In The Forest

Meditation on "Artisan"

2006-06-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

June 5 Reflection

Meditation on key words – used Inspiration to map

Artisan – Twenty-first Century Artisan

An Artisan is someone who crafts, creates, builds, makes, plows a field, throws a pot, hammers a nail, sews, weaves, spins. Their work has a tradition and history which the novice learns by apprenticeship or acquisition, by spending time with an “old-timer” someone who has experience and who teaches not just the technique but the stories and the way of being. An Artisan belongs to a group of Artisans who share tools, knowledge, history, practice, attitudes. There is ownership in the tools and the techniques. Each individual gives the work their own stamp. Each product is unique. The products are useful, important, daily. The Artisan crafts for herself, her family, her community and may trade the craft for other things she, her family, or her community need. There is ownership but there is also letting go. The products may be used in someone else’s home. But each product bears the stamp of the individual who made it and is unique. Each product is a part of the self now out in the world. This is the beauty and pleasure in the craft of the artisan. It may be useful but it is distinct and distinctly human.

A 21st century Artisan will use different tools or technology. The products they craft with these tools also have function. Increasingly the products may have information or communication as function. The tradition or history of the craft may not seem as obvious because the tools are new and undergoing rapid change. In the past individuals also adapted and changed tools and practice but it was slower, generational. Now tools may be adapted and individualized on the spot. The craft and the beauty may be as much in the tools as in the products. Authorship/authority/ownership are immediate but perhaps more fleeting. Ownership and letting go happen almost simultaneously? Whereas in the past the Artisan might find herself surrounded by her products: asleep under the blanket she spun and wove, or drinking from a cup she made; now our products may not have a physical presence in our lives. Perhaps just as the tools are changing so is the toolmaker. Now the work of the Artisan changes not only the environment but the self and thus the relation of the self to the environment. If the products are informational or communicative then they are held in the mind but Gee would say not in the mind, but in the social practice. In the Discourse. An Artisan is someone who belongs to a Discourse, who understands the tools and stories of that Discourse but in enacting the Discourse simultaneously changes the tools, the stories, the Discourse, the self. The tools, the practice, the community, the self are liquid. Shape, form, function are ever-changing. Beauty is found where one decides to take a stand, to reflect, to see the patterns. Uniqueness is in everything but nothing bears the stamp of a single artisan, because no artisan works alone. Everything is a remix.

Wide Awake Dreaming

2006-06-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

Liquid Architecture in Cyberspace, by Marcos Novak.

Novak, M. (1995). Liquid architecture in cyberspace. In: Cyberspace: First steps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

What strikes me first about this chapter, is that it is one of the best descriptions of virtual reality that I have ever read. And then, I have to stop to think that 15 pages of black and white print actually transported me, engaged all my senses, suspended my disbelief, and offered a reality beyond reality. And the media was simply print. This author knows how to use language, indeed poetry, to thoroughly captivate and move the reader. So as a reader, I understand what it means to enter another space, to imagine another world, even to imagine simultaneous worlds. To be in my body and in my chair, and yet not be there. So everything he offers to us in cyberspace… do we have it in print?

I guess I find myself pondering two responses to that question. First, not everyone will respond or comprehend this text as I have. So access to this space is limited definitely to people who can read… but I suspect not as well to readers whose taste or experiences differ from mine. Some will not enjoy this text as I have. It simply will not have the emotional resonance for them.

The other difference I find is the ability in cyberspace to actually connect with other minds. Reading is more solitary and usually asynchronous. But the ability to construct a self, a space, and to meet other invited and constructed selves within that space and together to create a storyline, a new space, and even as he suggests to reproduce is a fantastic vision and clear possibility.

I’ve made notes where he talks about information, “Cyberspace involves a reversal of the current mode of interaction with computerized information. At present such information is external to us. The idea of cyberspace subverts that relation; we are now within information,” p.225.

This selection reminded me of what I’ve been reading in Kuhlthau about information users: that information is no longer a matter of finding the right answer but building connections for the user to construct personal meaning from. Another way of saying that may be that information is no longer separate from us but we are a part of it.

“The ‘reality’ that remains seems to be the reality of fiction. This is the reality of what can be expressed, of how meaning emerges,” (p.227).

Since meaning is an important focus for me, I am intrigued with the many suggestions I am finding everywhere that it is through the construction of a narrative or storyline that we make meaning. And of course, Gee and others would say that narrative is socially constructed.

I also want to continue to think about authors/authority as the new literacy. Technology empowers different voices to be authorities and authors.

Novak emphasizes the facility of poetry and I am also struck with the need for metaphor and other language to express my understandings, and maybe as well for author/authority to find expression.

Interesting mention of a duende “a spirit, a demon, invoked to make comprehensible a ‘poetic fact,’ an ‘hecho poetico,” (p.228). Novak is referencing Lorca (1989) Poet in New York. He goes on to talk about “the freeing of language from one-to-one correspondence,” which made me wonder about our discussions about reading comprehension – isn’t this liberation what happens when a reader moves beyond decoding to re-encoding what was read? Would the ‘duende’ be a good metaphor to use and think about in our understanding of reading comprehension – is there not something magical, spirit-like in the ability to read?

“Metaphor moves mountains,” p.228.

“Poetry is liquid language,” p.229.

“I follow the scent of a quality through sand dunes of information. Hints of an attribute attach themselves to my sensors and guide me past the irrelevant, into the company of the important; or I choose to browse the unfamiliar and tumble through volumes and volumes of knowledge still in the making,” (p.230).

As we travel through cyberspace do we create indices, sensory and intellectual that guide us? I have some sense that the new literacy is more sensual and sensory –personalized to our physical and emotional selves not just intellectual. Indexed by scent or taste.

“There are no hallways in cyberspace, only chambers, small or vast,” (p.231).

And here a tantalizing description of collaboration:

“I sense the presence of others. I see the traces of passage, the flares of trajectories of other searches. Those who share my interests visit the spaces around me often enough for me to recognize the signature of their search sequences, the outlines of their icons. I open channels and request communication. They blossom into identities that flow in liquid metamorphosis. Layers of armor are dropped to reveal more intimate selves; otherwise, more and more colorful and terrifying personifications are build up in defense; but true danger is gray.

The world opens and others flood in. Now there is congestion and noise, interference, but also excitement, risk and challenge. I travel with the constellation of my possessions and barter and trade information. I can scan the horizon and avoid what is busy, enjoy what is free,” (p.233).

Novak talks about “minimal restriction” and “maximal binding” – wouldn’t that be a great framework for schools and learning??? Here’s what he means by “maximal binding,”

“In addition, maximal binding implies in cyberspace anything can be combined with anything and made to ‘adhere,’ and that it is the responsibility of the user to discern what the implications of the combination are for any given circumstance. Of course, defaults are given to get things started, but the full wealth of opportunity will only be harvested by those willing and able to customize their universe. Cyberspace is thus a user-driven, self-organizing system,” (p.234).

I like to think of this as the future of education: user driven & self-organized. What should those defaults look like for our students? Then does literacy become the ability to harvest and customize? Is literacy the ability to discern?

“Information is pattern perceived in the data,” p.234 and later “Higher ‘intelligence’ can detect and operate upon patterns more deeply nested, while simpler ‘intelligence is restricted to surface patterns,” (p.238).

I know I have seen this suggestion several other places: that what we should be teaching students is to recognize patterns – it’s certainly part of the mathematics curriculum.

And maybe here he is talking about media:

“If a body of data seen one way conveys different information that the same body of data seen another way, what is the additional information provided by one form that is not provided by the other? Clearly the answer is pattern, that is, perceived structure,” p.235. He goes on to talk about two types of ‘emergent information’: intrarepresentational and interrepresentational. One is the differences between two representations and the other is the information gained from comparing the two.

Affordances --- good term to remember.

And this information literacy:

“Each user must therefore develop inference rules and a knowledge base with which to scan the environment and extract from it those objects that are pertinent to the task at hand,” (p.237).

As well as a great agenda for schools.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2006-05-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember these books? They anticipated the web in that the reader could determine the "plot" of a story by making choices - do you want to enter this cave? yes, turn to page 64; no, turn to page 33.

Choose your own adventure: information literacy, media literacy, twenty-first century literacy, or just plain literacy. This past week I read Gee’s The Social Mind in which he lays out the theory that what we consider “mental” is actually social including memory, belief, and knowledge. While I’m tackling the stack of books I checked out last week from Jackson, Bob has been posting another deluge of readings that I have barely been able to sample. I did listen to the powerpoint (no more Mr. Ed, please!) and find myself most drawn to the Novak (1995) – liquid architecture – and fiction/poetry as the language/approach needed to deal with cyberspace. I’m not sure I agree with Bob that we should abandon the political or aesthetic branches of philosophy just yet. I think my interest in Gee and Lauren’s interest in critical information literacy both lean in a socio-political direction. How can we read Novak and disregard the aesthetic? (Bob, have you abandoned the aesthetic in your powerpoints as well?)

I’m finding a thread emphasizing story or narrative in both Novak and Gee. Gee suggests that what makes humans unique is our ability to deceive and in particular to deceive ourselves. We of all the other animals can pretend to be someone else (shades of Turkle?). In a sense what Gee is saying is that much of what we think of as existing in individual minds such as knowledge or memory are really stories that we construct using the Discourses of which we are a part. Our brains contain networks and processing tools we use to create these narratives that we call memories, beliefs, or knowledge.

I’ve felt a strong need to move beyond the defining and philosophy for now to the field of librarianship – one of the major Discourse of which I hope to be a part and so I have started reading Carol Kuhlthau’s book appropriately entitled: Seeking Meaning. I’m wondering if there is a sense in which information/self is one of those false dualisms that the new literacy challenges. No longer is information seeking a matter of finding a right answer somewhere “out there” rather the technology allows us to navigate through all sorts of answers and construct new narratives using the self to create transformation and in the process transform the self.

If there is really no dualism, then how can there be a medium? Or is it all a medium? Is encoding and decoding a fluid dynamic that cannot be divided? Is the code (in de-code or en-code) the medium? And can meaning ever be separated from that code or medium? I take in the world through my senses and that world is the fluid/liquid architecture of Being embodied in the objects, texts, people that make up the world. What about the media of bird song or sunset? (Kimmel meditation – maybe I haven’t really left behind the defining and philosophizing).

Chinese Encyclopedia

2006-05-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

Maybe the point of the Chinese Encyclopedia whether it is fiction or not is to make us realize that there are classification schemes different than our own that may seem irrational to us. And as we are in relationships with other minds, it is important to remember that each of us, of course, operates from a unique classification scheme and that is both the challenge and reward of relationships. Reward in that we do manage to communicate and reach at least some partial understanding of others.

What strikes me about the Chinese Encyclopedia classification is that each of the categories taken alone makes sense to me; it's their juxtaposition and the seeming contradictions, overlaps, and failures to capture many distinctions that seem foreign and nonsensical. Yet, don't you have to love this classification: "that from a long way off look like flies," or "drawn with a very fine camelhair brush," and the images, sensations, and nuances that they capture.

And how perfect to have included as one category of the classification, "included in the present classification," because to me this captures the imperfection of any attempts at classification -- the recognition that there must also be this category, "not included in the present classification." So what I take from these readings is the realization that any understanding I have is only partial. Here I have used words to attempt to express some understanding. The words are only part. Your reading of these words is only part.

And I am reminded of a dinner conversation I had with my father when I was very young. "What's the biggest number," I asked. "There is no biggest number," he answers. "How can that be?" I wonder. Name the biggest number you can think of, he suggests... then add one... then add one.... then add one.... And there I think I realized my mind was both large enough to glimpse infinity yet would never be able to grasp it. Here was understanding built on part, and on what was not. Infinity is not the biggest number you can think of, not the biggest number plus one, not the biggest number multiplied by itself, or raised to that power.... not the number of grains of sand on this beach... not even all the beaches in the world... nor all the stars in the sky...

A Place to Stand

2005-05-02T14:54:00.000-07:00

Choose a place to stand. My mind swirls with all I have learned this spring and I struggle to say what was ID, what was Qualitative Research, what was one of the other tangents I chose to pursue. And wasn’t it funny, which ever way I went, I always ended up braided back into the same cord. Choose a place to stand within the chaos and just observe. So where do I start and where do I always end up? Let me stand here at the core of my self to reflect perhaps on the questions: what have I learned and how have I brought my self, my being into the process?

Instructional Design. I love the idea of design and I like where we started for this course: thinking of ourselves as designers. Aesthetics have always been important to me (even math problems had to have beautiful solutions) and design implies an eye for balance and beauty. Design should be something pleasing, planned but not forced - inviting not demanding. But design implies a designer doesn’t it? A mind and hands. And tools at hand.

Tools, Pea said were ways to reify and distribute intelligence. Many tools were offered throughout this semester as well as an ID algorithm that attempts to capture a part of the intelligent design of our brains. I know when I first heard about Instructional Design, I thought it was a natural fit with a research process or many problem solving models. It made sense. But it’s funny here at the end of the course, I find myself least interested in the algorithm. Which isn’t to say I don’t agree with it or think it’s not valid. I’m just not sure it’s really what interests me. It’s too neat. From my experience, learning is messy, the steps in the algorithm bleed into each other, and form patterns that are far from linear.
So maybe our brains are just organs in our bodies - hard wired - and definitely hard wired for learning. But I guess I think there’s something else that has as much substance. It may be something like the water in the swimming pool or fields of energy that connect us. Something happens between teacher and student that has the power to transform each. And what tools have I found this semester to help me capture and understand that mystery?

First, there were all the front end tools: the digging, the framing and re-framing, and the mapping. What’s going on here? It’s a great qualitative question that asks us both to pull back to see the big picture or context and to zoom into the unique particulars. It’s all a cloud and all connected and the connections tell a story -- a unique story. Setting, characters, plot, mood, theme - all the elements of story belong to this design. We are asked to become the reader and join our imaginations with the authors’. What are they telling us? But we are also authors - not just observers but participants. And perhaps in very subtle ways our observations and questions begin to stretch, shape, and fit the fabric. Draw a map and find your bearings there. Dig but dig deeper and the questions are about you, the designer. Can you pull this out of your self? What is your knowing? Where do you belong in the story and what can you offer?

Then a needs assessment. What a lovely aha! to discover that the mission statement should live and breathe here. Communities form around a shared purpose. Meanings are negotiated and language crafted to say this is who we are and what we believe. With the mission statement we name the field that energizes and animates us: lifelong learning, community, citizenship and we honor that spirit within us and within each other. But we need to be reminded to pull it out, out of the dusty drawer and out of ourselves, and out of each other. This is perhaps the loftiest goal of ID: to infuse each goal and objective with these intentions. And here I think we are all learners trying to decide what it looks like in our lessons and dealings with each other.

When it comes to task analysis, goals and objectives, I begin to feel the need to re-frame. I understand the purpose and value of behavioral objectives and the focus on cognitive goals but it just wasn’t enough for me. I think the disconnect was between these and the mission statement with it’s lofty language, its origin in community, and its inclusive focus. I like the idea from task analysis of using a job incumbent -- but I think maybe it is the focus just on tasks that aggravates me. I want to use the job incumbent as a living breathing model - not just this is how I do it, but this is what it feels like, this is what it means to me, here is where I struggle, here is where I make judgments --------this is my story!!!!!!! I am a human being just like you, not a robot to be programmed. And I think this is where the teaching and the learning truly happen. So in a sense I think I would morph the task analysis tool to identify a job incumbent who was more than a model but a mentor. A mentor who provides the student with an entree to the trajectory of the mission statement in all its human messiness.

Rather than goals and objectives that lay instruction out in a linear, step by step fashion I like the idea of a stochastic filter. In many ways I feel like this involves establishing the simple initial conditions as in chaos theory and then finding a place to stand - carefully observing/assessing and looking for certain criterion or fractal patterning. My design for learning includes not just the cognitive but the aesthetic, the affective, and the environmental domains. The boundaries between teacher and student become permeable allowing teaching and learning to move both ways. Learning is an exchange of gifts, a sharing of knowing and meaning about the lofty mission goals. Gift exchange transforms both the giver and receiver. The exchange itself happens somewhere in the energy field connecting us as a ripple, a drop, a wave, or a flood. And so the observer needs to look not just at the individual characters, setting or moments in time but the field around them to discern the pattern.

A Wrinkle

2005-05-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I just had to capture the passage below from A Wrinkle in Time. I have been reading the book with a small group of fourth graders and was really struck when I read this passage to them. It made me think of my struggle to fit my design philosophy and my design into the Power Train. We're given the form - but within that we (the poets) have complete freedom to do with it what we want. I love this passage on so many levels, not the least of which is the idea that we can "write" the story of our own lives. Stories, both in the literal sense like using a piece of literature such as Wrinkle, and in the sense of authoring our own lives have become important components of my design and philosophy.

Sonnet

2005-04-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

"Can't she see what's going to happen?" Calvin asked.

"Oh, not in this kind of thing." Mrs. Whatsit sounded surprised at his question. "If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we'd be -- we'd be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet."

"Yes, yes," Calvin said impatiently. "What's that got to do with the Happy Medium?"

"Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to me." Mrs. Whatsit's voice was stern, and for a moment Calvin stopped pawing the ground like a nervous colt. "It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?"

"Yes."

"There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?"

"Yes." Calvin nodded.

"And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?"

"No."

"But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?"

"Yes." Calvin nodded again.

"So," Mrs. Whatsit said.

"So what?"

"Oh, do not be stupid, boy!" Mrs. Whatsit scolded. "You know perfectly well what I am driving at!"

"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but with freedom within it?"

"Yes," Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

L'Engle, Madeleine (1962). A Wrinkle in time. New York: Laurel-Leaf. p. 185-6.

Deep Water

2005-04-06T07:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I am preparing to take a plunge - into the deep end of the swimming pool so to speak. I won't be in Moo-Ville tonight. I am headed to the coast with 20 fourth grade students. For many of these kids this will be their first experience with the beach. Last night in Qualitative Research we learned about ethnography and as an ethnography I think this cultural scene is especially rich: accompanying our students out of their environment and into a strange, new setting. It's the type of learning experience I love to be a part of: to open my heart and eyes to really see and feel some of what they are experiencing.

Last night I dreamt again about my own school work and research interests and woke to recall one of our readings about meditation: addicted to thinking. Every morning I try to meditate and recently it has been difficult to break from that constant analysis and thought. So this morning my prayer is to be present in the experience of the next few days with my companions, to listen outside myself, and if I must take a researcher's role: to be a true observer participant both in the moment and aware of the moment. As we leave the school and classroom behind, how does that free us to really learn together?

Isn't it interesting that outside school and the classroom is where I find my vision of education as the swimming pool: fluid, deep, immersion, connection, ripples and waves?

Gift of Self

2005-04-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

I have returned to the Pea article we read earlier for this class to think about distributed intelligence as it relates to the selection of media and methods for instruction. Methods, I believe are the actions we take to promote a distribution of intelligence in the classroom while media are the reification of that intelligence. A simple lecture is a one way distribution: teacher to student. A lecture that elicits questions or discussion forms a two way distribution (teacher and student) and perhaps some distribution across students as well. I believe strongly in the capacity of education for transformation or re-distribution of intelligence. A re-distribution in the sense that it builds capacity rather than simply parsing out a finite amount of intelligence. If students learn better when they have ownership of their learning, I think this is another way of saying that they are the co-designers of their learning and that they contribute to the activity of intelligence building. So as teachers, our role is not just to build on what the student already knows but to uncover their unique knowledge and invite their contribution to the learning activity. Our methods recognize the gift of their selves to the process.

The interaction across generations is one we don't really pay attention to when talking about teaching. Yet, when I think about the mega goals of school: lifelong learning, informed citizens, active community members -- these all suggest a trajectory into a certain vision of adulthood. And this is the gift that we, teachers who are adults have to offer our students -- a model of lived experience in each of these areas. And when we bring our passions to the classroom: passions for reading, for gardening, for music, or for cooking -- in other words when we open up, unpack, uncover those parts of ourselves that are learners, citizens, and members of community we offer up true gifts and true opportunities for transformation.

So I find myself reaching for instructional strategies that promote this type of distributed intelligence: between teacher and student (both ways), across students, and beyond with parents and community. How to bring as many of those gifts to instruction as possible; to maximize the distribution and the transformation.

Methods and Media

2005-03-19T14:31:00.000-08:00

I am still in the process of collaborating and negotiating with my co-designers - the fourth grade teachers and am looking forward to forming design partnerships with students.

But currently we have these documents which I reference below in my articulation and goals statements: a rubric that specifies objectives for focus, organization, elaboration, style and conventions which is based on the NC standard course of study and was hammered out on a staff development day with vertical grade level teams -- this document is still a living, changeable document. We also have an outline for the school year that serves as a starting point and offers broad brush strokes for the methods and media we will use.

The basic plan for the year starts in the summer. Staff members will be paired with rising fourth graders and will correspond during the summer and throughout the school year.
• September: journals, diaries, and scrapbooks
• October: researching neighborhood history - notetaking, letter writing, portfolio
• November & December: personal narratives, autobiographies, African American authors, artists & musicians
• January: Imaginative narratives, African American authors, artists, & musicians
• February: writing to a prompt, using what you already know to answer a prompt, folklore variants, wordless books, examples of authors writing to same prompt
• March: Selecting, writing, editing and publishing from portfolio of neighborhood history and narratives
• April: Poetry - defying conventions

This plan is still under discussion. I am in the process of compiling bibliographies of library resources (literature models) and identifying community resources for neighborhood history. Teachers may adapt the plan in their classrooms. Mini-lessons will be developed and implemented to meet identified needs in each classroom. Individual conferences with students will also focus on the elements and editing for publication. I hope to suggest a library component for each month: research, particular authors or genres, using technology and media for publication. Students will keep individual journals and portfolios of work in progress. Class scrapbooks or conversational journals will be available. Staff pen pals will connect students to the school community.

Instructional Articulation & Goals

2005-03-19T09:14:00.000-08:00

The mission of GPES is to guide children toward active citizenship and lifelong learning within a community that exhibits pride and support.

Job: Literate citizen and involved community member.

Tasks:
Stays informed through reading, observing and listening.
Stays connected by conversing, participating, and writing.
Contributes or gives back to the community through actions or words.

For fourth grade writing these components are the most important:

Stays connected by writing.
Contributes to the community through written words.

And these components break down further (based on the needs assessment):

Stays connected by writing.
• written communication exhibits focus, organization, elaboration, style, and conventions.
• written communication has purpose and an audience

Contributes to the community through written words
• writing is published for community
• writing makes a contribution to the needs of the community

Goals & Objectives

Written communication exhibits focus.
• students identify focus in the work of authors, artists, and musicians
• student's work is coherent and on topic

Written communication exhibits organization
• Students identify organization for different genres: journal, letters, narratives, etc.
• student's work is organized according to purpose and genre
• students demonstrate use of mapping tools to plan writing

Written communication exhibits elaboration
• students identify elaboration in the work of authors, artists, and musicians
• students identify new vocabulary and metaphors
• students demonstrate use of a thesaurus
• students edit work to add detail

Written communication exhibits style
• students identify author's purpose and audience in literature
• Students identify purpose for various genres
• students use dialogue appropriately in writing
• students select appropriate style for purpose, genre, and audience

Written communication exhibits conventions
• student's work uses language, punctuation, and capitalization appropriately
• students demonstrate use of a dictionary, word wall, and other resources to edit and correct spelling

Student work has an audience
• students write letters to staff members
• students write in journals for self
• students write and edit for publication
• student work is published in BLOGS and web pages

Student writing contributes to community
• students research neighborhood history
• students write and publish history for the school and community

Project Definition: Fourth Grade Writing

2005-03-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

My needs assessment used existing school documents to define the mega and macro goals for this project: fourth grade writing.

The mega goals come from the school mission statement.

The macro goals come from the School Improvement Plan and the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

My needs assessment at this point has also involved numerous discussions with my co-designers: the team of fourth grade teachers, vertical discussions with third and fifth grade teachers about writing, and the collection and analysis (during a staff development day) of third grade writing samples. Fourth grade teachers and I will continue to meet to refine and detail plans for next year. I also plan to interview grade three students and create a focus group to provide insight into what it means to them to be a writer.

Our ideal state would be students capable of writing coherently in a variety of genres but having mastered the personal and imaginative narrative as tested in fourth grade. These narratives are evaluated based on a rubric for focus, organization, elaboration, style, and conventions. We have discussed each of these in detail as a fourth grade team as well as in school-wide vertical teams. Our school had a very low passing rate last year for the writing test. That is one measure we used to define the difference between ideal and actual state. But the writing samples from grade three students (next year's grade four) are a more realistic measure. All of our students need work on each of the rubric areas but each student presents a unique challenge. All of our students have a sense of story and style but most are weak developing stories and applying conventions. Motivation and environment concern us: do our students want to or like to write and how has their environment shaped their use of language? We are cognizant of these questions but our task clearly deals with knowledge about vocabulary, writing genres and purposes as well as skills in applying conventions and appropriate use of written language.

I have used mapping both to excavate a needs assessment and to play around with ideas for a year-long writing plan. These were posted to Blackboard earlier.

The fourth grade team always talks about the test when they talk about writing. One of the benefits we recognized in pulling back, opening to a wide angle lens, by planning now to create a holistic writing plan for next year was that we could look beyond the test and get back to the mega goals which are really the goals that make teaching meaningful for us as teachers. We don't enjoy teaching for a test. This project has helped us to re-frame our instruction for next year.

While fourth grade teachers always talk about the test, teachers in other grade levels rarely reference the writing test. That frame has also been a problem and a source of discomfort for the fourth grade teachers who feel responsible for a test that is really a culmination of K-4 instruction not of a single year of instruction. Our school-wide vertical discussions of writing have helped to re-frame this discussion as well.

This designer is intriqued by the modeling tools and their application to this project. Fourth grade writing seems by nature an ill-defined and chaotic problem. Writing, language, and communication lead to the heart of what it means to be human. Our students come from the neighborhood surrounding the school; our staff is bused in each morning and out each afternoon. We represent different cultures; politics and social class permeate our interactions; language is layered with these cultural, political, and social meanings. I find myself drawn to the stochastic model: how to create a filter for students to pass through so that they gain the tools they need to be literate citizens yet design instruction that is open to their experiences, their voices, and their stories. Our lives touch in this place called school; here we have a chance to open boundaries and give each other a glimpse of other ways of knowing and of being human. I want the learning to flow both ways through this filter. Written communications seems like one of the most powerful tools for us to use.

Finally, why choose fourth grade writing for my instructional design project? It was all about feasibility. I knew there was an audience of approximately 50 students who would benefit. I knew there was a team of fourth grade teachers who would be willing to work now on a plan for next year. As a school we had already identified writing as a focus for vertical planning and staff development days had been set aside for the purpose. Remember too, one of the first people I consulted was my principal: her support and encouragement make this project more feasible.

In The Swim

2005-03-19T05:48:00.000-08:00

My summary for the Dills & Romiszowski article (and I think the authors would approve) is of its meaning for me.

Instruction is but a part of an education. It almost seems to imply a dichotomy or a boundary between the instructor and the instructed. Yet I know from my lived experience that learning is never a one way street. I learn from my students just as they learn from me. But even this model looks like a line with arrows at both ends - a street with two way traffic but a street nonetheless.

In fact the medium of education is much more liquid. I make a small movement in the fluid and it ripples throughout the pool. Ripples from others reach me, overlap, create new waves. There are ripples I will never see. Most ripples are only partially visible to me. The unintentional and the playful may be as important as the instruction I have planned. I need to allow for movement that is multidirectional and open. Water moves in waves, trickles, drops, puddles, and currents. Water has no shape and every shape. Light is reflected and refracted and permeates water. Here's a rainbow or a rainbow's illusion.

What I do in this environment has transformative power. I make a difference. I need to attend to my experience: to look for the clouds in each piece of paper. Meditation and prayer bring awareness of the awesome responsiblity of transformation and an awareness that in transforming I am transformed. I need to listen more than I speak and look for the ripples of my actions in others. I honor the voices, the lived experiences of students, and my participation in their lives.

I am never more than co-designer. That is both humbling and empowering. On the one hand I am a designer: what I do makes a difference and I can apply my intellect and creativity toward designing learning but my actions and ideas are always incomplete and transformed by other teachers, other students, parents, and community. My designs are mere ripples: small drops in the ocean.

Dills, C. R. & Romiszowski, A. J. (1997). How is instructional development a social practice: Instructional development in a postmodern world. Instructional Design Paradigms. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications.

Rubber Bands

2005-03-17T10:20:00.000-08:00

I've had fun re-reading my original posting on my design philosophy. I've definitely found the work we've done this semester has helped me to stretch and explore, yet I find myself returning to those original posts as an anchor and a picture of what is essential to my beliefs and behaviors as a designer.

I think I tend to lead with confluent processing - I like the big picture, the sense of endless possibility and creativity that opens a new project. I try to cast a wide net and open my lense to the widest angle. Conversation is really important to me at this stage; I have colleagues I trust and know will both help me to uncover possibilities I have yet to uncover as well as an awareness of the boundaries and limitations I will need to bring my dreams to reality. I like to play with different scenarios; my dreams and meditations are sources of inspiration. I will often create extensive webs of ideas as maps for this stage.

In an early blackboard discussion I believe I talked about an awareness that instructional designs are part of larger designs - that a design for a lesson is nested in a unit design, nested in a course of study, nested in an education, nested in a life long with learning. I love having discovered that that awareness fits with a needs assessment that moves from the mega to the macro to the micro. An awareness of the big picture is critically important in instructional design.

I am most often a co-designer. My job involves planning units with teachers; what I teach in the library is necessarily nested in what they are teaching in the classroom. Frequently I provide resources and ideas for what happens in the classroom and ideally what I teach is directly connected with classroom content and learning. Conversation and in particular, negotiation are important tools in co-designing. I have big ideas but they are flexible and I enjoy watching them morph into reality as I begin to work with others to identify and analyze the tasks students need to accomplish. Although I have said I lead with confluent processing, I have to confess I really enjoy this more precise and sequential part of the process: putting together the pieces of the puzzle, discarding pieces that don't fit, and putting things into a sequence and order that is both practical and pleasing. I like watching my design take on a life and direction of its own as others contribute to the plan and its implementation.

I advocate strongly for the technical and confluent processors in the classroom: what does learning look for those students? Whenever possible I want instruction to have a hands-on component and an aesthetic with an inclusion of music, art, or poetry. The diversity of students: cultural, gender, processing styles, are part of the tension inherent in design. But I strongly believe this tension and these differences offer a design its texture and beauty. I most dearly hope that my design allows this texture and beauty to appear.

A Tisket a Task -et

2005-02-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

I found Hannum's Job Task Analysis reassuringly linear. It gives me a feel for where I've been and where I'm going with the project of fourth grade writing. I'd like to reflect here about what I took away from the article and perhaps clear a path to move forward.

How do I inventory or list everything a fourth grade writer should be able to do? I plan to start with what I think is a decent rubric that will be used to evaluate student work on the writing test: Focus, Organization, Support and Elaboration, Style and Conventions. These five will serve as my task selection as well. For now, I think I want to stay at this level rather than breaking these into smaller components. I'm not sure I always agree with the model Reiser attributed to Gagne that subordinate skills have to be learned before superordinate skills (Reiser, 2001, p.60). In fact I think the Vosniadou article implies that we often teach ideas in the wrong order without paying attention to the mental models that students may already have about the subject.

I like the suggestion by Hannum that we use a "job incumbent" or someone who is already skilled or expert at the job and observe/interview/survey them about how they do the task. What I find really fun and intriquing about this idea is that there are SO MANY MODELS available at every level for students to learn from. Each book or magazine in my library presents a model and I had already decided that I wanted to find books by writers about their lives and their writing and we have several in our collection. So I guess I hope to use those books and authors to speak themselves about the task analysis. Additionally, we as teachers are already familiar with using a "think aloud" to show students how we think through a task like writing. I think it's probably important to ask our students to also provide us with "think alouds" as they talk about themselves as writers - this would provide the meta-cognition that other authors have identified as important for learning.

I'm wondering as I write this if I have decided that students are my co-designers then should they work with me in the task analysis. For example, I find literature that addresses each of the five task components, e.g. conventions. Together we construct the analysis of what the author did or did not do relative to that component. I chose conventions because I am aware of some fun choices. We have a book that is the journal of Teddy Roosevelt when he was a boy. He was a horrible speller. The editor has corrected the spelling but in the back matter we are given all the misspellings of this nine or ten year old boy who was to become president. There's also another funny book called "Punctuation Takes a Vacation," in which mayhem occurs when the punctuation marks skip out.

References
Pulver, R. (2003). Punctuation takes a vacation. New York: Holiday House.
Reiser, R.A. (2001). A History of instructional design and technology: Part II: A history of instructional design. ETR&D 49 (2) 57-67.
Roosevelt, T. (2003). My tour of Europe, by Teddy Roosevelt, age 10. Edited by Ellen Jackson. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press.

Strange Attractors

2005-02-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

Framing, Digging, Mapping, Modeling... I have trouble talking about one without talking about the others and I definitely don't think the process is at all a linear one. So I prefer to think of these four categories as strange attractors or four basins of attraction that I will swirl my thoughts around - hopefully in a meaningful pattern. I also plan to ground my discussion in terms of my project and my experience with the project. Read below, but don't be misled by the headings - it's all interconnected.

Re-framing

2005-02-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

First the framing. Watzlawick points out that we often get stuck in a frame so that our problems and solutions are in an endless feedback loop and nothing really changes. The answer he suggests is applied to the attempted solution by moving into a new frame - a second order change. First you may need to have an understanding of the picture that the participants have, as Vosniadou demonstrates and Watzlawick also points out when he says, "reframing presupposes that the therapist learn the patient's language." And this I suggest might take a bit of digging.

It was clear to me that the frame we were using for fourth grade writing was the test and the frame only included 4th grade. This year our school has started moving out of that frame by asking every grade level to contribute to a vertical plan for writing (as in the Branson article). Once I began my needs assessment (Kaufman) and realized that I needed data from this year's third graders, I saw that my plan was aligned with this macro school plan. Currently our teachers are creating the map for that plan. Talking (more digging) with my co-designers, I have realized that we all have an interest in moving out of the testing frame and so while I will try to be cognizant of that reality, my instructional design does not have the test as the end result. As long as we were in the testing frame we were trapped because our solution, prep for the test, was to short term and to fragmented. And the emotional wrapper for the students was painful, so that fifth grade was asking "just send me students who like to write." (Martin & Reigeluth). So again, popping into this vertical frame helped us to see this.

Digging

2005-02-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

Digging -- I think I started digging almost as soon as I turned my attention to this as a possible project. The morning I drove down MLK drive and realized there were wonderful stories there, the first person I sought when I got to school was my principal. I have ideas, but she grounds them in reality for me -- does it meet a need and do we have the resources? I started talking with the teachers, our curriculum coordinator, my professors... In a sense I started building a social network for the project and taking advantage of existing networks (clearly the principal is at the top of one) to help me visualize and build support for the project (infrastructure). But the Kaufman model helped me to really map out the needs assessment. I was really struck by his emphasis on results (not methods or resources) and had to discipline myself to stay within those constraints. I used his map to help me and I developed my own map for the project. I had the lovely aha! when I realized our school had documents: a mission statement and a school improvement plan for me to turn to. I guess it's not surprising that I saw my vision reflected in the mission and belief statements: "guide children" "lifelong learning" "community" "collaboration" "gifts" "partnership". I was part of the staff that created that document and I have to a large extent internalized it but still it was very affirming to find a mirror for what I was now attempting.

More digging: On the micro level I realized that I still needed more data. I'm asking for writing samples from grade 3. Doesn't it seem odd that schools don't do this more?? We are so stuck in the frame of a single school year. But again I found confirmation in our school's current attempt to vertically align writing. And I decided I wanted to know more about what frame, what conceptual pictures this year's third graders have about writing (Vosniadou) so I have a plan to sit with them at lunch and perhaps establish a focus group. And here I find a lovely parallel with my interest in qualitative research because I want to know what does writing mean to them? what do they think about writing and writers? Do they see themselves as writers? Do they think they have stories to tell? What are their perceptions of the writing test? This data will help me get at the affective domain that Martin & Reigeluth talk about.

Mapping

2005-02-13T06:47:00.000-08:00

Mapping: I think I am a mapping person. I am always looking for connections. I generally create a web for any major project I am working on. I love to map curriculum and look for connections across disciplines. Sometimes a map may help to understand a frame. In fact, for my other class we are creating maps to show the conceptual framework for our research proposals. I used the Kaufman map to help me create my own map for this project and that map helped me know where to dig some more. I am really intriqued by social networking because my ultimate research interest at this point is in professional learning communities and the role a school librarian plays in that social network. I think it's a unique role that may be exemplified in this particular project. I move in conversations between the principal and a grade level - connecting those nodes. Fourth grade teachers need data from this year's third grade teachers. I'm in a position to easily connect those nodes. I convey to the fourth grade team what the fifth grade teacher has said about writing and what kindergarten says their contribution will be to the vertical plan. The school librarian is an inside person considered a member of various teams (horizontal) but she does not have responsibility for a particular classroom and so she is an outside person who can move from team to team (vertical). She can carry seeds/ideas informally throughout the network. I can eat lunch with third grade students and connect those nodes to fourth grade teachers. I am in a position as well to connect to outside nodes -- community, technology (introducing BLOGs), information sources, etc. What little hope the Branson article offered had to do with horizontal and vertical conversations and the school librarian is one of the people in a school who moves freely along both axes. Branson does not elaborate on a proposed solution but others have (including Senge whom he cites). A learning organization or professional learning community is a developing paradigm for school reform and change. And a paradigm is of course, a frame and a paradigm shift is a second order change (Watzlawick).

Modeling

2005-02-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

Modeling -- Whoaa!! I am still trying to get my mind around this concept. Modeling sounds a bit like mapping, doesn't it? I guess a map is usually two dimensional and I suspect a model has at least three dimensions - maybe more which would explain why it's so hard to conceptualize (requires a change in order). Listening to the audio file about chaos theory, I was struck by the idea that very simple initial conditions can lead to a very complex, chaotic, yet patterned reality. And so I guess I find myself wondering if the way to effect change is to simplify. To identify core beliefs. Make those core beliefs the filter that everything must pass through (stochastic model). And so a needs assessment should focus on the mega results and everything should be aligned with those over-arching goals. And all of this I realize is not new -- organizations have been singing this tune for a long time -- it's why we write a mission statement. But as I commented, how rare it is that we return to the mission statement when we plan instruction. Again one of the fundamental characteristics of a professional learning community is a focus on shared vision. That vision needs to be living and breathing amongst the members of the community not just a document on the wall.

A true vision should be the result of what David Bohm calls a "group mind" and he sees as the essence of true change:

"If we don't establish these absolute boundaries between minds, then I think it's possible they could in some way unite as one mind. If there were a genuine understanding of and feeling for wholeness in this group mind, it might be enough to change things." (Interview with David Bohm. Accessed online
http://www.fdavidpeat.com/interviews/text/bohmint.txt

And I have to say that I am forever the optimist and so I see in this plan for fourth grade writing and the beautiful way it fits the pattern and joins in a holistic way with other things I see happening at my school, leads me to hope for the future of our students and education.

Caught in the Filter

2005-02-12T05:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met with my co-designers - the fourth grade teachers and shared with them some of my thoughts for 4th grade writing next year and got their feedback, ideas, and concerns. Here my words will try again to capture what we talked about.

As part of my needs assessment I realized I needed to have data in the form of writing samples from this years grade 3 students. I can either ask those teachers to give me copies or I can plan something in the library where I collect those samples. My principal okayed either so I will probably offer the choice. Grade 4 teachers really want to see this data because they felt this year like they had planned/expected students to be at a certain level and by the time they had assessed and realized how far behind their students were, they had lost valuable time. All year we have been saying that our staff should be looking at student work and here we have a chance to do it. I'm in a unique position to connect the teams. Since next year's writing test will count, my principal is encouraging and supportive.

I told them that I was planning to also gather data by talking with this year's 3rd grade students to find out what they think about writing, what writers do, and about themselves as writers. This really excites me because it is the call of qualitative research - what is the meaning of writing to the participants?? They laughed when I said I planned to do this in the cafeteria and suggested that as the weather warms up I could take a small group outside to talk. Then we came up with the idea of having a third grade "focus group" of students selected to represent different ability levels. In addition to gathering data from them I could pilot projects like BLOGs with them and have a core group to lead next year. Finally we talked about using the last few weeks of school after testing to focus on writing with grade 3. The problem is we pull students to tutor for the re-test (craziness) during this time. What if the students who were not pulled joined grade 4 during that time for writing? Someone suggested they be paired with grade 4 students to work??

Another idea that I floated by these teachers and my principal was a letter writing/pen pal project. Earlier this year I had grade 4 students write me letters about what genre they liked to read and I answered with personal letters in envelopes in books that I had selected for each individual. The response I got and the teachers noted was the enthusiasm for the notes and the books - I keep hearing from students, "I'm reading the book you gave me" or "I want another book like the one you gave me." We have less than 50 grade 3 students. If you count everyone on our staff we have that many adults. What if we paired staff with grade 3 students and we each committed to writing a postcard or letter to that student in the summer and continuing a correspondence throughout the school year? This would build relationships and would make the entire school staff aware and a part of fourth grade writing. And what was funny was the grade 4 teachers commented that the notes they confiscate from their student often represent their best writing efforts. They can communicate in writing when they so choose. I told them what Bob has said about conversational writing and they agreed that this confirmed its value for our students.

Each teacher said yes, they plan to have their students journal next year. We played around with some ideas for having dialogue journals with the teacher or pairing students to write in a shared conversational journal. Could there be a sort of class scrapbook where students wrote and responded to each other?

We also talked about the idea of having students research the history/stories of the neighborhood/community and writing those down. We had questions about how far back we could go - where would we find the information? I offered my services as a librarian to try to identify those sources of information - community people, newspapers, ?????? This is another project that fits our Mega vision to make this a community school and build connections between teachers - students - community. To the extent that we could find some of these stories and share them, we would be offering an authentic gift to the community. It is probably one of the more ambitious things I hope to accomplish and I need to realistically define it for next year. If I could just identify some key people from the community who would agree to come to the school and talk to our students, this would be a great beginning. A former city mayor used to live across the street.

Now to connect back to the Mega goal:

" The mission of Gillespie Park Elementary School is to guide children toward active citizenship and lifelong learning within a community that exhibits support and pride.

To lead us toward our mission, our school community shares the following beliefs:

- All children have the capacity to learn and develop.
- Children will be treated as individuals with multiple intelligences and gifts.
- All learners will engage in active learning and collaboration.
- Education is a partnership among pupils, teachers, staff, adminstrators, parents, and the community.

Dreams, by Langston Hughes

2005-02-10T14:10:00.000-08:00

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes

If You Are A Poet

2005-02-10T02:54:00.000-08:00

"If you are a poet you will see clearly..." So far we have concentrated on the remaining portion of this reading by Thich Nhat Hahn, "that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper." But isn't it interesting how he frames the piece with a poet's eye. The poet will see clearly. For the poet, words are the filter that catch the random, the seemingly disconnected, the unpredictable aspects of our existence and put them in order. For the poet a sheet of paper represents "the presence of the whole cosmos."

Why write? The empty sheet of paper seems to have its own perfection. Why fill it with words? But if your minds eye sees a cloud floating here and you reach for it with your words, then you have caught that cloud in a filter and named it "cloud floating." And those words also have perfection and beauty.

"In the beginning was the word." The private journal I started two years ago begins with that scripture. I recognized that the empty sheets of paper were a holy space. "If you are a poet you will see clearly." Words give us a lens to see connections, capture dreams, and filter the seeming randomness of our existence.

How do I "teach" writing then?

Models of Distributed Intelligence

2005-01-31T19:03:00.000-08:00

Stories - when we tell a story, we make it part of the experience of the listener. We may choose to distribute our own memory, experience, creation, or learning to the listener. In a sense we "offload" part of the work of remembering that experience or creation to the listener. Perhaps our experience or tale helps to scaffold the listener in their own learning and maybe it becomes a part of a new understanding and a new design. Some stories become part of our family or of our culture. They become a part of that intelligent design.

Personal journals - Writing, someone in class said, is like a conversation with oneself. I think writing is a good example of how Pea explains intelligence. Intelligence is not something we possess but becomes manifest in our actions. Writing is an act that helps us give intelligence to our thoughts. When we put something in writing we make that intelligence available to the reader. The reader may be our future self: five minutes later, five days later, five months later. We have distributed that intelligence across time. We have also offloaded some of the work of memory. I often record my dreams first thing when I wake up. Frequently I will come back to read about a dream I had already forgotten. My dreams, my feelings, my thoughts recorded in a journal later become material for reflection and meaning-making often through the act of writing further about them.

Is writing an activity that is always directed toward the future? When we write, are we casting ourselves into the future? Is writing fundamentally an act of faith? Is writing a design for future learning?

What about the writing we do in IM or MOO? I've noticed a certain disconnect in our conversations in MOO. Frequently in the time I take to post a response to the present conversation a new conversational thread has begun and my response is out of synch. What happens to time in these forums is distinct from both spoken conversation and more traditional forms of writing. This may be one of the distinguishing features of this genre and why frequent users have developed a type of chat shorthand - a new vocabulary - a new inscription system to distribute the intelligence.

The "Pea"

2005-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

I felt compelled to return to the Pea article because I was so taken by his description of intelligence as "distributed - across minds, persons, and the symbolic and physical environments, both natural and artificial," (Pea, p.47). I find it has implications for my interests in writing and in professional learning communities. I think a professional learning community is exactly an effort to distribute intelligence and as Pea points out this does not imply just re-allocating a finite amount of intelligence but offers an opportunity to expand intelligence so that the whole is greater than a simple sum of the parts.

It's this idea of expanding intelligence that I think learning and schooling should be all about. Pea talks about distributing intelligence across adult and child when an adult scaffolds a learning experience for a child, building in support to move a child toward new achievement. As a teacher, I also try to be cognizant of how my students expand my own intelligence - offering solutions I had not considered, pointing out novel connections, and bringing their own life experiences and viewpoints to the classroom.

I was intriqued by his critique of the constructivists who argue that when "one directly teaches a learner something one robs that learner of the opportunity to discover it for him or herself," (Pea, p.64) and gives the example of the wonderful creations a child can make by herself with LEGO blocks. And Pea points out the wonderful intelligence that was part of the design of the LEGO blocks that offered that learner the tool for discovery and invention. It is exactly this type of intelligent and intentional design that I think we need to build into our learning environments to maximize learning.

Language is a wonderful example of distributed intelligence. Constructed by humans. Acquired through action - listening and speaking. And written language so absolutely opaque to the un-initiated. "A person has to have been introduced to and preferably to have participated in, the activities that give meaning to these inscriptions," (Pea, p.62). For writing - these activities I think would include being read aloud to, reading signs, making lists, writing memos or notes, a wide range of literacy activities that all imply some social interaction and meaning.

Reference:
Pea, R. (1993) Practices of Distributed Intelligence and Designs for Education
Chapter 2 in: Salomon, G. (1993). Distributed Cognitions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Chambers of the Heart

2005-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

I currently find myself moving between three chambers but I suspect they are all part of the same heart so here I will try to find the corridors that connect them all.

I am taking two design classes: Instructional Design and Qualitative Research Design and I have a full time job as a school librarian. This semester I also have a student doing a school library practicum with me for six weeks.

For almost two years I have kept a personal journal. I have realized it is a type of qualitative research. I have an amazing record of my dreams, emotions, and relationships that serves me in retrospect because I am both writer and reader. As reader I can go back and find themes, character development, motifs, cycles and spirals and growth.

So I had an idea: What could I learn if I kept a journal about my job? What insights could I gain about the engagement of my heart and mind in that endeavor? And I thought the six week period when I would have a practicum student might serve as a bounded arena for that research. I realized that she would also keep a journal as a practicum requirement. And I further became intriqued by the idea of us sharing a journal where we dialogued with each other about the experience. So I wrote up the idea as a preliminary research proposal and I submitted it for IRB approval.

So this semester while I am taking a class to learn how to design Qualitative research I am trying to implement a qualitative research design. Nothing like learning to fly an airplane that you are still trying to build. But here I realize that I have designed a setting for my learning and the learning of my practicum student. And this qualitative research project is also therefore an instructional design project. Ha!

Do I dare add this layer to what is already a knotty project? Or would this layer of reflection about the learning design of the project actually help me to untie some of the knots?

Writing

2005-01-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

I have to say I love the conversations we have already had about this topic which I think I have chosen for our design assignment. Writing is one of the curriculum areas where I see a move toward a more constructivist/process approach to learning and teaching. We have been trying to implement a Writers Workshop model at our school and of course, we are trying to prepare our students for the fourth grade writing test.

As the librarian, I am usually a co-designer working with teachers to design lessons in their classrooms and lessons that I help to teach. So I've already started talking with my principal and our fourth grade teachers about planning something for next year. As I was driving to school one morning down Martin Luther King Drive I thought that here are the stories my students have to tell - about this neighborhood with its particular character and rich history. What if we gave them cameras and then had them write about their pictures? What could we learn if we researched the history of the neighborhood, the grand houses, and the community? This would be a story to share. And this would be a story to close the gap between those of us who bus ourselves to this school each day and those who live there.

I also realized that this year's third graders will be the students we are planning this for and as the librarian I have access to them this year. So I have started talking with third grade teachers about their students and writing - what could we do together to build an infrastructure with these students. One that honors their voices and their stories.

I can already tell from our MOO and other conversations that my fellow students in ID will be great resources. You ALL know so much about writing already.

Soda Play

2005-01-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Funny, but this week I have had so much to read and this site www.sodaplay.com is what my mind keeps returning to play with. Isn't it amazing how our minds assign meaning? I keep thinking about how the shapes are created with points and lines. And while, yes flexibility is a key feature of the resulting structure it's the tension held between the two points that gives it shape and stability.

And isn't it fun when what you're doing in one class intersects beautifully with what you are doing or reading in another class? And so I was reading the assignment for Qualitative Research and the author presents a model for interactive research design and uses a rubber band metaphor which "portrays a qualitative design as something with considerable flexibility, but in which there are constraints imposed by the different parts on one another..." (Maxwell, 2005, p.6) and his diagrams particulary figure 1.2 look like soda play - I swear!

I have always felt that true creativity was dealing with the tension between your artistic vision and the constraints of reality. This is the playground I think of as design.

Reference

Maxwell, J.A. (2005). Qualitative Research Design: An interactive approach. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

One Design Process

2005-01-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

This is the design process I posted on Blackboard:

This weekend I am going to Boston for the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting. I guess you could say I am designing this trip. About six months ago I knew I needed to take this trip because I had been elected to a committee that would be meeting. I also knew I wanted to take this trip because I love traveling, I love going to conferences, and I was hoping my daughter who goes to school in Massachusetts could join me for the weekend.
I think most design processes begin here for me – somewhere between want to do and need to do. But mostly want to do. Yes I need to go to this meeting but that’s because I really want to be on this committee.
I started to map out in my mind the time constraints and money constraints I needed to pay attention to. Register early to save money. Log into the hotel reservations as soon as possible. Wait a while on the airline reservations because they aren’t refundable. I started to seek information.
Again I think early in a design process I think about the boundaries or constraints I am working with – materials, money, time… and plan the time frame – benchmarks, deadlines, when does it need to be done? I sketch it out. The design takes a shape.
Also very near the beginning of this plan, I talked to the people it would effect – my husband (who’s not going with me) and my daughter – was this a possibility for her?
This is another important step I like to take near the beginning of a design process – who are the people I am doing this for or with and how do I need to involve them in the process – gain their support (my daughter) or just keep them in the loop (my husband)?
Then lots of other things took priority and I left this plan alone. But occasionally I told other people I was doing it – this kept the plan alive for me.
I began to receive invitations. Meeting schedules were published. I got email messages. I began to accumulate paperwork. Some things came to me and others I had to search out. I needed a place to keep everything together and I finally started a file.
A lot of times in a design process I find chaos starts to build. Some things come from outside myself. I don’t seek them out necessarily but I have put myself in a position where I will receive them (invitations and schedules from the committee chair). Other things come to me because I have asked for them –airline and hotel confirmations. Some things almost feel serendipitous. Some things I have to seek out.
At the chaos stage I begin writing lists, pulling things together and getting organized. I line things up. I consult with the people involved. I try to get realistic. On Sunday afternoon there are two committee meetings I would like to attend but I also want to spend time with my daughter. I recognize I can’t do it all (everything I had envisioned) and I begin to prioritize and let go of some things.
The closer I get to the trip the more people I talk to about it.
I start to have second thoughts/doubts. What have I forgotten? Why did I think I could do this the weekend after classes start? I don’t want to leave home.
But then I remind myself about where I am going and why and all the fun things I have planned and how much I have already committed to the trip and yes I want to do it! And now it almost has a life of its own and a direction I have already set in motion.
When is a design finished? Until I come home from the trip I think there are still possibilities to change the design. Some things will be out of my control (airline delays) or unanticipated. Some opportunity may present itself and I will abandon part of my plan. But maybe these things will happen because my design allows for them.
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Date: 01-14-2005 07:45

As I reflect on this process I think design for me consists of recurring tensions between opposites:

desire/demand

vision/blindness

boundaries/possibilities

self/others

leave it alone/keep it alive

chaos/organization

control/letting go

doubt and faith
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I've continued to think about the questions about how to know when a design is complete. I think I am having some trouble distinguishing the design process, the design, and the implementation of the design, if this makes sense to anyone else.
At some point on the evening before my trip, I finished packing, put out my clothes for the next morning, wrote myself a note not to forget the cell phone which was charging, and checked my list. Then I told my husband I was ready to go and I was ready to spend some time with him. Some phase of the design process/the planning was complete. But when I reflect on my design, my husband was always a part of the larger design for the trip.
Are there levels of design? Design a lesson that's part of a unit, that's part of a course of study, that's part of an education, that's part of a.... a life? Should we have some awareness of these levels - what they mean for ourselves, our co-designers, and our students? Increasingly I find myself concerned that each lesson be connected to the larger lives of my students.

Somewhere in the Milky Way

2005-01-18T02:44:00.000-08:00

Do our lives have a design? Do we create or uncover it? Here is where I think I find the synthesis of all these parts of myself and more - in my life's design. I view my life and assign meaning and shape to it. Sometimes it's a mystery but there does seem to be a design.

When I talked about the design process on Blackboard I noted that there are some things I have to seek out for my design; other things come to me because I have put myself (by design) in a position to receive them; and other things seem to happen serendipitously. It's this serendipity or synchronicity that sometimes makes me wonder if there is a larger design.

One of the threads I see running throughout my design this semester is a constructivist paradigm. We create meaning from learning that is socially situated. Much of qualitative research belongs to this paradigm. Additionally this semester I find myself constructing an understanding of qualitative research by actually attempting a research project that involves shared journaling. Professional learning communities are very similar to the dynamic learning communities described in one of our readings: Wilson / Dynamic Learning Communities: An Alternative to Designed Instructional Systemshttp://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/dlc.html
In such a community, the professionals create their own learning by examining and reflecting together on their teaching practice.

Another one of the readings: Alexander / Collaborative Designhttp://www.emoderators.com/ipct-j/1999/n1-2/alexander.html suggested that constructivism is incompatible with instructional design. I find myself wondering if constructivism is just another way of looking at design. How do we design learning that is constructivist? I have a sense that this class was designed that way. A constructivist design for learning is probably one of my main interests in this class.

Aha! I just re-read the assignment for this week - what we are really supposed to be writing about in our BLOG. The individual project we hope to pursue for this class. I was thinking about a design for fourth grade writing and I realize that might be a great place to start. Writing (journaling for me) is one of the ways we do construct meaning.

So, where am I now? Somewhere in the Milky Way which narrows the field considerably from the Universe of possibility.

My Setting

2005-01-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of input to deal with this week and I would like to find some sort of synthesis and center. I am taking Qualitative Research as well as this Instructional Design Class. This week I have also had a rich email conversation with a friend about meditation and change - both personal and organizational. I have submitted a research proposal for IRB approval. I have had an intern start her practicum with me. And tomorrow I fly out of town for the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting, a reunion with my daughter, and a possible visit to the campus where my father and grandfather both studied. All of these things might seem quite disparate but I know that they overlap considerably and all represent aspects of me and therefore there is a unity and a possible synthesis.

Probably at the core of most, if not all of these things is the research direction I hope to go in with my doctoral program. I am interested in schools as learning communities, in learning communities as vehicles for change and growth, and in the particular role a school librarian might play in a professional learning community and as part of meaningful change.

I have made a commitment to the doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction in the form of an application, as well as course work last semester and this. I arrived at this place after almost two years of intense personal searching that included adding the disciplines of meditation, yoga, swimming, journaling, and dream work to my life. And I have found in this place great joy and affirmations of myself and my spiritual search. I never would have expected academia to satisfy my soul's searching in the way it has. And I am still not sure I can quite explain that last statement. But as I prepare to fly to Boston to join my daughter, engaged in her own academic pursuits, I have been reminded that I am returning to the area where my father and grandfather both engaged in their own academic endeavors and that she and I are in a line behind them. They would be proud and their loss is part of what I now feel sharply.

I realize I have yet to talk about instructional design. But be patient with me as I try to find my bearings here. I think much of this is relevant. I think some of this is important for my classmates to know about my path as we journey together to design this course and our own community this semester.

Where Am I?

2005-01-14T05:46:00.000-08:00

Metaphors are really important to me. I've recently read the book Transitions, by William Bridges. He describes four major life phases and I identified with the forest phase. I love trees with their spreading, reaching branches, firm trunks, and deep roots. Here at the beginning of the semester I find myself in a dark part of the forest and I am trying to figure out just where I am. There is so much going on. I hope to use this BLOG to reflect, to describe my setting, and to learn for myself just where I am now and where I might be going. More about this later.