The process of observation (1): Observing and making sense of a static scene

In doing research, we are called on to make and interpret observations of places (for example, classrooms, schools and other sites of learning) and objects (for example, textbooks, manipulatives and other learning materials).

Observation is a multisensory activity we engage in all the time but that we rarely examine closely. What might affect our attention, focus, attentiveness, sense-making and interpretation as we are in the process of observation? What unconscious assumptions, biases, wishes, etc. might affect the way we observe and understand phenomena?

In our static observation exercises in class this evening, we practiced observing a static scene with a number of objects, from two different view points, and then with a particular given narrative.

You were asked to notice what you saw, noticed, heard, smelled, thought, touched, wondered, desired at each phase.

What did you learn about your own processes of observation and interpretation through engaging in this exercise and writing about each phase of it?

















In your 'exit slip' blog post, please reflect on this observation exercise via these four questions:

1) How did you approach the task of observation?
2) What did you do differently in each iteration of the task?
3) What did you find most challenging?
4) What did you learn about yourself and your ways of observing and understanding?

Themes from your blog: Jennette, Haynam, Kieran

8. Infinite number of instructional theories

• ·       in reading but, yes, many many more
• ·       It depends which one resonates with you

o   Jenette; development psychology – because of years of work with children

o   Kieran & Haynam; Merril’s syntheses useful (ISW experience)

• ·       Cognitive symbolic theory also useful: “all learning is analogy”
• ·       It depends on age; up to a point (Piaget)

3. “full collaboration”

• ·       Subject should be completely honest
• ·       Researchers could withhold information “in the service of research” but they need to explain this in their methodology
• ·       Researcher needs strong ethical sense; and the backing of ethics committee

1. “outsider v insider”

• ·       We wondered about this in the context of indigenous research

o   An insider perspective might be preferable; avoids marginalization

o   Outsiders perspective (tabula rasa?), “newness” might be useful

• ·       A collaboration between researchers – one insider, one outsider – could be useful
• ·       “full collaboration” could be easier as an insider
• ·       As a foreigner (outsider) in China, researching Tibet could be problematic

5. Whose voice is heard in research?

• ·       Researcher / co-researcher(s)
• ·       Funding source
• ·       Participants
• ·       Supervisors
• ·       Research assistant(s)
• ·       Translators

Themes from Jan. 23 blogs

Group members: Yuxi, Hui, Sarah

We discussed the following questions:

3. Full collaboration between researcher and researched?

• What is full collaboration and how do we (as the researcher) achieve that?
• There are inherent power structures in place that affect collaboration
• Power structures between the researched and those making policies
• Difficult to avoid bias in research. It is important to identify our bias as a researcher and situate that within our findings.

6. The neutral, objective, rational researcher?

• Acknowledgement of bias is crucial
• Our identity and background is a part of all research and findings
• There is no 'perfect' or 'foolproof' way to conduct research

7. Ethics, power relationships, consent/assent?

• Are those being researched disclosing information? How do power structures contribute to the data that is gathered?
• How does third party funding complicate power and ethical relationships?

10. Theory vs. practice?

• Theory is not static--it is flexible
• Theory and practice often influence one another
• Situating practice within theory is important, but theory is not necessarily practical in day-to-day applications

Katy, Crystal, Jingyu's comments

Themes from blogs

2) marginalization / oppression of “the other”

Idea that the ‘researched’ were marginalized and oppressed stems from postmodernist, post-positivist and post-colonial theory critiquing traditional qualitative research theories

‘the other’ is a potent word and powerful force of oppression.  By ‘othering’ a group or a person you reduce their human connection to you (the researcher) creating a hierarchy of power.

4) “subjects” vs “objects” of research

Links to the concept of oppression of “the other” as if the researched is labelled to as an object then they are a passive voice.  If the researched is a subject there is more scope for their voice to be heard (although this is not a foregone conclusion – efforts have to be made.  Action participatory research is a good example where subjects are involved.  Feminist theory etc look to give voices to the ‘subject’ but they may still be marginalized depending on the orientation of the research.

  

6) The neutral, objective, rational, researcher?

All human beings are biased based on their personality and sense of self, their world view – all people are race, gendered, classed etc

The attempts to create some sense of neutrality, objectivity, rationality as a researcher are an important part of the process. Even if these things cannot be achieved, the justification for the purpose of research needs to be thought through with these ideas in mind. 

9) Postmodern ideas of truth and power

Challenge neutrality

Assert all research is interpretive and fundamentally political

There are issues of power in research and traditionally it has silence many marginalized and oppressed groups by making them passive objects

Qualitative research is the worst because of its historical complicity with colonialism

Western, Eurocentric notions of ‘truth’, that stem from rational, neutral, and objective ‘truth’ (scientific) has been a blanket that dampened the authority of alternative ‘truths’. Post-modernist ideas challenged this accepted notion of truth and western, Eurocentric power.  The explosion of alternative truths and challenges to power continue to play out today.

10) Theory vs. practice.

Mountain top vs up close on the ground

Theory provides the context, but then the data may not fit with the theory

Rather than forcing a round peg in a square hole – look for plausible explanations.

Discussion themes from tonight's class

The basketball observation video

Here is the link to Daniel J. Simon's interesting video about attention and observation.

What do you think?

The process of observation (2): A homework assignment to observe people in motion

In class this evening, we observed a collection of static objects. As part of your homework for next week, along with your readings and blog posts, you have a two-part observation exercise:

1)  Find a place where you can observe people in motion for 10-15 minutes. This should be an

observation of people you don't already know -- an observation of 'strangers'. Use your senses to observe: not only vision, but hearing and other senses as well. Write up what you observe and post it to your blog.

2) Observe a person or people you know well while they are in motion for 10-15 minutes. As with the previous observation, use your senses, and write up your observation and post it to your blog.

3) After completing the two 'people in motion' observations, write a third short blog post reflecting on your experience, and 'noticing how you are noticing'. What did you learn about yourself as an observer through this exercise?

Readings for our Feb. 6 class

We are now starting to look more closely at particular approaches and methodologies for educational research:




1) Brantlinger, Jimenez, Klingner, Pugach & Richardson (2005). Qualitative studies in special education. Exceptional Children 21(2), 195-207.





2) Bavelas (1987) Permitting creativity in science 
3) Groenewald Phenomenology and research design 

In your blog postings this week, briefly summarize what you learned, and then discuss two or three things that 'stopped' you -- things that surprised, confused, amazed, infuriated, encouraged you, etc.

Perspective, point of view, context and narrative in research

Here's a link to the illustrations from that amazing picture book called Zoom, by Istvan Banyai.

There have been several films made in this style as well -- for example:

National Film Board of Canada Cosmic Zoom

Powers of Ten

Cosmic Eye

Readings for our January 30 class

1) Merriënboer & de Bruin: Research paradigms and perspectives on learning

2) Marshall & Rossman (from their book,  Designing Qualitative Research)

3) Frank Lester excerpts on theory in math education research

Intro: "All social research sets out with specific purposes from a specific position, and aims to persuade readers of the significance of its claims. These aims are always broadly political." Clough & Nutbrown, A student's guide to methodology

Writing on blog (5 - 7 minutes):

How do you know what is true (in education or elsewhere)?
What would convince you that something is true?
What counts as evidence?

Example: Watch stairway piano video:

• How would you study this phenomenon?
• What question(s) would you ask?
• Think of three different approaches you might take.

Whose voice is important in each of these?
What counts as evidence?
What point of view would you take?
What would you be focusing on and ignoring in each?

Synthesis:
How can we categorize these and other approaches to asking questions and exploring truths in education?

There are a number of ways to create categories for different research approaches. Note that none of these taxonomies is comprehensive or stable, but they can be useful give us a starting point to make sense of research.

'The Stop', paradigm shift and research

David Appelbaum, The Stop (1995)

A "stop" is something that stops you (in your reading, in your observations, in your teaching/ learning). The metaphor is suddenly coming across a big rock in your path that stops you from smooth and continuous (and unconscious) walking. It must be attended to. It is a moment that allows for an opening to new paths, new ideas, new approaches if you are able to give it the attention it demands.

A stop in your reading might be something you didn't expect -- something confusing, or difficult, or exceptionally beautiful, or something you strongly agree or disagree with, or an unknown word or phrase. A stop touches you deeply in some way (by irritating, or moving, or perplexing you, for example.

The stops allow for a change of heart, a change of mind, a political and/or intellectual engagement, a reconsideration of strategy, or even a reconsideration of world view.
From Lynn Fels, "Coming into presence: The unfolding of a moment" (Journal of Educational Controversy):

"A stop is a calling to attention; a coming to the crossroads, in which a choice of action or direction must be taken, oft-times blindly, as experienced by Appelbaum’s (1995) blind man as he tap-taps the obstacles he encounters with his white cane—there are as yet unknown consequences of the subsequent action or decision as yet to be taken and embodied.

Between closing and beginning lives a gap, a caesura, a discontinuity.

The betweenness is a hinge that belongs to neither one nor the other.

It is neither poised nor unpoised, yet moves both ways . . .

It is the stop. (Applebaum, 1995, pp. 15-16)

A stop is a moment that tugs on our sleeve, a moment that arrests our habits of engagement, a moment within which horizons shift, and we experience our situation anew. A stop occurs when we come to see or experience things, events, or relationships from a different perspective or understanding; a stop is a moment that calls us to mindful awareness of Arendt’s appeal for renewal through action in the gap between past and future.

How we choose to respond and how that choice of action or non-action impacts on our lives and on the lives of those around us speaks to the risk, the opportunity, to the possibility of action. As media philosophers Taylor and Saarinen (1994) remind us, in spaces as familiar as the London tube, or as unmapped as cyberspace, we must “mind the gap” (p. 5). Applebaum’s moments of stop are moments that call our attention to the gap; moments that interrupt, that provoke new questioning, that evoke response, reflection, and hopefully, lead to meaningful and moral action."

Thomas Kuhn, in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962/2012) made the

argument that scientific knowledge is advanced in small increments within a particular worldview or paradigm, but makes the great leaps through revolutionary paradigm shifts. These shifts involve the equivalent of 'the stop': an anomaly that is taken up as an invitation to a new coming-to-consciousness:

"Scientific development depends in part on a process of non-incremental or revolutionary change. Some revolutions are large, like those associated with the names of Copernicus, Newton, or Darwin, but most are much smaller, like the discovery of oxygen or the planet Uranus. The usual prelude to changes of this sort is, I believed, the awareness of anomaly, of an occurrence or set of occurrences that does not fit existing ways of ordering phenomena. The changes that result therefore require 'putting on a different kind of thinking-cap', one that renders the anomalous lawlike but that, in the process, also transforms the order exhibited by some other phenomena, previously unproblematic. "

Questions from your blog posts for this evening's discussion

This week's readings: Understanding research assumptions using Gowin's Vee

Here are the three readings for this week:


1) Irwin, R. L. (1999). Listening to the Shapes of Collaborative Artmaking. Art Education, 52(2), 35-40.

2) Nielsen, W. S., & Nashon, S. (2007). Accessing Science Courses in Rural BC: A Cultural Border-Crossing Metaphor. Alberta Journal Of Educational Research,53(2), 174-188.




3) Sun, D. (2012). "Everything Goes Smoothly": A Case Study of an Immigrant Chinese Language Teacher's Personal Practical Knowledge. Teaching And Teacher Education: An International Journal Of Research And Studies, 28(5), 760-767.


These three articles use different methods, based on differing methodological and theoretical assumptions.

In your response, use ideas introduced in class to make sense of the assumptions underlying the research questions and methods used in these studies.

Gowin's Vee Chart & sample dissertation abstracts for tonight's class

Gowin's Vee is a metacognitive tool developed in the 1980s and 1990s (and still very useful today). It diagrams key aspects of planning for research projects, and is also used in other areas like business for planning of new initiatives. Here is a link to some sample educational research topics worked out through Gowin's Vee (which is diagrammed below) -- and a few more wordy examples here. We will look at these samples and at these sample dissertation abstracts to explore the use of this way of diagramming for research planning.

Snack rota!

Here's the schedule for our (80% healthy) class snacks.

Remember that our Feb. 20 class during UBC Reading Week will be held at an off-campus location TBA. There will be no class on March 20 (our replacement for Reading Week, during Spring Break), and we will have our virtual class on March 27.

Reading circle groups for the first few weeks

"The Pressure!"

Katy
Jennette
Sarah

"CMK"
Crystal
Hui (Maggie)
Kieran
Haynam

"LYJ"
Lillian
Yuxi
Jingyu

Naureen will be away in a remote place for the next two classes, so she will join one of the circles on her return!

Readings and viewings for your first blog posts (for our Week 2 class)

This first week, everyone should read this short article by Ted Aoki:

Aoki In-Dwelling

Then there are readings/ video viewings for each of the three people in your Learning Circle:

Person #1: Listen to this short podcast by Yuval Harari from the CBC radio show Day Six from Sept. 29, 2017, on The AI revolution, jobs and society

Person #2: Watch Alix Generous' TED talk from July 2015 about her experiences as a highly creative university student with Asperger's syndrome.

Person #3:

 Watch: The Edible Schoolyard Project in Berkeley that brings together educational research, food and environmental education <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC3H0sxg4tY&list=PLD314F4A6EB169D1E&index=8&feature=plpp_video>

...and Steven Ritz on school gardens in the Bronx <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcSL2yN39JM&list=PLD314F4A6EB169D1E&index=7&feature=plpp_video>.


Your writing prompts for this week's blog writing:


What is educational research, and why do it? Use these links, readings and videos to support and illustrate your ideas.

Welcome to our class!

This is our shared class blog/ website for our EDUC 500 class, from January to April, 2018. This is where you can find our first draft tentative course outline, and our *NEW* second draft course outline (class dates corrected, Feb. 20 off campus location added) and where we will post links to readings, videos, photos, and other writing and media for the course. Looking forward to working together this semester!