791 Sensemaking and Research Design Bog |
Over the course of the is class I have come to the realization that less is more. Not exactly profound, but for someone who likes to talk a lot, do a lot, go...go...go, it is important lesson to learn. I have a lot of ideas, and I want to do them all. But over committing, and over-doing has lead to stress and a lack of quality. You can't have 15 priorities, I have tried. We have all worked for districts or schools that have a million goals...none of them get done well. I don't want to add to that frenzy. I want to have a more singular message. A minimalist approach. How can I whittle my idea down to the most fundamental core? How can I present my message in such a simple way, that it leaves the view with a sense of peace, instead of that frantic feeling..."oh great! another thing I need to start doing!" I have always agreed with Baggio's philosophy on keeping visuals simple and clear, even before I knew who Baggio was. Visual clutter makes me cranky. But I have never though about the mental clutter. If I relate Baggio's ideas to Dervin's sensemaking, I see a connection. Dervin relates sensemaking to building a bridge between the learner and what they want or need. If Baggio was the bridge builder, there would be clear signage...you would always exit to the left..not the right. The lanes would be clearly marked. There wouldn't be a lot of extra billboards selling Hot Wings or Happy Meals. The path would be clear. The message direct. My message can get lost in my excitement. I want to add more, do more, throw in a few more strategies. My bridge will be cluttered with billboards, side roads, bike lanes, on ramps and exits. These paths might eventually lead you to the same destination, but the path is confusing, the driver might get lost and give up entirely. If my message is to increase student talk, I need to minimize the number of different strategies and focus on a basic strategy that will lead to maximum impact. I think teachers will appreciate using one strategy in a myriad of ways and situations. Less is more. Less of the new info; More ways to use that new info in meaningful ways.
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TPACK
I loved this reminder from Punya Mishra as he explained TPACK. I have struggled a bit in trying to fit technology into my project. I want kids to talk more, not less. Often when we think of technology, we think of 5 kids sitting together staring at 5 separate screen, not talking. I think this reminder gave me the freedom to find technology that encourages partner/group talk, like Padlet or Kahoot. It is not about the technology at all, but the strategy, context and content that the teacher uses it in. Challenges & Changes during prototyping process The prototyping process was very enjoyable to me. I want to dig into other projects and websites and find designs that speak to me. I often get stuck getting the "visuals" right...I can't move onto the content until the fonts, headers etc. are correct. Through this process, I am also considering altering the focus of my driving question slightly. Here's why. I have a lot of content...how will increasing student talk improve student achievement in math, reading, writing and inquiry. I wanted to provide some research, pre/post data, a strategy and a piece of technology for each area. I think this might be overwhelming to teachers. I am thinking of using one strategy in all areas. How can think-pair-share be used in Math? How can use tweek think-pair-share to improve student writing. How can think-pair-share be modified to work in any content area? I wonder if using a single "old fashioned" strategy in new and innovative ways would encourage more teachers to increase student talk? I would love feedback about this idea.. Sensemaking...and making sense of the Master's Project examples. Sensemaking is both completely personal and universal. What makes sense to one person, may not make sense to another. Some of us think linearly and others think circularly. We all think our way of thinking makes sense, and might possibly be the best way of thinking. But when we have to share our thinking with others...our sensemaking needs to be universal. How will my linear thought process make sense to someone who thinks circularly? And how will I know if it makes sense to a circular thinkers...if I can't think like them? This stood out to me as I looked at other Master Project examples. I wanted to ask why things weren't in chronological order. I wanted to add bold headings and use less words. What I realized is that I will need to share my prototype with people who don't think like me. Often times, I seek feedback from like-minded people. But if I want my project to make sense universally, I need to find the most different minded, different thinking people...and see what they think. Baggio, Clark and Dervin all say “focus on the learner.” Content is nothing without a learner. So I am going to try to convince teachers to increase student talk. And when I think about the learners, I think of teachers thinking, “I don’t want a loud, unruly classroom talking about whatever they want!”
So my thoughts this week have been thinking about “road blocks” to student talk. Why don’t we allow more student talk now? Historically, what has prevented student talk? What technology can help us increase student talk...or decrease teacher talk? What is innovative? I think the most innovative part of my action research is the simplicity. Student talk is not a new concept. Think-pair-share has been around forever. And yet, a seemily simple strategy can have a big impact on student achievement. I think that the simplicity will appeal to teachers. This does not require a new program, or software upload or curriculum. This strategy is “easy” to use and yet can dramatically change the way we teach and the way students learn. I don’t know if this is very outside of the box thinking, but I feel like in education, they keep reinventing the box. Instead, i want to exploring using tool in the box that has been overlooked. Reflections on Processes and CRAP. I love CRAP! Contrast, repitition, alignment and proximity; the four attributes of good design. Baggio’s book speaks to me. Simple design, clear message, less is more. I love it. When I read it, I am picturing good & bad website; cluttered and sparse classroom; word or confusing presentations. I appreciate that this book is a design book focusing on learning. In contrast, I don’t love Clark. I like Clark. I understand the need for Clark. I just wish that Ruth Clark’s book for Developing Technical Training was geared towards education. Although, I can find similarities and parallels between work place training and educational training, I find diagrams of toilets distracting. I know I am biased, but I feel that education is a special world. I think teachers are always designing lessons about procedures, concepts, facts, processes and principals...sometimes all at the same time. I wish this text was more geared to our specific field, with examples from various educational senarios instead of customer service senarios. Instructional design from Clark and Baggio....what are my take-aways?
In the assigned chapters from Clark, the focus is content. What type of content and instruction will I be trying to communicate. What type of information will I need to convey? Clark separates the instructional content into Facts, Concepts, Process, Procedure and Principals. I "think" that my design will require mostly procedure, or lessons plans. Lesson plans follow step by step procedures to get to the learning outcomes. Although, I will need to include facts, and concepts in order to explain the content and tools to a variety of users. I like that Clark talks about step by step procedures with pictures and action words to make following the procedures easy for all learners. Baggio on the other had focuses on visual design. This is a subject matter near and dear to my heart. My dad is a screen printer. My childhood was submersed in T-shirt designs, company logos, and various graphics. I good t-shirt design or logo is like a good web design. Many company's or teams what to pile every detail onto a shirt, it gets cluttered and busy and visually unappealing. Think about the most basic logo, take first-aid for example, a red shirt with a large white plus sign. Everyone knows that it means first-aid, help is on the way, emergency assistance or perhaps a hot life guard...all of which attracts the eye immediately. Visual clutter also happens in a classroom. I know many teachers that want to ensure their students don't forget anything. There are educational posters EVERYWHERE. How to use a comma is hanging from the ceiling, long division is to the left next to Least Common Multiple and don't forget about school rules...ahhh! There are kids and teachers that love visually stimulating classrooms and design. And there are people like me, who get what I call "rashy" when there is too much visual stimulation. I can't concentrate, I can't listen to the teacher because I am too busy looking at the walls. Was the teacher even talking?....Did she call on me? Prime factorization? Where is that poster...? Baggio's chapter 6 & 7 really spoke to me. Less is more. Visuals should support the content. I liked these rules: 1. Keep is simple. 2. Keep it clear. 3. Keep it focused. 4. Connect with the content. 5. Connect with the learner. Is it a process, a procedure or a principal? If a concept is a chair, what is a fact? Is the relevance the context or is the attention the engagement? I am in instructional design overload.
I am enjoying thinking about all of the different aspects and considerations that go into good instructional design. Considering the learners sociocultural background, the needs and expectations of the learner. Thoughtfully planning what technical tools and resources the learner might needs, along with their comfort level with those tools...it can all be a bit overwhelming. It does make me appreciate all the work that has gone into curriculum, web design and instructional training. When I think of the SITE model, I think about the professional learning I provide for my staff. I am often required to lead teacher through a data analysis process. The data is housed on a variety of websites. These days often give me anxiety. In a staff of 30 teachers, there are a few who don't use their computers at all....so getting them to log in to the correct site and navigate through the data is a challenge. Inevitably, there will be a few teachers who don't value the particular piece of data we are looking at, so they feel it is a waste of their time. Another handful of teachers will have looked at this data on their own, so going through step by step is a waste of their time. A few teachers will be in see the value of the data and be able to use the technical tools, so for them, the professional learning is a success. I think of this group when I think of my next steps. My working driving question is "What will the effects of increased academic language have on academic achievement?". My audience is teachers, my staff in particular. Good instructional design should be able to connect to all these groups of people. On the plus side, I know my staff well, I have worked with most of them for 10 plus years. I know who has tech trouble, I know who embraces change and who avoids it. My challenge is presenting the information in a way that can meet the needs of this diverse group and have the instruction be meaningful and relevant to all of them. As a site academic specialist, my role includes providing professional development for my site. I present information to teachers during PLC's, staff meetings, and to our site leadership. I also present our school goals & data to parents during site council meetings and ELAC meetings. Our school and leadership determines our schools goals, all of our professional learning is based around these goals. With the help of other district academic specialist and administration, we come up with professional learning that will help our staff meet our school and district goals to better prepare our students for the future.
For this project and for my role as an academic specialist, my audience will be my staff of teachers. I am hoping that I will be able to use my capstone project in the professional learning for next year. As a school site, we have already been looking at academic language and how to improve and increase it. This capstone project will allow me to build on our school goals and create powerful professional learning for my school. My initial ideas are to continue to work with academic language and increasing student talk. I would like to expand the focus to include all subject areas, not just reading. How does increasing academic language effect student learning in all subject areas? I am thinking that I might plan some professional learning in Edivate. Edivate is a professional learning platform that the NVUSD uses to store sample lessons, training videos etc.. I am wondering if I could build units in Ediviate with multiple lessons about increasing academic language. These units could be presented during whole staff professional learning, during grade level PLC time or teachers could watch them on their own. It would provide choice for the teachers and lessons could be broken into small pieces or view independently to free up our precious staff time. The lessons built in Edivate could be customized for varying degrees of novices. The lessons could focus on different strategies and teachers could choose a strategy that would most fit their teaching style. I have no firm plan yet....just a lot of ideas. The readings for this week give me a good ideas about the structure and considerations that I need to think about before planning these lessons. What are the needs of my teachers? How do they learn the best? I think I need to start with narrowing down my driving question. After that, find out if Edivate will work for the purpose of this capstone project. Agggg...lots to do. I will admit that my first read went something like this...
"Sense-making is making sense in places where sense makes sense. And when sense-making doesn't make sense you need to make sense of the sense it doesn't make." Ummmm.... I needed a strategy, possibly more than one. First, I looked at the pictures and figures. I got an basic overview. Next, I read a few paragraphs at a time and walked away, did a chore, watched some TV, played some legos. I tackled the article like this, a few chunks at a time. Underlining important points and making notes in the margin. My next strategy was to turn on the computer and see what else was out there around Sense-making and/or Brenda Dervin. I actually found some videos of Brenda herself talking about sense-making. Then I went back to the article again. I had a better understanding from the previous reads and videos to piece together a basic working understanding of sense-making for myself. Sense-making is a "generalize methodological approach for the study of any situation in which one wishes to focus on how people construct sense of their experiences." For researchers or interviewers it is a method to look at how individuals get their information or needs met by focusing on their experiences. We can not assume that all people are alike, have the same needs, same questions or same experiences. We also can not assume that using demographic information creates more commonalities. All women or hispanics or catholics do not have the same wants, needs or experiences. "There is more diversity within these groups than between these groups and other groups if you think communicatively." Brenda Dervin Sense-making attempts to create a system or make sense of a system to be able to predict the needs of people to help bridge the gap in communication. Sense making methodology is understanding human behavior learning and ways to meet human needs. This is essential to drawing a meaningful conclusion from a research study. Dervin discusses different types of surveys that ask questions to better understand a user's experience. These surveys help systems, business, and/or researchers get information or products to people. How did their experience affect their resulting happiness or satisfaction? How did the communication used by the system help or hinder their experience? The different types of surveys discussed were the Satisfaction survery, the Image survey, the Help Chain and the Message/Q-ing survey. Each type is used by different systems in different situations to help determine how the user felt about their experience in order to bridge the gap between the user and the intended optimal outcome. Dervin provides several different examples of surveys being used in libraries, blood banks, colleges etc. As I read this article, I realize we have all been part of sense-making surveys. Every survey we fill out to rate our experience at the doctor or bank is a sense-making survey that is trying to better match the system with my personal needs. I have even sent out a few sense-making surveys as an academic specialist. Each time I send out a google survey to ask for feedback from my teachers, I am using sense-making. I am trying to match my professional development to the needs of each teacher. I wasn't able to define it, but we have already been using sense-making in our daily lives. |
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