Morgan Barbee English 1102 Debarati Dutta April 3rd, 2014 Draft 1: Activity System Introduction: Biology 2130

lecture classes are different from university took university but all general biology classes go over the same information. No matter when or where these classes meet there are students learning about everything from evolution to the human body. This is a form of an activity system, an activity system is a group of students interacting as a learning system to achieve shared learning goals according to Dr. Cao (Professor at UNCC). Every person within an activity system has a common goal, and in this activity system the common goal is either to pass the class to become a Biology major or to just pass the class with a good grade. This activity system is broken down into different parts that help the activity system to work with ease. Within this paper the different parts of an activity system are going to be touched on, everything from the hierarchy of the classroom to the materials that are used on a daily basis. (I will go back and write in the exact order that I cover each part of the activity system after I have wrote the paper.) Methods: During my time learning about this activity system I turned to some students and their professor to expand my knowledge and understanding of the activity system that I am involved in daily. To help myself learn more and understand more about this activity system I collect data that consisted of texts used in class, observations from daily class lectures, and interviews.

Many observations were taken over many days in the class. The class is broken down into lectures, tests and quizzes, and discussions. During the lectures Dr. Cao engages the students by asking for them to explain what is going on or by having class discussions. Although few people talk during class the discussions are filled with information and the comprehension of the topic that is at hand. The goals of this activity system are very similar, the overall go is to learn the foundation for Biology at this introductory course for possible Biology majors. The goals for each of the interviewees futures may be different but they all have to go through this course to increase their knowledge or in the case of the professor, to pass on the knowledge that they have obtained over the years. I interviewed Tori Bonnell and Morgan Chandler who both are Biology Majors at UNC Charlotte. These ladies have different point of view of the system due to the differences in the purpose for them majoring in biology. Morgan hopes to go to be a researcher while Tori hopes to go into forensics. I was able to interview the professor of this class also, Dr. Cao a Biology Professor at UNC Charlotte. I also interviewed the professor, Dr. Cao, about the activity system. I interviewed Dr. Cao, the professor of the Biology 2130 class at UNC Charlotte. Dr. Cao was asked about the texts that are used in this activity system, he responded saying that the most important text is the textbook. The textbook is used to give students a chance to understand the material before the lecture that is presented by Dr. Cao. When I asked this question with the students, Morgan and Tori, Toris answers supported Dr. Cao's statement that the textbook is the most important tool in the activity system but also another tool was

said to be the most important. When interviewing Morgan, the tool that was most important to her was the computer that helped project the power points that Dr. Cao lectures off of. These interviewees were asked about what they considered to be an activity system, the texts that are used and the goals of this class. (Attached at the end of this paper in Appendix 1 are the interview questions that both Tori, Morgan and Dr. Cao answered in the interview.) These questions were asked to get an understanding of the activity system and to help fill out the organization of an activity system triangle that will be shown later. Also these questions were asked to help determine the different view of certain topics in an activity system. When the data was collected, to analyze the data I looked at the interviews side by side to determine if there were any similarities to each answer. Analysis When comparing my data that was collected from the interviews, I noticed that when the question What is your definition of an activity system? was asked the responses were similar and seemed to build off of one basic idea of an activity system. This was interesting that they were so similar since all of the interviews took place at different times and places. The responses were as follows: An activity system is a grouping of people or ideas under one main goal. There are many parts to an activity system that ultimately allows the system to function. Tori Bonnell An activity system is a group of people functioning as one collective system. -Morgan Chandler
A group of students interacting as a learning system to achieve shared learning goals.
Comment [T1]: I am still working on this section Comment [T2]: Sorry that it says Tammy, thats my moms name.

-Dr. Cao

Throughout my interviews, I came to realize that students learn in different ways. These ways were different because one of the

Appendix: Questions for Interview: 1. What is your definition of an activity system? 2. What is the main purpose of this activity system? 3. What kind of tools are used? 4. Which of these tools is most important to you? 5. What is your definition of texts? (texts could be electronic and or paper) 6. What kind of texts are used? 7. What is the most important text or texts in your activity system? 8. Why is this text so important? 9. How do these "texts" function in the activity system? 10. Where can a student or someone interested find these texts? 11. If special access needs to be granted to see the texts, who can give access to the texts? 12. What do I need to know/do/ask to understand those texts? 13. Who creates them? Who uses them? How are they used? Why? 14. What are the goals in class? 15. How does this activity system help to reach your goals? 16. How will these goals now help with the future? 17. How does this activity system affect you and your future? 18. How is labor divided? 19. What are some rules of the activity system? 20. How do these rules benefit the system? 21. Who takes this class? 22. Why do you think people take this class? 23. What activities happen outside of class that relate back to the class?

Post Draft Reflection: What did you do in this draft? What are some of the challenges you overcame during the writing process? What did you learn? Do you see yourself using and/or repurposing your learning experiences during this assignment in a different assignment/class? How? I learned about an activity system that I am involved in very heavily. This activity system is an activity system that will take me closer and closer to my goals in life to be a dentist of some sort. So challenges that I had to overcome during the writing process was interpreting the data and knowing how and where I should present my findings. Another challenge was trying to convey my method of how I gained my data because I want the reader to understand how and where I got the data from but I also wanted to be to the point and concise. I learned about myself that when I write to get all of my thoughts down that my grammar is not very good. I would write and then come back to my writing the next day and think hmmm I wonder what I meant to say or this makes NO SENSE!!. I can see myself using the r esearch portion of this assignment again because in the major of biology we do a lot of research and analysis to help portray our findings to the audience either in a written form of a primary research article or in the form of a presentation.