In reviewing my thesis, it strikes me that any aims of research I discuss should be those of the future, rather than past work. In looking backwards, we do get a better sense of where we can go, and it’s particularly important that research does move our understanding forward. The aims of my doctoral research were very specific and focussed on getting the PhD, but my aims now are more broad and encompass a range of technologies in learning and a specific focus on adult learning. There are still parts of the aim from my thesis that are applicable, so I’ll build on them to elaborate where I can go from here.
It is proposed for effective online learning to occur that both student-teacher and student-student interactions must be fostered. [...] Through understanding how learning is mediated online, a greater understanding of relationships and outcomes between humans and non-human artefacts may result.
This is still broadly applicable. The deleted sentence referred to distance learners, but the focus is now more broadly referred to as ‘flexible learning’. I think flexible learning is what we do, particularly when we use the Internet to look something up, when we ask a friend (or more knowledgeable expert), when we use trial and error. The learning process becomes inherently flexible and specific to the kinds of tasks we are trying to achieve. In my thesis, I focussed on ‘interactions’, including between individuals and between an individual and a technology. All learning is based on interactions – reading books is interacting with the author, albeit once-removed.
[...]
This research is conceptualised within a framework that identifies both the computer and the Internet as a ‘tool’. Sociocultural theories of learning provide a conceptual framework for studying both individual and social levels of human practice and relations between them (Kuutti, 1996, Lewis, 1997, Wertsch, 1998). This framework permits a rich understanding of the relationship between the individual and the social, rather than one which excludes either human agency in the social or contextuality in the individual (Hung and Wong, 2000, Lewis, 1997). This means that sociocultural theory provides insights not available within single disciplines associated with learning that focus on one or the other, as well as providing a framework for understanding participatory processes using multiple viewpoints. However, there are no prescribed processes for achieving this, which allow the use of relevant frameworks to assist in the understanding of processes being investigated.
This paragraph pretty well sums up the aims of most of my research – explicating the interaction between the ‘individual and social levels of human practice’ and any tools we use. There’s a strong technological focus in my work, but that focus is not simply on computer technology. The framework I invoke views ‘tools’ to incorporate not only the overt technologies, those that we all view as technology, but also speech and language as technologies. These technologies mediate our interactions as I discussed in Chapter 2 of my thesis (you can read the original here or hang around till I get to that bit).
[...]
The literature reviewed appears directed towards three goals for technology: (i) to conceive of ways of using it (advocate); (ii) to push forward the established uses (accept); or to (iii) highlight the problems inherent and thus justify its non-use (refuse). Heidegger (1977 p4) claims that “we shall never experience our relationship to the essence of technology so long as we merely conceive and push forward the technology, put up with it, or evade it”, (i.e. to critique it). At times, the relationship an individual has with technology may constitute finding new ways of using it, accepting or refusing its use. Recognising these three roles may permit an analysis of how the relationship to technology influences the use of technology in the wider sense. Recognising that a particular individual is promoting technological interventions in education permits the analysis to conceive of the impacts of this view of other individuals for whom the relationship is less conducive to ‘transparent’ use (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p102).
There seems, therefore, to be three roles taken on by teachers and by researchers towards the educational use of technology – advocate, acceptor, or refuser. But the role of questioner or critic, the role that Heidegger assumes, is often absent from current research on the use of technology in education. Hence, it is in questioning relationships between the means of mediating and how they influence the acts of learning, a greater understanding of the impact of technology on learning may be gained.
I think these paragraphs still shape my research goals. The relationships between the mediational means (that is, language and other tools) and their influence on our interactions is an area that needs much deeper thought. I’m still seeing people grabbing hold of the latest technological meme (eg twitter) and then use it in very superficial ways. I know there is research being done about how something like twitter enables particular activities and we only have to look to the Iran Elections and Haiti to see the deep and sometimes ongoing connections that are being made. But just because some connections are made, doesn’t mean that every attempt will allow that to happen. I think the next bit really helps us think about the processes involved, rather than just the ‘cool’ factor of using Twitter.
In order to investigate these relationships, this thesis is conceptualised within sociocultural theories, which posit the individual in a social framework and assist in answering questions about ‘what is involved, when we say what people are doing and why they are doing it?’ (Burke, 1969, p xv), thus assisting in the role of ‘questioner’ advocated by Heidegger. Burke provides a framework, which uses five elements (the Pentad), – what is being done (act), who is doing it (agent), how they are doing it (agency), where they are doing it (scene) and why (purpose). Burke’s pentadic framework has been used extensively as a construct for viewing and analysing many communicative forms and events. For instance, Kahn-Egan (1997) used Burke’s Pentad to analyse the death by suicide of grunge icon Kurt Cobain, concluding that the scenic parameter of this act had been vastly underrepresented in previous analyses of this incident, that is, the influence of the ‘grunge’ scene and the expectations of people in that scene likely impacted on Cobain’s decision. Likewise, Freeman (1974, p10) used the Pentad for an analysis of the curriculum and the classroom and concluded that “Burke’s dramatistic metaphor offers a way of looking at the dynamics of human interaction … in the context of more sensitive and aesthetic perspectives”. The ‘dynamics of human interaction’ are central to the current investigation, particularly as they influence students in online learning environments.
This paragraph really starts to show some of the ‘originality’ and ‘contribution to knowledge’ (a core requirement of Australian PhDs) from my thesis. The Pentad seemed to be such a useful tool for analysing what we are doing, but seems to be confined to communication studies. It’s a shame, because it is a very simple metaphor for analysis. There are many others, but this one spoke volumes to me while I was trying to work out how learning was being mediated. I probably should write another paper or two about this from some of my research into wikis.
This investigation aims to determine what new understandings result from stepping outside the roles of advocate, acceptor or refuser outlined above. Questioning the use of technology may lead to new ways of understanding online learning – its physicality, its potential and its role in the future of education. The relationships between Burke’s Pentadic elements (listed above and discussed later) provide insight into how online learning environments work for particular groups of students and for their teacher, and assist in the identification and establishment of pre-conditions which might need to be met for teaching online to result in learning online.
While the focus of my thesis was ‘online’ learning, it’s considerably broader now, with a focus on Adults learning, or at least post-compulsory education learning. What happens when individuals from a very structured learning environment get thrown into a far less structured or completely unstructured environment. After a decade of teaching in Higher Ed, I’m convinced that undergrad work should be less structured (although we have many structured activities) and so-called ‘life-long learning’ is especially unstructured. How do we make sense of things, particularly the conflicting ideas and concepts we find with the great wealth of information available to us on the web.
Sense-making is a critical part of learning and I’m not sure we have developed processes which allow us to do that in most circumstances. There is such a complexity of ideas that any attempt to make sense can sometimes be so fraught with possibilities that it is easier to blindly accept what’s in front of us without any attempt to make a specific case. This latter is probably more in line with Luke‘s research, but it’s been a fruitful area of collaboration for us so far.
In effect, I think where I go from here is building on our understanding of adult learning, furthering how we view interactions with technology and interactions between people mediated by technology and how we make sense of that, all wrapped up in a pedagogical/androgogical framework. Yes.
References
Burke, K. (1969) A grammar of motives, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Freeman, J. (1974) A Burkean Analysis of the Classroom, In American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, Illinois
Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Harper and Row, New York.
Hung, D. W. L. and Wong, A. F. L. (2000) Activity Theory as a Framework for Project Work in Learning Environments, Educational Technology, 40:2, pp 33-37.
Kahn-Egan, S. (1997) Nailed to the Pentad: A Dramatistic Look at the Death of Kurt Cobain, In National Communication Association Convention, Chicago http://www.sla.purdue.edu/people/engl/dblakesley/burke/kahnegan.html.
Kuutti, K. (1996) Activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction research, in Context and Consciousness: Activity theory and human-computer interaction, Nardi, B. A. (Ed) MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Lewis, R. (1997) An Activity Theory framework to explore distributed communities, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 13, pp 210-218.
Wertsch, J. V. (1998) Mind as Action, Oxford University Press, New York.
Related posts
Tags:
flexible learning, learning, research