Category: Academia

Lots of Debriefing Ahead

As I am sitting on the plane ready to fly back to New York, after my residential at Lancaster University with time in Edinburgh, by Loch Ness, and Portree on the Isle of Skye (with a drive through the snow!), I am finally able to begin processing my trip. I have blogged less than I expected, as I wanted to spend my time experiencing things, rather than processing them. The blogging will come very soon . . . .

Best to grab the experiences while we can get them. Reflective practice, here I come.

Proposal Clarifications, Again

I was up late last night thinking about my research proposal yet again, and have to discuss it later this afternoon. Each time I think I am ready for it, I get a new idea or, better yet, think about something that I thought was clear, but upon further reflection realize it is not as clear as it seemed.

It seems this is part of the natural process, and while I am focusing my attention on this being a learning experience, I am trying to not doubt my abilities, ideas, qualifications, or confidence. I fear lunch will be my opportunity for my final thrust.

Ready or not, 14.30 is coming quickly.

The Refining (Potential) Research Design

I have been thinking about issues in and around identity development so much in the past few days, that I fear I may begin to hear voices that are really there due to their speaking themselves into being!

Where am I right now? Mind you, this is something to present to my cohort colleagues and program tutors, and I am not bound to this for all eternity (or even for the week, as I do not need to actually declare this until next year).

Interests and Context:

I am interested in understanding how developing researchers  in the social sciences experience, process, and share troublesome knowledge via social media, and how it has led them to experience perspective transformation.

Methodology:

I am not sure about the methodology yet. I like the possibilities of narrative inquiry to tell an engaging stoy, but I think I should wait until I attend a workshop on grounded theory that I am scheduled to attend in late May before I really settle on the specific methodologies. The population I hope to study can be in any of the areas of the social sciences (education, technology-enhanced learning, nursing, sociology, and the like), and I will identify this population by advertising on email distribution lists and several email blasts to friends and colleagues.

Let me consider this a little more in the morning.

Research Interests Thus Far

As I am sitting in one of the lounges in the airport, awaiting my trip to the university for the residential, I want to write a bit more about my research ideas thus far as we were asked to do for a discussion this coming week.

Let’s take the first round at this, and revise a bit more tomorrow while en route:

Interests and Context:

I am interested in issues of identity, and how people experience and process transformative (cf. Mezirow) changes in the learning. I am interested in when these things happen within the context of online communities (cf. Wenger), especially when navigating identity while engaged in adult or higher education. I am really interested in exploring threshold concepts (cf. Land). I am not  sure how I may work critical theory (cf. Brookfield, Marcuse, Gramsci) or Postmodernity / post-structuralism (cEdit Post ‹ Silence and Voice — WordPressf. Lyotard, Foucault) in, though I can envision this being the theoretical lens.

Methodology:

I know I need to firm up the above before I speak about methodological implications and possibilities, though after having enaged in case study, narrative inquiry, and ethnography over the past year in the 3 completed modules (with a heavy area of study being around autoethnography and how people experience it / reflective practice), I think the sky can be the limit (though action learning is probably not among the possiblities right now, since I am so interested in the experiences of individuals).

Oh, to have so many juicy options!