CIRTA 2009

Re-Thinking Research to Re-Engage Practice Norm Friesen [email_address] learningspaces.org

Overview
Specialized and everyday meanings of “practice” & practique
How “practice” is used in e-learning & design
Origins and challenges of the use of “practice”
Ways of renewing the connection with practice: ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, discursive psychology
Implications of this renewal & reconnection

Everyday & Specialized Meanings
Practice has multiple but closely interrelated everyday meanings:
Medical, legal or religious practices: It is what we do, as members of a professional or other group.
Practice makes perfect: It can improve through repetition and is tied to habit (think of “practice makes perfect”) (see, for example, Schön, 1982, 60)
Theory vs. Practice: as the opposite of mere words or theory (“practice what you preach”).

Practice – Practique?
Practice: entraînement, répétition
Practice: habitude (habit)
Practice: usage
Practique : procedure, as opposed to theory
Pierre Bourdieu Michel de Certeau

Specialized uses…
Best practice (in implementation, etc.)
“ A well defined procedure that is known to produce near-optimum results” (Wiktionary)
ACM: 62,000 hits for “practices:” “State-of-practice”, “work practices”, “design practice”
Communities of practice : “a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession” (Wikipedia)

Practice & Communities of Practice
Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design . Winograd, T., & Flores, F. (1986)
Plans and situated actions . Suchman (1987).
Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and culture in everyday life. Lave, J. (1988).
Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation Lave & Wenger. (1991).

Suchman: Plans and Situated Actions
activities such as everyday planning and mathematical reasoning are “primarily situated, and [such] situated actions are essentially [improvised or] ad hoc ” (Suchman, 1987, p. ix; see also Suchman, 2007; Winograd & Flores, 1986).

Suchman, 1987, 2007
“ primary concern in [the book is] to suggest a “shift in the status of plans from …control structures that universally precede and determine actions, to discursive resources produced and used within the course of certain forms of human activity” (p. 299).
the rationally “‘planned’ character of our actions is not… inherent [in these actions] but is demonstrably achieved.”

Consequences for theory and practice
Practice (activity) is not a direct enactment of theory (plans, scripts, algorithms, decision trees)
Practice has an autonomy and “logic” of its own
The locus of human action and interaction is discourse, rather than cognition.
This implies a new type of vocabulary and a “reconfiguring” of human and machine

Dourish, 2001
The important point to recognize here is that these practices emerge not from the designers of the system, but from the actions of its users. This means two things; first, that true places emerge only when really occupied day-to-day, not in demonstrations or experiments that last a few hours; and second, that place can't be designed , only designed for . (Dourish, 2001; p. 91)

The Practice Turn
Over the past three decades, a radical change has occurred in what analysts view as the principal psychological basis of activity. Whereas philosophers and social investigators once cited mental entities such as beliefs, desires, emotions, and purposes, practice theorists instead highlight embodied capacities such as know-how, skills, tacit understanding, and dispositions.
(Schatzki 2001, p. 7)

From The Practice Turn
"'practice' brings into view activities which are situated, corporeal, and shaped by habits without reflection. This notion has been extraordinarily successful and has now been extended to cover every sort of human activity." (Thévenot, 2000, p. 64)
Practice has "a logic which is not that of the logician." (Bourdieu, 1992; p. 86)

Focus on Practice to reengage the connection with Research

Methodologies
Narrative: understanding of developments from the perspective of the participant (ch 1):
Technological change in the classroom as negotiated through teacher values and priorities
Ethnography: practices & communities of practice studied in context (First Monday)
Involves observation and participant observation
Requires relatively length periods of observation

Ethnomethodology
The “methodology” in ethnomethodology refers to the those used by people everyday in everyday acts
They use these in the “contingent accomplishment of socially organized practices” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 33)
Its concern "with sense-making" has been said to make "it a natural framework for undertaking a study of instructional practice" (Koschmann, Stahl & Zemel, 2007, p. 134).

Ethnomethodology in CSCL
the participants are the ones in possession of subject matter and methodological expertise, rather than researcher:
“ it is up to the members themselves to work out through their interaction what is to be treated as relevant and it is the task of the analyst to discover what these relevancies might be” (Koschmann, Stahl, & Zemel, 2007, p. 137)
“ Instruction and instructability” have been important “topics in ethnomethodological research from its earliest days” (ibid, p. 134).

Conversation Analysis: empirical technique for ethnomethodology
rigorous micro-level analysis of technologically-mediated communication
focuses on how meaning and order are “achieved” specifically through routine conversational “work” or “talk-in-interaction” (Schegloff, 1986, pp. 111–112)
Focuses on how meaning and order are “achieved” specifically through routine conversational “work” or “talk-in-interaction” (Schegloff, 1986, pp. 111–112

Telephone Calls
Hello, Hi, Hi! How are you? Fine, how are you? Okay. Good. What’s new?
Hello? Hello. Hi. You were you sitting by the phone? No, I’m in the kitchen where I was talking to a friend of mine earlier; I was just putting my fried rice on my plate to go eat lunch.

Telephone Calls, con’t
Jerry? Yeah. Irene. Oh hello, Irene. I just… I was just thinking about you just this moment. Uh the phone rang so long, I was worried. Oh? Uhuh. Well I just got in, oh, not 5 minutes ago from the hospital, and um the only thing I can report…
Hello? Hello Bonnie. Hi, this is Marlene. Hello. How are you? Fine. Good. Do you have Marina’s telephone number?

Telephone Calls, con’t
Hi Donnie. Guess what? What? My car is stalled!
Hello? Are you awake? Yeah! I just got up. Oh did ya? Yes. Well good. I’m alone. Bud left me last night.
Hello? Hello? Could you speak a little louder? Whose this? Robin. Hi, its Evelyn. Hi! I didn’t recognize your voice. Oh really? Yeah. Ah, it’s the same old me.

Discursive Psychology
Combines ethnomethodology as an approach with conversational analysis as a method to produce a way of analyzing and talking about the “mental”
Topics of psychological significance arise and are used and negotiated as resources in conversation. “Agency, intent, doubt, belief, prejudice, commitment, and so on,” as Edwards and Potter (2005) explain, “are built, made available or countered...” routinely in everyday talk-in-interaction (p. 242).

Simplified version Jill Valery Jill Valery - Saturday, 28 February 2009, 03:23 AM Lisa, I have had similar experiences where I have had no response to a post and also found it disheartening, and then thought it must be because the post was too boring to respond to [1, 2] . I suspect that, because we are being " forced "[3] to write these, I will have a similar cynical and, hopefully erroneous, reaction in the future. I think I need to find a forum over a topic that I am passionate [4,5] about. [1] Donna: There could be many reasons why there is no response. Maybe others are intimidated? Maybe they do not agree and cannot think of how to say so? [2] Lisa: interesting response. Mine is usually 'hmmm they don't care" or "I've offended them" - seems my issues are related to interpersonal and not content [3] Lisa: I'm seeing this word frequently - interesting [4] Lisa: which is? [5, instructor] Jill, if you got passionate about how you could use Marginalia in your teaching, I don't think we'd be bored!

What is happening here discursively?
Participants focus on the realm of the mental and social to discuss causes or topics that could potentially be technical or logistical in nature
Students (and the instructor) are all addressing issues of response, non-response, passion, boredom, as well as interest and potential dis-interest in what the other has to say. They use resources to do so:
Verbal Resources: e.g., exclamations, interrogatives, the psychological concepts of interest, passion, etc.
They enact interest and availability (Lisa’s response of “ which is ” ?) and by explicitly insisting on such interest and availability ( “ I don't think we'd be bored! ” ).

Emphasis on Relational Practices
“ your situation is this ; mine is that .”
A great deal is taken for granted, is not questioned; not subject to questioning and hypothesis formulation/testing
Conversation as a kind of “work” to negotiate and establish what is happening and how it is understood by participants; reality of what is happening is “achieved”
This is the basis for social relations, and ultimately, of all knowledge

Implications for Research
What is the foundation of knowing and learning?
The relationship between naïve and expert knowledge, models, conceptions is reversed
What is the relationship between learner and technology?
The difference, not the similarity between user and technology is important. We are not processing information.

Wolf-Michael Roth The nature of scientific conceptions (2007)
Naïve vs. Expert – conceptions, frameworks, mental models
7000 articles on conceptual change
Students resistant to conceptual change
understandings are articulated in talk, in social situations, some are scientific, others not

Naïve Knowledge (in Practice) vs. Research / Theory
Epistemologically
Superior
Foundation for Knowledge
Needs to be interrogated; is “just” one form of knowledge among others
Research / Theory Practice Research / Theory Practice

Learning  Technology Relationship
Technology is not effective educationally because it processes or represents knowledge as does the human mind (post-cognitivist)
the "actions" or operations of computers and their intelligibility are different than those of human learners
They are not situated or embodied; do not rely on interactional resources
They are not built on situational common sense or on everyday understanding

Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006)
Despite [its initial] success, challenges to the cognitive paradigm began to appear as early as the mid-1980s. The limitations of the traditional information-processing paradigm were demonstrated in seminal books by Winograd and Flores... and Suchman [in the late 1980s]. By the early 1990s, these limitations were acknowledged in the main- stream HCI community...The trend toward the need for a broader focus in research and development was [also] identified by leading researchers [in HCI].

Re-engaging with Practice
Everyday practice (& the knowledge that is a part of it) has an intrinsic value & wisdom
Embodied & situated educational practice is intrinsically valuable (classroom, hallway, lab)
Understand the complexities of practice as it is found & situated; it cannot be captured as a “use-case” or sequence in a workflow
It’s not about the technology itself, but about how it is (or is not) engaged with in situated practice

Everyday versus “Expert” Knowledge
Knowledge ordered according to subjective significance
Unsystematized knowledge
Routine activity
Reality as indubitably given
Avoidance of doubt
Ordered according to paradigmatically-grounded criteria
Systematized knowledge
Reflected methodical activity
Questioning the conditions for understanding “reality”
Systematization of doubt

Everyday versus “Expert” Knowledge
Safeguarding of what is known
Avoiding alternatives
Concentration on one meaning
Based on everyday praxis
Pragmatically motivated
Vocabulary is close to experience
Oral
Doubting what is known
Looking for alternatives
Multiple meanings expected
Systematically separate from it
Theoretically motivated
Vocabulary is distanced from it
Written

Research and Networking: SSHRC Grants & E-Learning

Overview
SSHRC Overall
Types of SSHRC Grants
Types of collaboration in grant applications (mentoring)
Parts of an application
Tips and techniques

With SSHRC: It’s not about how much money you get, its about how you get the money.

SSHRC Overall
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (one of three granting councils founded in 1977)
Education clearly in Social Sciences & Humanities (not part of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council)
SSHRC doing more special, targeted grants lately; has promised to target “hybrid” disciplines

Practical implications?
Don’t base research on tapscott (2x); Kurzweil; Gladwell, Educause
Instead, base on: Marx & Smith; first monday; Benkler; Castell;

Types of Grants
SRGs, RDI’s, IOF, Conference,
SRGs: the success rate has ranged between 38% and 42%.
.

Parts of an application
SSHRC CV: 60% weighted in favour of research achievement
Publications: categorized by peer review status, significance in career, other grants
Proposal: 40%
1 page summary: promotion, practical relevance
Objectives: 1/3 page; Methodology: 3 pages
Program of research: 2.5 pages
Dissemination: 1/3 page

Research Team
Co-applicants: they co-develop the grant, and “co-investigate;” need their SSHRC CV and an institutional signature
Find a “mentoring” co-applicant who has had success in previous SSHRC application
Be very selective; co-apps are evaluated in the grant
Collaborators: support the grant & its activities
“ Just” require their CV; good for “bringing in” the right balance of expertise in interdisciplinary work

Other parts of the Team
Community Organizations

Tips and Techniques
The ideal application is Schizophrenic
Enough specificity for the experts.
Enough generality for the rest.
Use the Application Summary to pitch your case for importance and originality.
Avoid jargon (from Doug Peers)
Write, write and re-write:
A great deal needs to be fit into a few pages
Avoid claims or approaches that exclude or target (negatively)

www.mediatrans.ca
This conference invites papers, in English, focusing on such issues as:
Recent developments in media theory in North America and central Europe, for example:
Media and materiality
The construction of “mediality” in theory and practice
Media and the (post)human
The “mediatic turn” as milestone or misnomer
The foundational contributions of McLuhan, Innis and the Toronto School, of Flusser, Luhmann, Kittler and others
Media as means of socialization and education
Towards a philosophy of media (Inter)disciplinary implications of media-theoretical developments

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CIRTA 2009

by Norm Friesen on Nov 19, 2009

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CIRTA 2009 — Webinar Transcript