Academia – Page 20 – Silence and Voice

Identity Development in Blogging — The Whys and Hows?

As I am starting to get personal, public, and formal academic feedback about my (working and developing) research design (both here on my blog, directly to me, and in my university’s Virtual Learning Environment), I am slowly narrowing it down.

I am thinking about how I work all various elements together (transformative learning, adult education, critical theory, teaching and learning, virtual identity, etc.), and it occurred to me that many of the people I speak with on Twitter and whose blogs I read are all sharing a similar experience to me — we are (or recently were) doctoral (or even graduate) students. I find myself interested in reading those blogs about people who chronicle their research interests, learning, struggles, and journies through graduate and doctoral work.

Why do this via a blog?
What is learned in the process?
How does it feel to be public with your thinking?
How do you learn about yourself?
Where does this fit with your identity development?
What troublesome knowledge do you learn along the way?

I wonder what it would be like to identify and interview some of these folks to inquire what they learned about themselves through blogging their educational experiences, why they did it, and how it influenced their research?

I wonder if there is a research problem and question in here?

Trying to Make Sense of My Research Status Quo

Based on these open questions I have been developing over the past few days, I think I may ultimately locate my research problem.

So, where am I now?

I am thinking about questions of identity, especially how one formulates one’s online identity.
As my previous two research papers (for Modules 1 and 2) explored the experiences and meaning-making expressions of those who engage in autoethnographic inquiry, I am still interested in exploring some element of this.
I know that I see a connection between autoethnography and identity (as this seems a way of exploring and expressing this identity development), though I have not found much of this done in an online context (yet). I believe this is coming, though have not yet found it.
There is increasing work in exploring online identity formation through blogging and liveblogging (among other social media, Web 2.0, etc.), though much of it seems to be from the perspective of people studying another phenomenon in the process — I am interested in how those who engage in this develop their own self concepts. I do not have a model for what I think this self-conception should or does look like — I have not yet identified if such a think exists.
I see a great connection between threshold concepts and transformative learning, and wonder why they are seen a separate, and not related.
There are networked learning possibilities here as well . . .
Since my work comes from adult education, critical theory, (atheoretical for now) identity formation, and increasingly communities of practice, I want to explore some way of bridging some of these elements (that may seem disparate, though are all interrelated from my perspective) into a research design that will build upon my previous modules and work toward the final program thesis.

I really need to have this sorted out by the end of this week, since while I want to conduct solid research and learn something in the process, I do have to meet my course requirements (which do, of course, have a tight timeline).

Any thoughts on how to narrow this down, especially within the scope of work with threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge?

Learnings & Questions about Threshold Concepts

OK, I have now read everything I can find by Meyer and Land on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (with the exception of one text which I am trying to get via inter-library loan, as it is pricey even for my endless book buying binge–Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge).

There are two other things (loosely) I learned about this framework:

While learners struggle with this sort of conceptual knowledge, once they “get” it, their transformative, irreversible, and integrative experience will change their conceptual framework, while it is bounded within a disciplinary terrain and there is a discursive nature that is demonstrated when we use a different language to describe the concept or its results (Land, R., Meyer, J. H. F., & Smith, J. (2008). Editors’ Preface. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
This framework is intended to assist “teachers in identifying appropriate ways of modifying or redesigning curricula to enable their students to negotiate such epistemological transitions, and ontological transformations, in a more satisfying fashion for all concerned” when these concepts are located within “disciplinary knowledge” (Meyer & Land, 2005, p. 386).
This framework is intended for higher education, though the authors want to see it spread to other sectors of education (Land, Meyer, & Smith, 2008).

With this, I now have a few open questions to explore as next steps:

How do disciplinary Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge fit if one has a postmodern or post-structural worldview?

This issue arose from a comment made in David Perkins’ article when he spoke about John Dewey and Neil Postman’s work (Perkins, D. (2008). Beyond understanding. In R. Land, J. H. F. Meyer & J. Smith (Eds.), Threshold concepts within the disciplines. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers).

Whose knowledge can be determined to be troublesome to whom?

This issue arose from a comment about a Foucauldian perspective and how power within a curriculum is wielded, used, and understood (Meyer & Land, 2003).

How is this framework something distinctive from Jack Mezirow’s work in Transformative Learning

The only reference to Mezirow’s work on perspective transformation that I located was in the original 2003 article (Meyer & Land). I found this a bit surprising, in that the transformative learning literature (based on Mezirow, Brookfield, Cranton, Taylor, et al.) is increasing (with courses on it within adult education, a conference, dedicated journal, and entire programs of study built upon it), and there seem to be many similarities with enough differences tocomplement one another.

OK, now to use this (as it does interest me) as the conceptual framework for my research design, which I now want to begin to develop. Has anybody used this framework in any research?

Threshold Concepts Symposium in 2010

As I am beginning to look at Ray Land’s work in Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (which I first became aware of last year, though I went in a different direction then) as an element of the research design I am working on, I just became aware of the 3rd Biennial Threshold Concepts Symposium in July of 2010 in Australia. The conference site is here, and while the airfair from the East Coast in the US is astronomical at that time of the year, perhaps others may find this useful.

Now, to try to distinguish this from Jack Mezirow’s Transformative Learning theory. Anybody see anything that tries to show the similarities and differences?

A Journal Article Workbook

I am beginning to work on revising one of my doctoral papers for a journal article (which will hopefully be my first, single author article), and am happy with the new text I just found to assist and help organize the process — Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success, by Wendy Laura Belcher. She writes in a friendly and encouraging style, while clearly remaining focused on the goal of publishing the article.

Right now, I am working my way through the first week, which is Designing Your Plan for Writing. She has a few handy templates for the process, including a Twelve-Week Calendar for Planning Article Writing Schedule and Weekly Calendar for Planning Article Writing Scheduling, both freely available on her website. While I often think just having the templates is enough, I know that remaining focused and having a guide / mentor to assist in the process is well worth the time and efforts. You may be surprised at all her useful suggestions in the 350-page workbook.

Today I will work on my 12 week schedule, so I can finally take one of my ideas and bring it to light . . .