Learning From Distributed Theories of Intelligence

Abstract

The analysis reported in this article is grounded in the practice of classroom-based developmental or transformational research and focuses on the distributed views of intelligence developed by Pea (1993) and by Hutchins (1995). The general areas of agreement with this theoretical perspective include both the nondualist orientation and the critical role attributed to tool use. Against this background, I focus on two aspects of the distributed view that I and my colleagues have found necessary to modify for out purposes. The first concerns the legitimacy of taking the individual as the unit of analysis, and here 1 argue that the distributed view implicitly accepts key tenets of mainstream American psychology's characterization of the individual even as it explicitly rejects it. The second modification concerns distributed intelligence's characterization of tool use. Drawing on a distinction made by Dewey, I argue that it is more useful for the purposes of instructional design to focus on activity that involves using the tool as an instrument, rather than focusing on the tool itself.

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