October 27, 2011

Reading notes for Oct. 27

Miscellaneous thoughts on Markham
This past summer in EP 604, we learned that most any digital tool you can think of can be used in the research process, when accompanied with ample researcher reflexivity. Markham's chapter on "Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research" drives this point home again and again as she explores different frameworks and conceptualizations of the Internet and their implications for qualitative research.

Markham is generally very consistent in framing each of her segments in terms of constraints and affordances that, when properly understood and appreciated, "can help researchers make wise choices as they investigate potentially unfamiliar research environments..." (p. 97). I did find it strange that her discussion of the Internet's time-bending capabilities was markedly positive with no mention of drawbacks. I agree that the "chrono-malleable Internet" has numerous "pragmatic advantages," as described on pages 103-104. But what is lost when participants can rehearse, edit, and "pause" conversations at will? I will probably be scolded for privileging face-to-face, but I do like the spontaneity and immediacy of that kind of exchange.

Another big take-away for me regarding EP 604 was what I perceived as a loud and clear mandate for digital literacies in qualitative research.  Markham picks this up on p. 112.  The 21st-century surge of digital technology and the Internet influences our mundane, daily practices, but it also transforms the very core of what it means to be a "good" researcher.

The same impact is being felt in education.  In my field, there are those similar to Markham who call for a heightened awareness of the implications of digital tools for teaching and learning. Lankshear & Knoble, for instance, champion digital literacies in educational contexts. They advocate a “dialectical” approach, which brings together “elements of the conventional and new that are often in tension within established educational set-ups" (p. 255). Educators gain “insider” sensibilities through hands-on exploration of new technologies so as to better envision and develop pedagogies that will take students “from where they are to where we believe it is good for them educationally to go” (p. 246).

Markham makes a parallel statement in her chapter: "If researchers cannot adjust to the particular features and capacities of Internet technologies, they may miss the opportunity to understand these phenomena as they operate in context" (p. 112). 

Markham's comments on issues of "control" were also fascinating, and somehow got me thinking of CA. We may have already discussed this a bit in class already, but I cannot recall what, if anything, the CA community has to say about computer-mediated communication (CMC)? I am hard pressed to remember anything ten Have wrote on the subject. After all, can something computer-mediated be considered "naturally occurring"? (Lamerichs & te Molder would say "yes" -- p. 452.) 

But CMC is not really conversation, is it? There is the increasing occurrence of synchronous video conferencing, but CMC is generally not spoken. It's mostly written.  Participants get to contextualize their own words with emoticons, punctuation, modification of voice, and asterisks (such as "Jennifer" did in Markham's example on pp. 106-107). These functions are usually taken up by the conversation analyst during transcription, but within CMC, the participant essentially gets to generate his or her own portion of the  "transcript" for the researcher.

Talk about a shift in control! 

"Shift Happens"
A few years ago an instructional technologist in Colorado created a simple PowerPoint video to inform his school's faculty about the impact of digital tools and globalization on education.  Somehow, it made its way onto the Internet and became an international phenomenon in a matter of weeks, making its creator, Carl Fisch, an IT "rock star" of sorts.

Here in Knox County, Tennessee, school board members circulated the video among their constituents, and it eventually was required viewing during a Knox County teacher inservice program. Even the minister at the church I attend showed it during a Sunday school discussion on postmodernism and Christianity. 

The video was titled Shift Happens, and the fact it went viral with more than five million views on YouTube sort of proves its own point.

Markham talks about "shift" when she suggests that researchers change their view of the Internet as a medium for "information transmission" to one of "meaning-making" (p. 98).  All the readings this week build on this theme, speaking variously of shifts from the cognitive to the constructivist (Markham), from the cognitive to the discursive (Lamerichs & te Molder, 2003), and from "cognitive aspects" to "discursive construction" (Horne & Wiggins, 2009, p. 171).

Variability, instability, a general feeling of impermanence and rupture has characterized the last century even before the arrival of the Internet and CMC. You can always "count on" variability! I am drawn to qualitative research in general -- and the discourse analysis tradition, specifically -- because of its acknowledgement of this aspect of modern life. One of the most appealing aspects of DA is its respect for the element of variability, which undeniably pervades life despite researchers' best attempts at "control." 

A priori frameworks and preconceived standards and expectations of competence or "norms" are consistently challenged in a variety of social science research contexts, such as counseling and sociology and, of course, education, where the industrial-era factory model has proven more than inadequate at addressing the individual and the idiosyncratic. Qualitative research allows me to muck around with the contradictions rather than sweep them aside. And CMC, when viewed with the "discursive psychological perspective" as advocated by Lamerichs & te Molder, lays this all bare. 

CMC is not a neutral medium for simply conveying fixed knowledge inside one's mind; it is a platform for visibly and transparently organizing and working out new thinking and new ideas -- I'm thinking now of my previous post about "signs" and Gunther Kress' "epistemological commitments." Online discussions and other CMC provide a virtual worktable for individuals and groups to lay out their thinking.  It reminds me of the math teacher urging the student to "show your work," which always seemed like a pain for some students who could instantly figure the right answer in their heads. But for other learners, showing one's work meant the possibility of illustrating a new way to arrive at the same answer or, at the very least, receiving partial credit for demonstrating mastery of certain steps in the right direction.

 As a language arts person, it seems odd to me at this very moment to use an example from mathematics instruction to illustrate the value of variability and individuality in learning. Hmm. 

Still, language arts teachers pay lip service about the merits of discussion and distributed knowledge-making, but most classroom research in this area reveals that face-to-face discussion is seldom done, much less CMC.  Well-intentioned teachers, who don't mind relinquishing control of the knowledge flow, face at least two challenges.  First, classroom discussion requires a huge time investment. Second, the process and outcomes are not always easy to document (read: measure and assess).

And this is where CMC comes in service both to teachers and researchers. Twenty-first century information and communication technologies can do a lot to mitigate the challenges of distributed knowledge building. Blogs, wikis, and online networks permit individuals to start, extend, and continue discussions beyond the ordinary limits of time and space, such as was done in the nutrition class in the Lester & Paulus article.  They allow the shared cognitive workspace to be plainly visible and accessible on a 24/7 basis. 

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October 21, 2011

Reading notes for Oct. 20

Reflecting on CDA
It's official.  It there was any doubt I was CDA before, it's now certain: I'm one of them.
 
I approached this week's selections from Rebecca Rogers' An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education  thinking, "Gee is my man." But the more I read about Gunther Kress, the more intrigued I became. 
 
What's odd is, Fairclough, Gee, and Kress have been with me all along without me even knowing it! On page 9, Rogers mentions the New London Group and their seminal document A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. This is a cornerstone piece of my theoretical frameworks, and I am only now making the connection that all three fellows helped author it!  Weird.

The "New London Group" was mostly, if not entirely, a collective of literacy scholars who called for a radical change in literacy pedagogy in response to “cultural differences and rapidly shifting communications media.” Anyone who writes about or researches the "disconnect" between students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy practices tends to cite the New London Group's theoretical overview of how to successfully leverage new literacies in service of educational goals as well as the personal development and overall well-being of students. 
 
The New London Group took pprogressive-minded educators to task for over-emphasizing "situatedness" in instruction, and they put forth the “pedagogy of multiliteracies” to compensate for the limitations of situated practice by adding in overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice. Through critical framing, learners “denaturalize” their growing mastery of practice and “constructively critique it, account for its cultural location, creatively extend and apply it, and eventually innovate on their own, within old communities and in new ones” (pp. 86-87).
 
I have referenced the New London Group "manifesto" as a how-to document for student-centered technology instruction; I had never understood it as a "shared vision" for critical discourse traditions, as Rogers notes (p.9). But it makes sense in light of her explication of the generative aspects of Critical Social Theory, where "the end goal is to hope, to dream, and to create alternative realities that are based in equity, love, peace, and solidarity" (p. 5). This is getting at the "design" side, and I think it explains why I am drawn to Kress' vision. 
 
Overall, it was challenging to tease out the distinctions between Fairclough, Gee, and Kress.  It all started to run together at some point, and they all build on the principle of discourse as socially constitutive and tied up in power systems. Discourse is multimodal, with language/grammar being but one of several representational sign systems. And I took Rogers' caution to heart, that it was not necessary to "choose sides" and that a "hybrid" approach was not only possible but even preferred in light of the various constraints imposed, especially within institutional contexts.
 
However, I did feel a tug toward Kress, on whom I will comment a bit further. 
 
Connecting to Kress
As were some of my classmates, I was intimidated by the discussion around semiotics and wondered if I have the intellectual capacity to take on these ideas. But I liked what little I understood about social semiotics as a sort of buffer against pure critique of social and institutional structures.  Social semiotics looks at how meanings are designed and re-designed through interaction, with implications for those (like me!) who are interested in "the relationship between educational practices and productive uses of power" (Rogers, p. 14).
 
I want to learn more about this "difference between design [social semiotics] and critique" (Rogers, p. 14), and I think this is what separates Kress from the others.  It has something to do with the "material" aspects of discourse and what Rogers notes as Kress' "focus on the sign-maker, rather than the sign" (p. 8).  
 
In Kress' chapter, I just really loved his discussion of the student's rendering of cell with nucleus as an "epistemological commitment."  It sounds high-falootin', but what it suggests to me is this total re-orientation in the classroom to what students know and can do as opposed to the typical deficit model that measures students' learning by how well they enact preconceived "standards" of excellent and how well they perform on achievement tests.
 
You see this a lot in literacy instruction, such as when teachers or parents fail to recognize emergent print concepts and letter formation in a pre-literate child's playful "scribbling," or when adolescents' bonafide text creations (fanfiction, YouTube uploads, personal webpages) are dismissed as "spending too much time playing on the computer."
 
I love Kress' emphasis on multimodality as defined on pp. 208-209. , which suggests a major paradigm shift for classroom teaching. Kress says, "To make a sign is to make knowledge" (p. 211). So powerful!! We say we are always looking for "signs of learning" in the classroom, but are we really? Seldom to we create spaces or make room for "spoken signs" and "image signs."

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October 18, 2011

"I don't know": Reading notes for Oct. 13

Maybe it's a blessing I did not post to my blog last week, because it wasn't until Thursday night's discussion that I began to consolidate my thinking and make some connections across the last chapters of Wood & Kroger and ten Have. I recognize that "consolidating" and "connecting" is the intended purpose of the blog, but even then, I usually seek out someone to talk to as I am immersed in the readings, usually my classmate Renee.

But I didn't have time to chat with my colleague last week, due to a major transcription task in front of me.  Once I removed the earbuds and got the voices of my field informants -- all 11 of them -- out of my head, I drove to class in a mental fog.  I was in no state of mind to discuss, much less write about, the "detailed, painstaking, sometimes tedious work" of producing a warranted and trustworthy research analysis (Wood & Kroger, p. 181).

"I don't know" 
Who would have thought that the innocuous and ubiquitous phrase "I don't know" would snap me out of my transcription-induced funk?

Last Thursday night, some of my classmates expressed skepticism around claims made about the use of "I don't know" in academic discourse. At first, I was reminded of CA's less-than-endearing traits (to me) --  its "obsession" with details and unapologetic refusal to acknowledge the obvious (ten Have, Chapter 3). But the extract in question was from a DA study, not a CA study, and the reaction it stimulated brought our class discussion back full-circle to basic issues and challenges of producing "good" research.  Although it was just a short segment of the full analysis, our diverse reactions to the study provided at least a partial indicator of its power to stimulate meaning-making. 

Audience 
One of the most profound lessons for me in year-long ethnography with Dr. Anders was the idea that we are not speaking for participants, but to an audience. The word used in class last week was "resonance," a criterion for good writing in general, I believe. With 12 hours of qualitative methodology courses under my belt, I can safely say no single scholar has stirred my thinking more on this topic than Laurel Richardson, whose essay "Writing: A Method of Inquiry," I'd already read twice, and now, a third time.

According to Richardson, our "meaning is in the reading." As a qualitative researcher, I must write in such a way as to ensure a connection with an audience, my intended readership, whoever that may be. "...[Q]ualitative work depends upon people's reading it," Richardson tells us (p. 346). 

Applied CA 
Without realizing it, I was primed for reading ten Have's conclusion. Finally!  An acknowledgement (albeit a "cautious" and "agnostic" one) of those researcher-practioners who aim to take up CA to inform or contribute to a specific field or discipline. In fact, I learned from these last chapters that CA's warrant has much to do with the analyst's orientation to audience.

In a summary of ideas proposed by James Heap, ten Have writes, "Whether it is worthwhile to do ethnomethodology (or CA) depends on the value of the news it produces for an audience" (p. 195). Further, the goal of applied CA is to deliver "news" that may foment change within an organization or among a group of participants.

So, CA isn't just the linguistic equivalent of navel-gazing after all! :-)

This idea of "newsworthiness" as a measure of warrantability reminded me of Wood & Kroger's "powerful criterion" of fruitfulness. Fruitfulness has to do with "implications of the present work for other work" (p. 175). Like last Thursday's class discussion, I feel I have performed a 360-degree turn. I am back now to some of my earliest questions, reflections, and reservations. The idea of DA as a mechanism for shining light on "acknowledged social problems" is one I've wondered about off-and-on within this blog. 

"Alternatives"
The price, of course, for openly assuming a stance is increased vigilance in the area of researcher reflexivity. The qualitative researcher is obligated to "bracket," to be openly reflexive about hunches and presuppositions.

Wood & Kroger describe this as taking account of "moral implications" (p. 175).  I like how another author, Patti Lather in "Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research," calls it "a self-corrective element" (p. 188). Similar to Wood & Kroger's call for criteria that "transcend" traditional positivist standards (p. 167), Lather offers a "reconceptualization" of validity (p. 188). She writes, "Our best shot at present is to construct research designs that push us toward becoming vigorously self-aware" (p. 190).

I enjoyed how Wood & Kroger recast "reliability" as a matter of repetition, but not in outcomes, which are always subject to interpretation. Instead, repetition as a standard of quality works differently in DA. It's the aggregate of researcher actions, "part of the careful attention to detail and the concern for refinement that are major features of discourse-analytic work" (p. 166).

And validity is not based on black-and-white truths that are somehow captured. Validity is a matter of strength and trustworthiness that is "co-constructed" between informants, author, and audience. Quoting Potter, Wood & Kroger point to the "greater prominence" assigned to reader reaction, "an emphasis that both results from and is encouraged by the greater transparency of discourse-analytic work" (p. 168). 

Crystals
Crystals are typically transparent, sometimes a little cloudy and not without a few imperfections. And that is why I love Richardson's crystal metaphor, recommended as an alternative to the traditional triangulation procedure for demonstrating quality of a study.  I went back to "Writing: A Method of Inquiry" to make sure I understood the metaphor. Could I ferret out any implications for DA? What about those of us who are not writing "postmodernist mixed-genre texts"? Does that mean the process of "crystallization, " as Richardson describes it, isn't a viable alternative within the DA tradition?

I don't know.

Or, maybe crystallization is as much a researcher process as it is product?  We refract and reflect at all stages of research so the final piece of writing, even a conventional research report, is clearer and more engaging.  Richardson describes experimental processes, such as revisioning one's work as fiction so as to see it from different points of view.  This doesn't mean we all hang it up and become fiction writers, she says, it means we take advantage of the "propitious" time we live in and give ourselves up to the "playful pull" (p. 362).

To me, that suggests experimentation in one's writing as a means to locate, condition, and fine-tune one's voice, even if that voice ultimately finds its audience via traditional academic formats. In that regard, then isn't that what this blog is for? A possible venue for "staging a text" and "writing in other ways"?

I don't know. And that's OK.

As Richardson says, "Paradoxically, we know more and doubt what we know."

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October 6, 2011

Goin' on a pattern hunt!

As part of his Kindergarten homework, Henry had to go on a "pattern hunt." We started the hunt immediately upon pulling up to the curb in front of our house after school. With my phone, I took pictures of patterns he identified in the yard and on the porch.

Henry located numerous patterns of shape, size, and color within the American flag, the picket fence, the decorative lights strung on the porch, the poured-concrete pavers on the ground. Patterns, patterns everywhere!


"Look, Henry!" said his grandmother, who was with us. "Here's one," she said, pointing to a series of concentric circles atop a water meter cover.

Henry frowned, not seeing it. "Granny, that is not a pattern.  A pattern is the same and repeats itself," he instructed, before continuing his search.

Well, of course, it was a sort of pattern we were all looking at in the ground. Patterns involve form and/or structure and occur with varying levels of extensiveness and complexity, thus making them "sometimes difficult to recognize" (Wood & Kroger, p. 117).  Henry was so well schooled in the textbook definition of "pattern," he could not wrap his five-year-old mind around an interesting departure from the rule.

This is the challenge of the novice researcher/analyst: striking the right balance of unschooled intuition and basic analytical knowledge. It isn't easy intuiting significance from interestingly deviant cases if you don't "know" a little about what you are looking at.

Recognizing "patterns of interactions"

At once, I think novice analysts may have an advantage insofar as "unmotivated looking" because we are not deeply schooled in the DA/CA literature base. And, yet, as ten Have explains his strategy, "...[T]he starting point is some 'noticing' in the transcript that something 'interesting' seems to be happening at some moment. From that moment on, the purpose of the strategy is to elaborate and contextualize that rather intuitive moment" (p. 124).

It is helpful, then, to possess "a few basic concepts from the CA tradition to structure one's 'looking'" (p. 121), and ten Have's four, fundamental "organizations" from the CA knowledgebase seem incredibly helpful to me as I move forward.

In a similar vein, Wood & Kroger provide lists of "sensitizing devices," lest we become "loose and undisciplined" during our early explorations of the data (p. 91). They acknowledge that it is difficult to know if an interesting feature hasn't already been described elsewhere by other scholars. This has come up earlier in class discussions: how do we keep up with the vast array of features, concepts, and devices? In this regard, it seems the novice is at a disadvantage if not at least generally familiar with the CA/DA literature. No one wants to reinvent the wheel.

In at least one previous blog post, I have worried about not being able to master the vast array of "concepts and devices" emanating from the traditions of DA. For this reason, I enjoyed their discussion of "useful concepts or sets of ideas" that, in some cases, "transcend any particular tradition" (p. 100). Like ten Have's suggested "organizations," which I think Wood & Kroger lump together as "collected dossiers," the list of concepts in Chapter 8 strike me as something to hang onto as I prepare to embark on my own pattern hunt.

Another go-round with context

Context remains at the center of "lively debate" in DA, this time regarding its role in the analysis and interpretation of data. Where, if at all, does information about settings, circumstances, social roles, demographic variables, and so on work its way in?

Context comes from within and without. Wood and Kroger note the "contextualization of utterances is a procedure that is relied upon by participants themselves and is hearable-visable in the discourse that we are analyzing" (p. 128).

It gets dicey around "extrinsic context" -- how much of setting, institutional orders and participant characteristics, class, gender, race, age, and so on, can we draw on in our analysis? Wood and Kroger recommend a "simple" strategy, which we have heard before in class -- it's only relevant if the participants make it relevant. Otherwise, how do you know where to stop? And heavy doses of researcher reflexivity can help mediate the process of determining what is relevant. Wood and Kroger: "It is crucial to emphasize that the recommendation is not to ignore context, to leave out what is important, but to be very careful about how it is brought into analysis" (p. 129).

This is where I have some questions about the document/text we are to locate for our project. I have looked at one primary document, the School Improvement Plan (SIP), a document every public school must compile and submit to the state each year. I located in the SIP a very small bit about the collaborative teaming that I am currently observing. I have reviewed every relevant page of the school website, but this is understandably geared toward students, parents, and community stakeholders and does not include information about the mission, philosophy, purpose, or background of the collaborative team concept or even site-based management in general. I have also sent out emails to a few team members inquiring about documentation. 

But perhaps I should wait and see what kind of paper trail is circulated or produced from within the team when I am there??

Another interesting analytic move related to context that I would like to learn more about is this idea of "extending the boundaries of the interaction under analysis" and developing "ethnographic knowledge" or "shared knowledge" between myself and the participants.  Wood and Kroger say, "Sometimes ethnographic research is necessary." This suggests a longer engagement in the field than I had originally planned, and I am starting the process of requesting an extension from the principal and the head of research for the school district.

ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis: A practical guide (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE. 
Wood, L. A., & Kroger, R. O. (2000). Doing discourse analysis: Methods for studying action in talk and text. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.


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October 5, 2011

DA project update

I have observed twice at my research site "Plan B" (the high school) since Sept. 22. This week brings my third visit to the school and -- finally -- an opportunity to record a full collaborative team meeting between core academic teachers. 

After consulting with my adviser, I have decided to request permission from the building principal to continue fieldwork indefinitely with hopes of turning this project into "something more." I am currently doing a research review for Dr. Allington on the ways in which collaborative dialog, distributed leadership, and shared decision-making support effective literacy instruction. We will see where this goes....

Other than an overarching concern about producing a meaningful transcript in time for the Oct. 13 data session, I would like to share some initial concerns and observations about the site and participants:

1) After listening in on two meetings, I am conscious of the fact that I am really attuned to the content of the talk between teachers and have not really been cognizant or deliberate about talk features and devices. I am growing a little antsy, I guess, because this weeks' chapters are all about pre-analysis and early analysis of discourse, and I am still at the front-end of transcription.  That said, the content of the collaborative team meetings is really interesting (to me) and covers a variety of topics and issues.  I am much more jazzed now about this research plan, than my original Plan A. Funny how things change.
 
2) During the first observation, I sat at the table and chose not to write notes or clack away on my computer because I did not want to put off the group.  Plus, in a way, that constitutes "recording," and I agreed not to record.  So, afterward, I went to the school library and typed up everything that I could remember, first impressions, questions, ideas, etc. On the second observation, I sat away from the table and tapped fieldnotes into my iPad and this proved to be effective, but I was less able to attend to all of the non-verbals, facial expressions, etc.

3) The perfect metaphor for this experience: embedded journalist with a military unit on the front lines of action.  That's how it feels. Some additional observations:
  • lots of laughter, humor, camaraderie, "inside" jokes
  • lots of micro-level discussion and problem-solving about specific students and student issues (absences, truancy, pregnancy, failing grades, tardies, school transfers, pressures related to family and/or work and financial obligations) So, the somewhat cliched image of educator as "triage expert" comes to mind, but that's my metaphor, not the participants'.
  • The bulk of conversation focuses on grades, test scores, passing-failing -- issues of performance as opposed to issues related to actual teaching and learning. And I have heard zero dialog about literacy learning. Perhaps this is the natural outcome of interdisciplinary teaming at a high-needs school, where the problems of students are "shared" between faculty who are making deliberate effort to create a culture of caring. 
4) Some potential problems and challenges pertaining to transcription come to mind:
  • lots of overlapping and latching speech
  • lots of use of student names.  I can supply pseudonyms for the major participants on the team, but what do I do about the countless student names brought up in conversation?  Last week they probably discussed two dozen different students. Do I insert students' initials into the transcript? Do I use S1, S2, S3, etc.?
  • environmental noise (from a photocopier in the meeting room as well as an open door on a hallway filled with students during the passing period) could potentially corrupt some segments of the recordings
  • Zan, my pseudonymous friend and primary contact on the team, occasionally addresses me directly to fill in context or to include me in whatever joke is at hand. (I, in fact, know about half of the collaborative team already, so building rapport has proven not to be an issue).  Do I tell her just don't do that anymore?

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