I particularly liked your observation questioning the notion that any individual teacher is able to significantly affect all students in a class group. The work into differentiated instruction (Subban, 2006) provides some methodologies to overcome this to some degree, but it’s a difficult task. Against this, there is the psychological concept of good enough (from good enough parenting, Winnicott, 1973) that indicates that humans don’t have to strive for perfection, only to set up nurturing environments that allow for growth. Can good enough be applicable to the classroom? Extending this notion to this week’s topic, I wonder if there’s a relationship between good enough and progression in learning towards mastery without requiring perfection or a full understanding of the expert.

You referenced Thompson and Lathey (2013). In it, they quoted Bruce, Edwards and Lupton (2006) who say, “Learning is about relations between the learner and the subject matter – the focus is not on the student or the teacher or the information, but on the relation between these elements” (p. 6) This sentiment fully resonates with me. Elsewhere in Bruce et al., Marton and Pang’s work on variation theory is explained. This article ties nicely into last week’s and next week’s readings as well as helps us conceptualise better the constituents of concepts. However, I wanted to ask you about Thompson and Lathey (2013). They predicate their view of knowledge building on prior knowledge and on interest. How much do you think the role of interest plays in development of knowledge structures? Is it possible to achieve competency (as defined by Dreyfus^2) without interest?

Bruce, C., Eswards, S., & Lupton, M. (2006). Six frames for information literacy education: a conceptual framework for interpreting the relationships between theory and practice. Six Frames for Information Literacy, 5(1), 18. http://doi.org/10.11120/ital.2006.05010002 http://www.webcitation.org/6INSK8Y9u

Subban, P. (2006). Differentiated instruction: A research basis. International Education Journal, 7(7), 935–947. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.04074.x

Thompson, G. B., & Lathey, J. W. (2013). An integrated model of information literacy , based upon domain learning Models of domain learning. In Eighth International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science (pp. 1–14). Copenhagen: Information Research.

Winnicott, D. W. (1973). The Child, the Family, and the Outside World. London: Penguin.