conole scanlon final
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InterdisciplinarityFostering dialogue and creating new meaning
Gráinne Conole and Eileen Scanlon IET, The Open University
TEL Interdisciplinarity workshopNottingham University
14th November 2008
Plan
• Some musings on interdisciplinarity
• Case study from PI project
• Brainstorming exercise
• Reflections from pre-TEL: 2006
• Next steps - towards AERA 2009
ESRC Genomics network
• Sahra Gibbon followed 2 social science and 2 science Ph D students
• Students experienced research practices and methods of each others disciplines
• Shared difficulty in understanding each others specialist disciplinary language
• Some progress made with each other’s language
Initially the science students didn’t know what a trope was and the social science students were confused by what introns and possibly also by tropes
Smith and Gibbon
Two prerequisites
• Participants must be able to understand each others language
• The setting of specific goals for collaboration
Wootton (2004) and Kumar Giri (2002)
People become firmly attached to their disciplines and wholly entrenched with the associated disciplinary mindsets. It has been said that we belong and tend to think that the whole world is characterised by disciplinary significance. The problems of this tunnel vision include the fact that researchers may overlook the effects of their work on other disciplines and produce solutions of no use in the real world
CNRS seminar
• http://www.interdisciplines.org/interdisciplinarity
• Internet has introduced so-to-speak “soft-assembled” online research communities
• Interdisciplinary research is always a new synthesis of expertise. How can the necessary expertise be mounted to evaluate research results?
• Language• Methods• Institutional constraints• Cognitive constraints• Evolution of disciplines
• Mode 2 knowledge (Nowotny, Fuller)• Cosmetic interdisciplinarity?
Redekkal, 1994•Pre-subject area – no evidence of the area or perceived need
•Beginnings – individuals begin to ask new questions triggered by some event or catalyst
•Emergence – more researchers begin to work in the area and a community begins to develop
•Establishment – the area becomes recognised in its own right with a defined community, experts, associated journals and conferences, perceived of as ‘respected’ research with associated professional status, courses and career routes
Cognitive science?“At present most cognitive scientists are drawn from the rank of specific disciplines—in particular, philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience. … The hope is that some day the boundaries between these disciplines may become attenuated or perhaps disappear altogether, yielding a single unified cognitive science.” (Gardner 1985: 7). The Minds New Science: A History of the cognitive Revolution. New York: Basic books
RAE musingsSubmission in Chemistry – I published in the standard recognised journals for my area, I was lucky enough to be collaborating with a good range of internationally recognised researchers. When I moved into the area of e-learning things became less clear; as a relatively young research area should I be publishing in new e-learning focused journals or more main-stream, well established education journals?
Training and Evaluation
• What should be done about interdisciplinary training of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars ?
• What are effective criteria for evaluating interdisciplinary papers? Does interdisciplinary research require different or additional criteria for evaluation than disciplinary research?
What counts???• Covers an important and topical area• Likely to be cited a lot by others• Key positional paper or review which gives a definition of an area• New insight/ways of thinking• Impact – on policy makers, institutions or practitioners• Provides the development of new theory, framework or model• Includes good solid empirical studies • Grounded in the literature and evidence of knowledge of key issues• Evidence of novel, new thinking, new approaches• Retrospective piece showing how the work builds on or provides a
foundation for other work that followed• Provides clarity and insight into a well recognised problem
ALT-J editorial, 2007, Issue 15.3
Co-evolution of tools and practice
• Impact of new technologies
• Changing nature of academic discourse
• Rapidly evolving/changing technological environment
• Mismatch between new practices and old methods and metrics
Experiences from PI project• Language issues
– Trigger artefacts - terms such as scenario, task– ‘Stages’, ‘phases’, does it determine workflow?– Trigger events - workshop and wiki used to produce a
project glossary
• Inquiry learning cycle issues• School issues
– curriculum, ethics
• Stakeholder engagement– ‘buy in’, relevance, different perspectives on issues
• Participatory design
‘Personalisation’• Language from different perspectives
– Government agenda on choice– Perspective on individualisation of learning– Term appropriated by PLE and Web 2.0
communities– Postmodern perspective - will we ever get
shared agreement on terms anymore? folksonomy
– Co-evolution of practice and technologies
Inquiry Cycle
• Inquiry Learning Cycle developed from literature as part of working paper
• Discussion influenced curriculum planning
• Representation issues emerged when using it to guide design of (implemented) activity guide
Select domain and orientate
Create inquiry question or hypothesis
Plan method and procedure
Conduct inquiryAnalyse evidence
Draw conclusions
Present inquiry
Evaluate inquiry
Select domain and orientate
Create inquiry question or hypothesis
Plan method and procedure
Conduct inquiryAnalyse evidence
Draw conclusions
Present inquiry
Evaluate progress
‘Mediating artefacts’
• As mechanism for making issues explicit• Shared mediating artefact coupled with timed
targeted discussion• Diversification – the area starts to mature and different schools of
thought emerge
• Evolving understanding - vocabulary, representation, concepts
• Working paper 2 - Distinction between operation, technical and educational
Approaches
• Identify mediating artefacts to promote discussion– Process of facilitating dialogue – Staged outputs and face to face workshops
• Participatory design– Bringing together different stakeholder
perspectives– Targeted events
Team and institution
• What are the critical aspects of interdisciplinary team formation?
• Are there polices could adopt that would facilitate interdisciplinary research, such as different cost-sharing, allowing for co-PIs, etc.?
Workshop activity
• Brainstorm – ‘Birth disciplines’– Methodologies– Theoretical perspectives– Areas of research focus– Approaches to fostering interdisciplinarity
What do we mean by
Inquiry-basedConstructionConceptual u/sTaking testsProblem-solvingNarrativeLiteracyGame authoringSkill-learning (TCS)FieldworkCommunicationCollaborationLearning identityConceptual networksManipulation skillsInformal interestsSelf-worthModellingScenariosEvaluating evidence
GamesToolsCultural toolsAdaptive ITSAvatarsEmbodied interactionAugmented cognitionPers L EnvironmentLearner modelsPortable devicesConversation agentsEditable digital artefactsDigital data trackingHaptic devicesVirtual objectsOnline communitiesAdaptive supportSimulationCollaborative technology
Replacing less active methodsFrameworks for learning designOnly form of access to learningImprove quality of interactionMore practice in skillsAdaptive personalisationVisualisation in situAlternative modes or pathwaysConstructive personalisationBetter quality assessmentSharing and peer supportScaling upMore engaging activitiesMore flexible learningPersonalised guidance
Technology? Enhanced? Learning?
… from the current project proposals for TEL:
Learning as ‘doing’; and through ‘social interaction’
Enhancement as forms of personalisation, flexibility, inclusion and productivity
Laurillard, 2006
RAE UOA45: Research scope - methodologies
Educational researchApplied linguisticsEconomicsGeographyHistoryHumanitiesLinguisticsMathematicsPhilosophyPsychologyScienceSociology
Usingaction researchcase studyethnographyevaluationliterature reviewcritical theorydocumentary analysisanalytic work
TEL researchApplied linguisticsEconomicsHumanitiesGeographyPhilosophyPsychologyScienceSociology
Usingaction researchcase studyethnographyevaluationliterature review
+ ComputingCognitive sciencesInformation mgt, systemsHCI, AIAnthropologyDesign, architecture + design studies, creative
discourse analysispre- and post-testingobservationexperimentationInterviewssurveyscritical incident analysisquestionnairesactivity monitoringmodelling
TEL
Education
TEL is extending the methodologies of research
Are there other key methodologies? Laurillard, 2006
Towards AERA 2009• Issues of design: How can we design for innovation and
adopt a more participatory, inclusive approach to design? What is the relationship between design and instantiation of practice?
• Transformation of practice: How might innovative technologies lead to real transformation of practice? What are the barriers and enablers? What new forms of pedagogy are possible?
• Methodological development and interdisciplinary inquiry: What are the methodological challenges and what are methodological innovations? What are the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research?
Breakout rooms
• 2nd Floor– C42: A -F– C45: G - L– C47: M - R– C49: S - Z
• Appoint a report back person!!
• Come back at 2.30