The "Power" of Collective Constructs
Recent readings in design research have discussed collective constructs and shared argumentation. I will be honest, the drill down that some design research provides can drive me nuts, but the two articles discussing these concepts have really resonated with me, especially in the context of our current Immersion team climate. In order for a design team to function, collective constructs need to occur to allow for accumulation of "sharable" knowledge. From the second week of this semester until today, I have felt that the team ideas are not functioning "as-if-shared". So, for most of this semester, I have felt like a ship without a rudder and all those other "lost" cliques that you can think of. I have tried my best to share my frustrations with the group about what I felt was a fundamental missing link in our process. My efforts to communicate this perceived dissonance were not successful. But something happened today. I felt like today was the first time we functioned as a team IN MONTHS as we worked together to define our direction for an aspect of the Virtual Collaboration Center. In this instance, I believe that the impact of the collective construct could be felt, and from where I sat, the accumulation of knowledge was powerful. I just hope we can maintain this momentum as we move into the end of the semester.
Showing posts with label design_research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design_research. Show all posts
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Immersion, Spring Semester -- Week 2
Struggling to Comprehend Design-Based Research
As I mentioned in last week’s post, the iTeam is responsible for writing a collaborative paper on design-based research (DBR). I am still struggling to understand what DBR is all about within an educational context. I found this post on Learning-Theories.com, hoping to generate a better understanding of the concept. After reading it three times, I understand that DBR considers context as well as the intervention itself. But, the quote that jumps out at me is this:
The intention of design-based research…is to inquire more broadly into the nature of learning in a complex system and to refine generative or predictive theories of learning.
Since context can be such a fluid aspect within the design process and can change on a dime, how can “predictive theories of learning” be generated?
And my first week as Scribe has been … interesting. While I was rather happy to stop facilitating the team work, I am finding it difficult to focus on the task at hand in team meetings since I have to concentrate on note taking. In addition, I feel like I do not have a grasp on where we are in the design process since I am not facilitating the agenda. As facilitator, I prepped for meetings by reviewing references and notes to make sure that we were on track. It enabled me to create a more thorough understanding of where we were, what we were trying to get to, and what we needed to do. There were also a few times when I had a very strong urge to jump up during the meetings and start writing on the board to clarify ideas and help with the focus of the meeting. I’m finding it harder to “take a back seat” and sit on my hands (where appropriate) then actually facilitating the group.
On a lighter note, I thought I would share this amusing video on Second Life:
As I mentioned in last week’s post, the iTeam is responsible for writing a collaborative paper on design-based research (DBR). I am still struggling to understand what DBR is all about within an educational context. I found this post on Learning-Theories.com, hoping to generate a better understanding of the concept. After reading it three times, I understand that DBR considers context as well as the intervention itself. But, the quote that jumps out at me is this:
The intention of design-based research…is to inquire more broadly into the nature of learning in a complex system and to refine generative or predictive theories of learning.
Since context can be such a fluid aspect within the design process and can change on a dime, how can “predictive theories of learning” be generated?
And my first week as Scribe has been … interesting. While I was rather happy to stop facilitating the team work, I am finding it difficult to focus on the task at hand in team meetings since I have to concentrate on note taking. In addition, I feel like I do not have a grasp on where we are in the design process since I am not facilitating the agenda. As facilitator, I prepped for meetings by reviewing references and notes to make sure that we were on track. It enabled me to create a more thorough understanding of where we were, what we were trying to get to, and what we needed to do. There were also a few times when I had a very strong urge to jump up during the meetings and start writing on the board to clarify ideas and help with the focus of the meeting. I’m finding it harder to “take a back seat” and sit on my hands (where appropriate) then actually facilitating the group.
On a lighter note, I thought I would share this amusing video on Second Life:
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Immersion, Spring Semester -- Week 1
... And we're off?
So the new semester began on Tuesday. The iTeam met and we processed the results of our Fall Semester work. We identified our new team roles (which will actually rotate this semester) and refined the responsibilities of each. As of this week, I will not be the Project Coordinator. Yippee! My assigned role is Scribe. While Scribe is not the most exciting role to undertake in this process, I welcome the change with open arms.
After meeting with our Immersion advisor, it appears that our client not only did not participate in our end of semester presentation, he probably didn't even view the presentation since then. So at this point, who knows what his feedback will be. We did make our intentions clear to our advisor -- we actually want to do some instructional design this semester, and not get bogged down in crafting some scheduling form for the video conferencing resources available to the T/TAC audience.
Our advisor also reviewed the syllabus for this semester. Included in our deliverables is a collaborative paper that focuses on design research. Considering that we didn't discuss design research very much last semester, this task seems a bit daunting to say the least. What is design research? Good question. That is something our team is asking as well -- but I did find a resource that was a little helpful to provide some sort of a context as we ponder this question.
So the new semester began on Tuesday. The iTeam met and we processed the results of our Fall Semester work. We identified our new team roles (which will actually rotate this semester) and refined the responsibilities of each. As of this week, I will not be the Project Coordinator. Yippee! My assigned role is Scribe. While Scribe is not the most exciting role to undertake in this process, I welcome the change with open arms.
After meeting with our Immersion advisor, it appears that our client not only did not participate in our end of semester presentation, he probably didn't even view the presentation since then. So at this point, who knows what his feedback will be. We did make our intentions clear to our advisor -- we actually want to do some instructional design this semester, and not get bogged down in crafting some scheduling form for the video conferencing resources available to the T/TAC audience.
Our advisor also reviewed the syllabus for this semester. Included in our deliverables is a collaborative paper that focuses on design research. Considering that we didn't discuss design research very much last semester, this task seems a bit daunting to say the least. What is design research? Good question. That is something our team is asking as well -- but I did find a resource that was a little helpful to provide some sort of a context as we ponder this question.
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