ABSTRACT
The collection of five articles analyzing an episode of problem-based learning (PBL) in a medical school is rich with conversation, mediating objects, and layered intentions of the participants. Video proves itself to be a medium that can provide common ground to a thoroughly encompassing set of perspectives in discourse analysis, ranging from Vygotskian to cognitive theories, linguistic to sociotechnical orientations, and concerns both local to PBL and fundamental to the social sciences. Beyond merely exploring methodological possibilities, the five articles can be seen to take an important first step toward resolving a critical issue of learning theory, which was first articulated by John Dewey: How do we understand the boundary between commonsense and technical forms of reasoning, action, and discourse? By what means do students grow from everyday to specialized forms of practices? This collection suggests a possible resolution to this issue through multidisciplinary, layered, and nuanced discourse analysis.
