Category: Leavening bubbles

Posted on

Initial questions for online learning

Discussions are a convention. Why?

There are rules and student participate in discussion because it is a graded activity. They are mini writing assignmentes. I am concerned that for some students it is just busy work. They go through the motions, regurgitate the reading material or (if they have not read the assigned texts, try to sound like they did read.

I my experience, online discussions are rarely a space students use to think something out together. Often, questions posted are probes that seek a confirmation that the student read the material. Discussions are an accountability measure and one of the venues for assessment. They are easy to facilitate as long as the software allows for the message board type exchange.

What if they are structured to function the same way face-to-face meetings function? As a way to gauge what students think about the material they are learning…

There are often rules: use a collegiate tone, academic writing conventions, initial post minimums and deadlines, two meaningful replies must be posted by the certain date. These seem to pass from one instructor to another via training, with little challenge to convention.

In my online psych program, I had an opportunity to participate in various classes from a wide range of content specific areas. Some discussions were exciting, stimulating, they challenged me to look up additional resources, go above and beyond the required readings. I was able to reflect, synthesize, and apply the learned material, make it my own. Other discussion were mechanical. I learned more from doing readings on my own. What was different? How can it be a different experience?

Posted on

Methodologists: Who needs them? POST TQR thoughts

From: Anna Gonzalez <annagonzalez@mail.usf.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2019 2:16:21 PM
To: Wolgemuth, Jennifer
Subject: A few thoughts about Methodologists: Who needs them?

It is a bit long, so I bolded the word conclusion  🙂

This was my first conference ever. The “Methodolosts: Who needs them?” presentation was the first and only session I was able to attend. It was an excellent experience, and I am glad I made it.

Methodologists… who needs them? The title meant to stimulate thought and to incite a debate. It accomplished both. People argued and framed the discussion around another question: What is the purpose of research? Is it about answering the research questions, or about asking them? If we can answer that, then we can answer who methodologists are and maybe even figure out who needs them.

In me, the presentation stirred up pride: as one of the USF tribesmen, I was thrilled to see so many people come to hear what the leaders of my qualitative clan had to say. I loved the tour into their thinking headquarters and appreciated the invitation to think with them. I could not be more pleased!

Yet, I also felt like a homeowner who discovered cracks on the stucco and opened her eyes to the reality of a possible sinkhole. I WANT to be a methodologist, but the ground on which this vision stands is apparently shaky, and so I felt frustration and fear of uncertainty for my future.

I know some people in the room were just as conflicted about their thoughts on the matter. Others immediately picked a camp. On the drive back, my co-presenters and I reflected on the experience and even argued a little bit. One student expressed her discomfort with the presentation because it brought USF’s dirty laundry out for everyone to see. It made her feel vulnerable and irate. I disagree–transparency in education is important.

I am still reflecting:

Thirty years ago, my 4th-grade teacher called me a “class advocate” for sticking up for troublemakers. She did not mean it as a compliment. Ten years ago, a very close friend called me a contrarian, and I agree–I love a good debate. Yet, as my husband frequently points out, I like to argue both sides. He finds it frustrating; I, on the other hand,  believe this is how I make sense of things. Some people argue to prove they are right. To them, having a winning opinion is important. I argue because the process helps me to organize information retrieval, to weigh facts, and eventually to arrive at a conclusion or another argument. I could care less whether I prove anything to my opponents: opponents are just helpers, anyway. Of course I like being right, but I enjoy the process of sense-making even more. I am no advocate, I am a discoverer. So how does this relate to the question of who needs methodologists?

Well, I argued every side I could come up with. I enjoyed the stimulation. I also loved the chance to demonize our neo-liberal education and the conditions it creates (it appears I am more of a socialist than I think. Oh wait. I was actually born and bred one, although I cannot say I hate the capitalism entirely–otherwise, why am I here, in the U.S.? Sigh…clearly, it is complicated.) I loved playing “find the label” because it is an exercise in the identification of ideological oppression and a chance to analyze linguistic phenomena (I am thinking Derrida).

Then I read this article and it occurred to me that I do not have to be a social microbiologist all the time. Apparently, astronomers get to have fun, too! In fact, swapping a microscope for a telescope sounds like a welcome change of a perspective. From humans to aliens, just like that…

Conclusion: 
I cannot shake the feeling that the question “who needs them?” promotes the neo-liberal order because it uses the language of demand and supply. This certainly explains Manning’s shift from major to minor (gesture) I felt while contemplating the topic. It soured my inquiry with fear, and I did not care for the shift. Knowing you, you probably did this on purpose, to set the mood. Clever!

…or maybe the person who suggested that methodologists know whether they are methodologists was correct? I wonder… perhaps, for many of us, this presentation was about an identity crisis rather than the utility and purpose of research, as Johnny Saldana had me believe at first. I deem it appropriate, then, to conclude that our post-presentation exchange in the room was the product of a generational (in academic, not chronological sense) divide, not ideological or even personal differences.

So much to ponder, so little time…

I want to thank you and your colleagues for your courage and leadership. God bless us, everyone 😉

Anna

 

On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 2:32 PM Wolgemuth, Jennifer <jrwolgemuth@usf.edu> wrote:

Thanks Anna! Glad you were there!

Being provocative was surely one of the aims. And if so, it succeeded wildly.

For me, bravery had nothing to do with it. This is a large part of my scholarship — I seek to open up spaces of discomfort and discord, to provoke, trouble, and unsettle. Not everyone likes that, not everyone is as attracted to difference as you (in both the literal and Deleuzian sense). At the same time, what a great opportunity to reflect on divisions between what we allow to be public and what we relegate as private. Also on shame and disgust. I love that one student felt ashamed. I do think that pedagogy and learning is a kind of sullying. Spitting in people’s soup so that they can no longer eat it unproblematically. Infecting them with ideas. Perhaps that student is the one who got the most out of the session!

You can be a methodologist if you want to. And, we should talk about your career aspirations at some point.

Cheers,

Jenni

Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Measurement and Research
Educational and Psychological Studies | College of Education
Affiliate Faculty Women’s and Gender Studies
University of South Florida
office:  +1 (813) 974-7362
Posted on

Why I draw to transmediate text

This is not about making art or communicating ideas. I did not draw to express myself. In fact, I do not feel comfortable being judged as an artist because I was not trained in the fine arts.

I look at the sketch and see numerous mistakes. It is obvious I had no idea what to do with the nose… the color and shading look odd…  I used a photograph as a reference, but did not finish the arms…. they are underwater, and I lack the skill to make look believable. Positively, this is not about art or the activity of art making.

I was reading a chapter from “The Minor Gesture,” and became drawn to the concept of body-world split referenced by Manning as a “neurotypical account of experience.” When I think of my body, it is always different from the world. Why not?

Posted on

I am a kite

I have been thinking for a while about my lack of focus. I get distracted a lot. I cannot seem to stick to a research project then publish it. I write bits and pieces, I read; I get excited, and at times, I wonder if I am manic. As an emerging researcher, I have been riding this wave of revelations about who I am and what research is. Often, my encounters with people, readings, and movies create a “leavening” where ideas for research, observations, epiphanies seem to resemble bubbles that come up to the surface of the dough with no apparent pattern or predictable rate–they just bubble up.

I have been observing this process; I have been amused by it, and even awed–I feel creativity and life coursing through my veins. I want to create, to write, to draw, to tell amazing stories that are happening in plain sight, through daily living, but are somehow missed in the cacophony of the daily life. I want to research the “now,” the moment…

I have been distracted… Dr. Richards pointed it out on many occasions. Normally, I would be concerned… I would feel anxious–at stake is my CV, my readiness to find that job that will pay my student loans and help ease my children into adulthood. But I have been enjoying the process, and somehow I feel the importance of this leavening experience. Yet, I am starting to question myself, whether I am overindulging in these moments.

Today, I read Leavy’s (Method Meets Art) chapter on visual arts, and somehow I came to a good idea of a visual to communicate my emergence from a commercial artist to researcher–I envision myself flying a kite. I am running as fast as I can, thinking the speed will help it go up. Then it falls to the ground, limp. I pick it up and try running again. This time, a breeze carries it just above my head for several feet. Inevitably, it falls. I pick it up. I run myself to exhaustion. I take breaks. I keep examining it–perhaps, something is wrong with it? I adjust little things–the string that keeps it together, the frame, the shape. I know the color has nothing to do with my kite’s ability to fly, but I keep re-painting it just because. Still, it flies only short for short periods of time, and not too high. I keep picking it up, keep examining it, and keep trying to fly it. I keep trying because this is the kind of person I am–stubborn and maybe naive. I know that all I need is a fresh wind to help raise my kite past the layer of still air, to the heights where currents constantly move. Where they can pick up my kite and sustain it all the way past the clouds. My kite is my confidence. I have it. All I need is the right moment to make it fly.

Posted on

Art quotes

Article about Forbes who started the collection of pigments and colors at Harvard:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/treasures-from-the-color-archive

“To experience the power of great painting and the romance of the original art work, as Ruskin passionately argued, the viewer must be able to recover, even to imaginatively reënact, the artist’s moment of creation.” (para. 14)

Posted on

Thinking-thinking, searching-searching

Two days ago I sent an email to Janet and Jenni asking the question about what counts as research after reading an article about native languages
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-strange-persistence-of-first-languages-1094253299

Janet replied:

“Nice writing and topic. Why does this interest you Anna? I believe you are searching- searching- searching for something and some things. Am I correct? Janet”

I think I only appear to be searching-searching because thinking–the actual act of thinking–gives me pleasure. Like making good food, like visiting a museum, like watching a good movie, like doing things together with my family, like making a quilt, sketching, or gardening, like watching my cat. I never seem to have enough time to do most of these things unless I sneak them into my daily list of chores (for example, since I cook daily, sometimes I make something special, like Thai curry, just for me because no one else in my family will eat it ). Similarly, living in a gated community gives me an excuse to do gardening. I sometimes escape my inside chores by justifying the need to keep the HOA happy but honestly, I simply steal a few minutes from my insanely busy schedule to delight in weeding, feeding, planting, and talking to my plants.

I took my first qualitative class last fall, so for a year, I have been living in this fertile state of consciousness that not only provides me with an excuse to enjoy the activity of thinking, but also encourages ideas, wonderments, questions, and more thought. In other words, the steady, consistent diet of Qual 1, Qual 2, Philosophies, Academic Writing, and now ABR have produced and concocted the ingredients that now caused this “leavening” in my head.

 

Posted on

Native language “The Strange Persistence of First Languages”

Awesome article!

Losing your native tongue unmoors you not only from your own early life but from the entire culture that shaped you. You lose access to the books, films, stories, and songs that articulate the values and norms that you’ve absorbed. You lose the embrace of an entire community or nation for whom your family’s odd quirks are not quirks all. You lose your context.

Posted on

Awesome suggestion from Firefox, but leaves me wondering about my relevance as an authentic thinker.

An unexpected source of my profound source Mozilla Firefox suggested article and link to Quarts

A story about Claude Shannon

https://qz.com/1365059/a-universal-way-to-solve-problems-from-a-mathematical-genius/

”

Shannon’s reasoning, however, was that it isn’t until you eliminate the inessential from the problem you are working on that you can see the core that will guide you to an answer.

In fact, often, when you get to such a core, you may not even recognize the problem anymore, which illustrates how important it is to get the bigger picture right before you go chasing after the details. Otherwise, you start by pointing yourself in the wrong direction.

Details are important and useful. Many details are actually disproportionately important and useful relative to their representation. But there are equally as many details that are useless.

If you don’t find the core of a problem, you start off with all of the wrong details, which is then going to encourage you to add many more of the wrong kinds of details until you’re stuck.

Starting by pruning away at what is unimportant is how you discipline yourself to see behind the fog created by the inessential. That’s when you’ll find the foundation you are looking for.

Finding the true form of the problem is almost as important as the answer that comes after.”

What is interesting, is that Mozilla Firefox’s algorithm suggested this article based on my clicking in the past week (I typically do not do this due to lack of time and resist the urge to click Firefoxes suggestions because they are distractions. Yet, yesterday, I ended up reading an article about slow walkers and turned into a simulation for Dr. Richards. Today, I found this and several others. Should I be concerned that my journey as a researcher is not being overseen by a string of code (a very sophisticated, research-based code, but code nevertheless?). Should I perceive my thought development is unauthentic? Or is it merely technology-aided?

This ability of code to predict my interests to such a degree that I canNOT resist the urge to click the link contrary to my conscious decision, makes me think of how easily I can be connected to other readers and seekers of truth, and ultimately, it makes me feel unspecial, unoriginal, blah. Here I am contemplating the importance of thinking environments, creativity, human experience; I am reveling in own humanity, and boom! Here is the reality of human (my own) predictability fed to a machine as a formula and processed as suggestions that (most upsetting part) WORK!

Posted on

Discomfort with art and vulnerability and creating art for research

Words have been my strength, the tool of choice. I spoke very early and I spoke well. The constant stream of questions drove my mother crazy, she used to say that mouth never closes.

In my Qual 1 class, when we had to write a reflexivity statement, I was comfortable with being frank and vulnerable. I even made it a point to contemplate whether I comfortable with vulnerability when Siying, Wenwei, and I worked on our trio-autoethnography proposal.

I do not feel the same when I draw or make art. I do not consider myself good at all. I fear harsh criticism, I do not feel comfortable being a vulnerable artist. I got over this problem as a graphic designer while I was in design school. I taught myself to verbalize and defend my choices based on clearly articulated criteria, but I cannot yet do the same with my drawings and sketches, especially in the context of research.