Trying to make sense of it

Are you the Action Researcher when you look at my blog or am I when I look at my blog or am I another Action Researcher when I research my topic and that is what you want me to tell you?

Why did I think that writing up 400 words on my Research Journal would be easy?

What was my topic beyond DBR? Was it to find my epistemology? Was it to look at my son's or my computer addiction or the correlation between the two (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-is-going-on-here.html)?

Was it to find tools and a methodology in order to work and to understand the new system and culture into which I had stepped (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/duh.html, http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/eureka.html)?

It had very little to do with DBR in the greater scheme of things.

Even looking at the blog to find elements/evidence of these nodes and interconnections I am confronted with how our technologies restrict the new ways of thinking we are being called upon to encompass.

As much as computer systems are referred to as networks – this is not present in the blog.

My blog is a linear arrangement of entries by date.

To find the references which act as my evidence and also my inquiry I would need to set up my blog like a spider's web. Once again my lack of knowledge in the tools restricts me.

If I had used tags in the blog – would this have helped me to now show the interconnections between the nodes and the progression that wasn't linear but concentric circles that are still expanding (concentric circles does not adequately translate the experience into a visual image but it is a start)

Our minds are working in associations,

Our language is linear but meanings behind words can bring in depth and other dimensions, particularly if combined with body gestures to convey other meanings,

But our tools are linear and our tools are a language in themselves that direct our thoughts and our communication of those thoughts.

I could review this journal, and my research path that it follows, in a systematic way from the initial selection of a research interest, through the literature review, to the final article on DBR, step-by-step.  but that would not communicate how this unit of study occurred within a much greater context that both had an influence on, and was influenced by it.

And actually, to be honest, I could not do that, and my research journal reflects this.

My true research project is what I learned through this experience, or rather what I am still learning as this experience continues.

I had the enthusiasm, I had the enforcing and restrictive emotional influences, my theoretical notions were non-existant and faulty and I needed to develop a methodology.

Did I research or did I inquire and/or manage?

What did I research? I researched much more that what my final essay reflects

Is my research finished?

"Reiteration of themes through cycles"

My research interest is embodied in themes which may not be derived from the specific context. Longer term, broader set of questions, puzzles and topics that motivate the researcher

I did develop an articulation of an epistemplogy expressed as my perspective in the final essay but this in itself is not yet complete and will need to be researched and refined.

I declared an epistemology and hence a recoverable research process?? Did I do this intuitively?

So I was a Researcher in a purposive system in that the purpose of my action to research was imposed – Research literature on a topic of my choice.

Big R write an account of what happened, ensure that certain elements of practise and outcome are described giving evidence.

The Unit was my tool as was each assignment

Level 1:

The problem situation was something to do with the problematic use of computers now-a-days in particular with Games and Virtual Realities which are becoming one of the drugs of our society. Our society that is moving further away from the reality that Buddhism calls us to face if we want to experience Sukha (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/buddhism-says-our-suffering-comes-from.html)

Everybody else seems to have had a Frame work of Ideas and a Methodology to approach their Area of Application. But I didn't.

They took ACTIONS to find Research Themes which lead to their Literature Reviews and final articles

Whilst I was still floundering in a sea of methodological and cultural confusion.

Level 2:

But within that emerged a system that articulated its own purpose and to which I adhered to seek that purpose  - was that the purposeful system? Finding my voice, methodology (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-would-make-my-life-easier.html), getting to know the culture (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/meta-evaluation-of-review.html), tools (http://nicolafehlmann.blogspot.com/2010/09/whats-missing-on-google-docs.html), language.

Now need to look next to the cluster of stars to see if I can see whatever I am meant to see in here and come back to it.

After I had sent in my paper I felt so calm as if I had understood.

I realise I have so much more to understand but cannot survive another whirlwind of chaos and overwhelment.

Ison, R. (2008). Systems thinking and practice for action research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The sage handbook of action research: Participative inquiry and practice (2 ed., pp. 139-159). Los Angeles: Sage.

I feel as if I am cracking

New revelations in many scientific domains are revealing to us, not necessarily an entire break down of the order of things but surely the inadequacies of many of our models and assumptions.  A case in point is how we moved from Newtonian principles to Quantum mechanics. Newtonian theories still exist and have validity but they are no longer seen as an all encompassing truth. It appears that our nature's are such that we need fixed ontologies and epistemologies around which all other ideas should turn in the fashion of Copernicus and those that don't will suffer a Galileon fate.  But nature's complexity always wins through and brings about in us the changes necessary to enlarge our thinking. We are a product of nature so we can adapt and change is the only thing we can be certain about.

Design Based Research is another example of a change that came about through the breaking down of a model and assumption and as it simply matches an ontology of the moment we can expect it to evolve even further or possibly fall away all together. Time will tell. Design Based Research is to Clinical Research what Quantum Mechanics is to Newtonian. Design Based Research has the Observer Effect and the Uncertainty Principle inherent to it. It encompasses the Chaos theory. As I look at Design Based Research it changes, as an experimenter enters the classroom and looks at her students they change. Our fears dictate that we must control and predict so a Designer predicts a learning outcome and finds the evidence from the data for it in the manner of Bartlett, but chaos theory knows this is just a human guise 

Design Based Research emerged as a response to the realisation that the Behavioural Model of Learning that had for so long dominated as a model was inadequate to explain the complete nature of learning. But our minds are such that we need to fill a vacuum so this model was replaced with the Cognitive one.  Cognition could still be tested in the laboratory so elements of Research remained until the Constructivist approaches began to take hold and the Laboratory setting began to show it's weaknesses. All mayhem broke out when the experimenters moved into the messy classrooms where they lost control over their variables. Clinical experiments in a laboratory with controlled variables satisfied a certain epistemology, but when findings were extended to the classroom situation these theories did not hold up. Some practitioners, such as Brown, were brave enough to go and look for the reasons why by stepping into the classroom, letting go of control to see what happened. One thing that happened was the experimenter was knocked off their pedestal as holder of knowledge and forced into a relationship with the subject where they had to give the subject a voice and listen. Barab in preparing for Quest Atlantis spent 3 years listening after a disastrous experiment in a university setting where none of his predictions came true and he finally had to forego the whole endeavour , but he had learnt a valuable lesson.  Another thing that happened was the experimentor saw that in a classroom setting there are sub-groups that had been ignored up until now in the design of education or stereo-typed to such an extent that that their true nature's had become invisible. They had been excluded from the experiment as they interfered with the theoretical outcomes. When they were removed the theory worked, however when the theory went back into the environment THEY were still there!  One can remove a sub-group from a theory but not from a classroom . Design Based Research has the potential for being inclusive of all but a dominant attitude is very hard to change and there are still flagrant examples of designers not understanding the importance of inclusion to their outcomes. Case in point: Virtual Singapura being developed in an all boys school. Have the Kohlberg – Gilligan findings been so quickly  forgotten? A Design Based Research conducted by Roschelle et al. (2010) deliberately excluded a sub-group of students deemed "problematic" and on whom their assumptions did not hold. They never questioned their assumptions or design.

Brown 1992

October 14^th - Ann Brown write up

Modified – 20^th trying to see it from PQR to see if it highlights another approach to the issues

Each reading of an article is like peeling skin off an onion,

Different things are fond each time as different angles have been taken because new perspectives learnt, a new experience has been had,

The tears I cry between layers is also important

Classroom communities of learning (Feminism could have influence here)

Learner takes charge of learning (that has been the real battle – even learner centred is still controlled by someone else)

Innovative tool  =  educational environment

Innovative tool ENGINEERED - modeled on design science

25^th October – as I read this now I consult SSM for the PQR and to consider systems , think about Engestrom's communities of practise for change, imagine the Logic Model for Evaluations.

This is the third time I have read this article but only now am I picking up the depth and the different angles AND writing it up.

One particle article can be read from so many angles. Depending on the perspective one has one picks up different things.

I have used articles from one module in others and have found that I need to reread the article each time from this different perspective. Notes taken for the others are not of much use. Now this might be my note taking technique… Learning Centre here we come.

I needed to learn the tools and the Subject matter (context)

Brown's Background

–      classic learning theorist, classic psychological position

–      subject in strictly controlled laboratory setting

–      theoretical study of individual learning processes

Context she worked in:

70 – Cognitive Revolution had occurred, shift from behavioural learning theories

Theories were needed to fill the gap

-       had been working on memory (not learning)

-       studies with training showed strategies worked to improve memory but in the absence of experimenter prompting little evidence of maintenance and transfer

Moved towards

-       conceptual change in teachers and students

-       "setting up classroom ethos to foster self-reflective learning

Reconceptualisation of what subject was to learn, how this was to be observed an fostered

Realisation that real-life learning takes place in social context, one of these contexts is

classroom

Theory change led to psychologists needing to change methodology

-       Metacognition was introduced as a theory, monitoring of memory

-       Move from passive to active metaphors of learning

And then to

-       concerns with technology, curriculum, assessment

Aim is:

"to work toward a theoretical model of learning and instruction rooted in a firm empirical base"

Developments in learning theory require changes in methodologies

Brown's Epistemology

-       interested in learning to learn

-       stumbling blocks to learning are (the diseases of schooling (Brown, 1977):

o     Inert knowledge (fact acquired but cannot be accessed or transferred)

o     Passive learning (don't readily engage in intentional, self-directed action)

-       Lead to change in Research Agenda and Focus of Developmental Theory

o     Focus on active strategies for learning

o     What it means to learn (rote vs understanding)

o     Content to acquire (curriculum)

o     Context in which they are to acquire it (classroom?)

1970's to 1980's

Behaviour – cognivitive

Memory – metacognition

Passive – active

CONTENT CHANGES - Lists of words etc – coherent content- Acqusition of expertise – disciplined body of knowledge (academic subject area) – required new methodology

From how many items recalled and in what order – to – degress of understanding, nuances of meaning, alternative viewpoints

CONTEXT CHANGES

From 1-2 days, straight didactic teaching, one-on-one outside of social context no collaborative cognition

1980's

reciprocal teaching,  (INNOVATION) in groups -Socratic questioning, clarifying, summarizing, predicting for comprehension-monitoring as a strategy

from one-on-one in laboratory TO resource rooms outside of classroom TO groups in classrooms

from a few constrained strategies TO complex explanation, argument, discussion forms

from unconnected passages TO cohesive material students have prepared themselves over time THEREFORE Ownership of Knowledge

COMMUNITIES OF LEARNERS

-reciprocal teaching

-distributed expertise in a community of learners

-collaborative research and sharing of expertise

-change in classroom ethos (see table) to INTENTIONAL Learning Environment

Teachers role changes – active role model of learning, responsive guides to students' discovery, teach on need-to-know

-curriculum – understand few recurring themes deeply (expertise/specialization??)

jigsaw method

into subgroups learn a subtopic

then resplit, one from each subtopic group forms a new learninggroup and each teach each other what they learnt in subgroup

-       generate data (artifacts)

observers gathered huge amounts of data

Critical elements to DBR –How does it work?

Classroom must first function smoothly as a learning environment

Else any study is just one on the things that can go wrong

(is this the another problem –DBR being placed ON a problematic classroom,

are they not seeing the participants and therefore the real problems of scale up?

Their stand point is their tool? Feminism could have input here)

Classroom SYSTEMIC whole –

-change one aspect, all others perturbed

-can't study a part inependantly from the whole

INPUTS

"We are responsible for" – who the designers? The experimenters?

Simultaneous changes in the system

-role of teachers/students

-design of curriculum

-positioning of technology

-reconceptualising assessment

a change to one affects all others (multiply confound experiment in experimental psychology)

OUTPUTS

"We are concerned with" outputs therefore need Assessment

-assess impact our learning environment has had

-"aspects LE was set up to foster"

-makes "us" accountable for results of the work done

MIDDLE BLACK BOX (find term for this in engineering/systems theory)

Tension between

-Contribution to a theory of learning that is intended to

-Contribe (inform) to practice

INTERVENTION RESEARCH DESIGN (BETTER NAME THAN DESIGN BASED RESEARCH? IN LATTER FOCUS IS ON DESIGN IN FORMER FOCUS ON INTERVENTION ALL STILL FROM STANDPOINT OF EXPERIMENTER??)

NEED TO FIND PQR HERE? Do P By Q in order to achieve R

Inform practise by Intervention Research design in order to impact the Learning environment?

Could do with some SSm here

P: Intervene in the classroom setting BY 

Q introducing (an intervention) a practise that is based on a theoretical rationale for why it will work that (will be under the control of learners – hawthorne effect – current theory)

R In order to achieve improved (cognitive productivity) Learning

P Intervene in the classrrom

Q by introducing a practise that is based on a theoretical rationale

R in order to achieve improved learning

P Disseminate it

Q by extracting/couching/?????

R in order for it to be sustainable in ordinary school setting without the support of the experimenter

E – hopefully with minimal expense

E

E

The CONSTRAINT for an EFFECTIVE intervention  is :

-       whether it can migrate from experimental classroom, to average one where it is operated by and for average learners and teachers 

-       - provide realistic technology and personal support

RELIABILITY and GENERALISABILTY (REPEATABILITY) achieved through

Interventions work by recognizable standards

Based on theoretical descriptions that delineate WHY they work.

CLASSROOM VS LABORATORY

Tradeoff between experimental control – richness and reality

Brown likes to switch between both (DBR still doing this? Development occurs in laboratory testing in classroom ie reiterative design??

Noticing to using / surface to deep (knowedge based not developmental ) to use for 5024 Ass 3?? Laboratory work that motivates classroom work

Classroom work that motivates laboratory practice – something observed in classroom tested in laboratory – evaluate wether developmental trend can be reproduced under experimental control – sensitized to watch for it laboratory

BARTLETT EFFECT

Viewing the data through the eyes of ones theory (relates to 5024)

à resulted in (maybe too strong a term) Brown suggesting keep all work for someone else to review later

Keep all data to be reviewed by others at a later date –

HAWTHORNE EFFECT

Any intervention has positive effects because of the motivational attention the subjects receive from the experimenter

Brown argues not applicable BECAUSE – specificity of practice and improvement

Brown argues improvements came from Hawthornes experiments NOT because of motivational attention BUT because of worker's PERCEPTIONS of conditions improving, changes in their interests or in control of their conditions of work

Best improvement came when workers felt they were consulted

à resulted in Brown seeing importance of students being consultants/coinvestigaors of their learning

Brown has rephrased Hawthorne effect – The BROWN-HAWTHORN Effect that she wishes to achieve in her classroom.

If investigators hope not to have an effect (controlled situation etc) results in "socially contrived situation of their own making"

MUST NOT SEE SITUATION AS SYSTEM OF INTERDEPENDENT ELEMENTS

Thelearningeffectsare not even simple interactions,but highly interdependentoutcomes of a complexsocialandcognitiveinterventio

improvedcognitiveproductivityunder the control of the learners,eventuallywith minimalexpense, and with a theoreticalrationalefor why thingswork.

P: Intervene in the classroom setting BY 

Q introducing an intervention that is based on a theoretical rationale for why it will work

R In order to achieve improved cognitive productivity that is under the control of the learners

E – hopefully with minimal expense

DEWEY EFFECT

ZPD Vygotsky – beyond the readiness to learn principle

DISCOVERY LEARNING –generating knowledge is motivantional and Share expertise

REALITIY PRINCIPLE

Consider a DBR intervention from this perspective to understand it better.

- Now I just go in and read and underline with annotation tool and notes…..

I really need to get a method.

3- CATWOE

Ø C: are the customers affected by the transformation (T)

Ø A: are the actors who do the activities which the transformation (T) needs

Ø T: is the transformation/change required

Ø W: is the worldview of the activity system

Ø E: is the environmental forces or factors that transformation would be affected by such as certain policies or time constraints

Ø O: are the owners of the transformations who could stop or change it

4- Three EEEs

a. Efficacy: to determine whether the objectives match the outcomes of change

b. Efficiency: resources are used in a considerable manner (with the least number of resources)

c. Effectiveness: to determine if the change contributes to a longer-term goal

Carrying out Analysis One (The intervention itself): At this stage, you need to identify three parties in relation to the problem:

a. “Client(s)”: is the person/people who initiated the intervention and without whom it would have not been in action

b. “Practitioner”: is the person/people who examine the problem

c. “Owners”: are the people affected by the intervention. This could also include the practitioner(s).

3-

Carrying out Analysis Two (Social): At this stage you will examine the “culture” of the problem to see how “culturally feasible” it is.

Ø Roles can be formal or informal:

o Formal roles, such as heads of department, senior managers and professors, are roles assigned formally by an authority.

o Informal roles, such as role-models, are roles that are attached to certain people due to their personal characteristics.

Ø Norms are the behaviors and patterns of actions associated to certain people due to the role they have. For example, a head of department could be associated with dressing, talking, smiling or sitting in a certain manner.

Ø Values are criteria by which “behavior-in-role” is judged. For example, a head of department is expected to make good decisions that would feed into the interest of the department’s staff. Not doing so would result in criticism and dissatisfaction from people.

5- Carrying out Analysis Three (Political): This stage is concerned with analyzing the powers that come into play in change and how they influence change. These are expressed in terms of “commodities” that enable power and how these commodities are “obtained, used, defended, passed on, or relinquished”.

Examples of commodities:

Ø Access to important information

Ø Access to important authorities

Ø Having a history of achievements/ effective leadership etc