Frames and Context: Toomato or Tomato

This post relates to my study of CCK11.

A fellow student, Jaap recently took the time to comment on my week 3 concept map, plus share his own (thanks Jaap :)).

Jaap asked in a comment on my concept map: “I think in connectivism context and framing are look-a-likes, do you agree?”  Jaap similarly makes reference to an article by Lindsay Jordan where she too asks: “So it’s Week 2 of CCK11 and I’m thinking about Frames (which seem pretty much the same thing as ‘context’ – am I right?).”

I am not sure that context and framing are exactly alike, although I do think they are related.  My interpretation (and my confidence in this interpretation is not high :)) is that framing is a way of seeing the context.  A filter or template for evaluating and interpreting a given scenario or perhaps context, based on past experience and attitudes.  I think people’s frames also relate to the concept of pattern entrainment as explained quite succinctly by David Jones.

So as an example, a teacher after completion of a course of study may reflect on the poor performance of some students.  Being a large class, the teacher does not know each of these students personally, and so judges the performance of the collective, based on his interactions and knowledge of the few that he knows.  The few that he knows did not attend class regularly and in his view appeared lazy and just bad students (ie. Level 1 teacher – Biggs Constructive Alignment).  On this anecdotal evidence or stereo-type, he concludes that those who performed poorly were lazy or just bad students.  This is the frame that he has developed, but is not necessarily the true context.

Damien