully to the professor and your fellow students, and participate in class discussions and activities.

Clear failure to abide by these expectations will result in you being asked to leave the classroom and being counted absent for the day.

Other Stuff

http://go.utdallas.edu/syllabus-policies

A syllabus is a living document. The descriptions, timelines, and policies contained in this syllabus are subject to change in the interest of improving the quality of the course, at the discretion of the professor. Adequate notice will be provided for any changes.