Aug 27, 2009 0
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Aug 22, 2009 0
I have been cleaning out seven years of office stuff that I have been carrying from one state to another as part of the trajectory of getting a foot in the door. All because we are moving to a flash new building at the end of next week. A purpose-built space with labs to be finalised soon. With paperwork up to my armpits and a downsizing in file cabinet space, I realised that I need to specialise, specialise even more than I have…or at least consolidate the specialty that I have been developing. I detect some new leaves turning on many fronts and one of them is lifting a notch or 2 or 3 while still balancing an expanding family. Tricky! Sometimes the new media thing is like a slippery eel, it is not just about a big bit of bait and the hook line and sinker.
Aug 20, 2009 0
Aug 20, 2009 0
What is happening at UNSW with the use of social media tools in lectures and labs. Included in this report is comments on network literacy.
Aug 20, 2009 2
In a recent post-grad workshop Pia spoke about her own recent PhD research and referred to the article Start Here: Social Ontology and Research Strategy, Jack Katz. What I found useful in this presentation was the process of scrutiny, looking at something in detail Quotes from the presentation: “The Art of the Detective”. Looking for very specific things/aspects as part of describing what happened. “A realisation of things that you were not previously aware of…”, “interrogate things under the surface”, ” Get under the surface” of what you are doing. “Ask questions about what you are doing…make yourself uncomfortable, what sticks up like a sore thumb”; picking on patterns and textures that resonated across the projects…” text that illuminates the projects…”
The shift in the question: “What is happening is a refinement of the questions…” “refining the question into a good question…”
Another point was on how to handle the personal as process of self-realisation…”acknowledge the personal but not be limited by that…how do you connect the personal with the broader field?” keep remembering that the research is part of a “larger collective nature of the situation.” This means also becoming aware of which field the research sits within as a knowledge contribution
Aug 19, 2009 0
The next stage of the exegesis writing is reflecting on each of the projects. I worked out in the introduction that a chronological/iterative approach works in terms of the documentation. Having used Schon to redefine the abstract. I decided to go back to Schon again to clarify the documentation approach towards the projects. This means looking more closely at the reflection-in-action concept as an “epistemology of practice”.
When a practitioner reflects in and on his practice, the possible objects of his reflection are as varied a the kinds of phenomena before him and the systems of knowing-in-practice which he brings to them. He may reflect on the tacit norms and appreciations which underlie a judgment, or on the strategies and theories implicit in the pattern of behavior. He may reflect on the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way in which he has framed the problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional context. (p 62)
What I conclude from this quote is that there is not one-way of reflecting on a particular project. I was making the mistake of looking for a set framework. Later in the section, ‘The Structure of Reflection-in-Action’, Schon points out how each project is “unique”. Therefore, this appears to be more about looking for what is working and what is not working as a way to identify what issue/problem the work/project reveals. This process also involves not only identifying the problem but thinking about how it may be “reframed”, shifted in regards to what the overall research inquiry is exploring. A process that underpins the iterative process of design and production moving from one project to another. The documentation of each project fleshes out the framework/problem that is being explored as a hole.
Problems are tested by carrying out experiments. Each project can be seen as an experiment that explores the problem. Iteratively this process can lead to the framing of the problem being reset – a “frame experiment” (p 63)
He argues that surprise is a trigger for reflecting-in-action. (p 56)
“One must use words to describe a knowing, and a change of knowing, which are probably not originally represented in words at all” (p.59)
knowing-in-action
reflecting-in-action
theory-in-action
theory -response
reflecting-in-practice
Past experience: Thinking about how past experience is used to evaluate a problem that is “unique”. Understanding this problem comes from previous knowledge and experience. A unique situation/issues is evaluated by using what is already known. I see this as referring to your area of expertise when you are reflecting on projects that explore new ground. Working from the known is used to understand difference. (p 138)
What is an experiment in practice compared to research? – Schon examines the notion of the experiment in detail separating the traditional notion of a controlled type experiment in the laboratory, away from the process of reflection-in-action.
Exploratory experiment is the probing, playful activity by which we get a feeling for things. It succeeds when it leads to discovery of something there. (p 145)
move testing experiments – an experiment towards an outcome p.146
hypothesis testing – A simple description, a question that is tested to find an answer. p.146
He explores the difference between experimenting in research compared to practice and argues that all three aspects noted above are part of the process in practice. A key difference he argues between a scientific laboratory type experiment and one in practice is in the first is driven by a desire to comprehend compared to the objective to improve and transform. (p 151)
He experiments rigorously when he strives to make the situation conform to his view of it while at the same time he remains open to the evidence of his failure to do so. He must learn by reflection on the situation’s resistance that his hypothesis is inadequate, and in what way, or that his framing of the problem is inadequate, and in what way. (p 153)
In conclusion, I see the documentation completed as practice happens as being different from writing up an exegesis which documents the practice afterward. The documentation on the way as the practice happened can be incorporated into the exegesis as part of reflecting back. The approach I will take to writing up each project is one of intense scrutiny with the overall problem in mind. I see this as describing what each project is, followed by an analysis of what has occurred in relation to my own repertoire of experience and the field of practice that I inhabit. I will be looking for specific things that are unfamiliar that lend themselves to being expanded and explored further. For example, what did I learn from the project as a type of “framing experiment”. How did I respond to the unfamiliar? Was what I discovered “surprising” and how did that affect the framing of the next project? How has this project as a type of probe begun to solve and frame the major problem identified?
The integration of theory into this reflection will happen when the project is looked at in regards to the broader field it is situated within, along with looking for theory that helps illuminate unusual findings. The personal is embedded in this analysis as the practitioner is “in the situation he seeks to understand” (p 151), but only due to the larger objective of what is being explored.
Aug 19, 2009 0
