Workbased Education Research Centre WERC

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Work-based Education Research Centre (WERC)
Mark ORourke WERC Circle mtg _at_ VU Wed 25 Nov
2009 300pm Ref. from Berwyn Clayton
Reflective practice VET research (my) Ph.D. Case
studies VET staff as practitioner researchers
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• A Culture
• of Research
• and
• Reflective
• Practice

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What do we mean by research in VET?
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• In the varied topography of professional
  practice, there is a high, hard ground
  overlooking a swamp. On the high ground,
  manageable problems lend themselves to solution
  through the application of research based theory
  and technique. In the swampy lowland, messy,
  confusing problems defy technical solution.
• Donald SchÖn 1987, p.3.

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Nowhere ever seems to be usual

• The industry standards weight skills, prioritise
  processes and profile elements using some generic
  dip stick based on the way things usually happen
  in industry. But nowhere ever seems to be usual
• Virgona 1996

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Colour, risk and adventure

• In the course of two decades of adult education
  practice many experiences I encountered were
  challenging, disquieting and often exhilarating.
  When I took up academic study of adult education,
  there seemed few texts that carried its colour,
  risk and adventure
• Peter Willis, 1998 Inviting Learning

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Personal public data

• journal extracts
• reflective writings
• poems
• letters
• cartoons, drawings
• formal reports
• conference papers
• journal articles
• wider literature of the field

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An Example
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Another Example
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Traditional texts seem clumsy

• Arts-based research moves us deeply by appealing
  not to objective scientific findings but to
  experience-based evocations, partly unravelling
  but always retaining complexity. Traditional
  research texts seem clumsy by comparison.
• Diamond, 1997, p.15

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Reflective thinking-action

• Reflection is a dialectical process it looks
  inward at our thought processes, and outward at
  the situation in which we find ourselves when we
  consider the interaction of the internal and the
  external, our reflection orients us for further
  thought and action
• Kemmis, S. (nd) Action Research and the Policies
  of Reflection in Reflection turning experience
  into learning, (ed.) Boud, D. Keogh, R, and
  Walker D. London, Kogan Page, pp.139-163

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Prelude 1966-1972.
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Prelude 1990-1992.
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Reading the world

• Reading the world always precedes reading the
  word, and reading the word implies continually
  reading the world ... this movement from the
  world to the word and from the word to the world
  is always present, even the spoken word flows
  from our reading of the world. (Freire 198310)

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Thesis Overview Structure Design
INTRODUCTION qualitative case study research
METHODOLOGY
LITERATUREREVIEW
CLOSURE OBSERVATIONS retrospective reflections,
revisiting the questions, insights from
experiential learning research
process implications for practice further
research
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Reflective teachers

• Reflective teachers never stop asking themselves
  what the nature of teaching really is.
• Max van Manen 1994, Pedagogy, virtue and
  narrative identity in teaching cited in
  P.Willis,1998 Inviting Learning

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Replaying the experience

• One of the most useful activities that can
  initiate a period of reflection is recollecting
  what has taken place and replaying the experience
  in the minds eye, to observe the event as it has
  happened and to notice exactly what occurred and
  ones reactions to it in all its elements.
• Boud, D. Keogh, R. Walker, D. (eds) in
  Reflection turning experience into learning,
  London, Kogan Page, p.27

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Experience learning

• new knowledge

• strategies

• While experience may be the foundation of
  learning, it does not necessarily lead to it
  there needs to be active engagement with it.
  Experience has to be arrested, examined,
  analysed, considered and negated to shift it to
  knowledge.

• alternatives

• plans

• fresh insights

• ideas

• new learning

• Experience

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Commit description to paper

• It may be helpful to commit this description to
  paper the description should involve a close
  attention to detail and should refrain from
  making judgements.
• Boud, D. Keogh, R. Walker, D. (eds) in
  Reflection turning experience into learning,
  London, Kogan Page, p.27

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The act of writing

• Writing does more than convey our pictures of
  events and feelings through it we can describe,
  analyse, and clarify events those on a
  conscious level and those only dimly sensed. The
  act of writing may lead to further reflecting on,
  and reconstructing of experiences reliving in
  our mind can deepen awareness, broaden
  perspective, and increase understanding of
  experience.
• Holly, M.L. 1995 Keeping a Personal-Professional
  Journal, Deakin University Press, Geelong, p.10.

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Writing as inquiry

• Writing is a method of inquiry, a way of
  finding out about yourself and your topic ...
  writing is not just a mopping up activity at the
  end of a research project. Writing is also a way
  of knowing - a method of discovery and
  analysis.
• Richardson 1994, p.516

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Meaning is multi-dimensional

• Meaning is multi-dimensional and multi-layered.
  That is why the meaning of pedagogy can never be
  grasped in a single definition. Human science
  meaning can only be communicated textually - by
  way of organised narrative or prose. And that is
  why the human science researcher is engaged in
  the reflective activity of textual labor. To do
  human science is to be involved in the crafting
  of a text. Max van Manen 1990, p.78

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Writing to explore

• whats really going on

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Valuing our own stories

• My approach to teaching critical thinking is one
  which emphasizes participants exploring their own
  autobiographies, using their experiences as the
  raw material for critical analysis (p29).
  However Brookfield also notes that experience
  without critical analysis can be little more than
  anecdotal reminiscence interesting but
  unconnected, experiential traveler's tales from
  the front lines of practice (p30)
• Brookfield, S. 1993 Through the Lens of
  Learning How the Visceral Experience of Learning
  Reframes Teaching in Boud, D, Cohen, R Walker
  (eds.) 1993 Using Experience for Learning SRHE
  Open University Press, Buckingham.

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Naming, framing problem setting

• When a practitioner sets a problem he chooses
  and names the things he will notice. Through
  complementary acts of naming and framing, the
  practitioner selects things for attention and
  organises them, guided by an appreciation of the
  situation So problem setting is an ontological
  process a form of world making.
• (Schön, D. 1987, p.4)

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Neutral and objective

• scientists firmly believe that as long as they
  are not conscious of any bias or political
  agenda, they are neutral and objective, when in
  fact they are only unconscious.
• (Namenwirth cited by Lather 1991, p.10)

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Espoused theories

• It is important to emphasize that we are
  reporting more than that people do not behave
  congruently with what they espouse. We are
  reporting that people are not aware of the
  theories-in-use that inform their behaviour.
• Argyris, C. 1976 Theories of action that inhibit
  individual learning, republished in Boud Walker
  (eds) 1991

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Frames framing

• Language always comes with what is called
  framing. Every word is defined relative to a
  conceptual framework Thats a frame.
• (Lakoff, 2003)
• These linguistic expressions are anything but
  neutral. Each framing defines the problem in its
  own way, and hence constrains the solutions
  needed to address that problem.
• (Lakoff Fergusson, 2006)

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Naming Rights Tanberg 1st Sept 2005
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Evoking Reinforcing frames

• Every word evokes a frame Words defined within
  a frame evoke the frame Negating a frame evokes
  the frame Evoking a frame reinforces that frame
  Every frame is realized in the brain by neural
  circuitry. Every time a neural circuit is
  activated, it is strengthened.
• (Lakoff, 2006).

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The potency of reframing

• An important aspect of developing an
  appreciative spirit is learning to move out of
  using deficit language into an appreciation of
  what works well by reframing, words, issues or
  situations We have been amazed by the potency
  of reframing.
• (Goh, Simpson Martin 2003, p.2)

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Productive reflection

• There is an assumption about a formal course that
  someone somewhere knows how to do it. What
  productive reflection is focused on are issues
  that no-one knows, no-one anywhere knows, how to
  do it. It is about people coming together to
  address these unknown issues. Productive
  reflection is not a linear process, its a
  process of looking at problems, dilemmas and
  issues and the learning comes from the felt
  experience of the group.
• (Boud in Mitchell, J. 2006, Campus Review Vol.
  16, No. 27, July 12 2006)

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Solutions thinking

• The significant problems we face cannot be
  solved at the same level of thinking we were at
  when we created them.
• Albert Einstein,
• (cited by Covey 1990, p.42)

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Contacts

• pwhouse_at_wli.com.au
• Workplace Learning Initiatives
• Ground Floor, 2- 4 Mephan Street,
• Maribyrnong, Vic 3032
• Ph 03 9317 6000
• Fax [phone]
• www.wli.com.au
• www.wli.com.au/blog
• NCVER
• www.ncver.edu.au or www.voced.edu.au

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Focus on Practice critical incidents

• Slices of professional life
• snapshots/tales from the field
• (or the swamp Schon)
• looking under the rocks of our practice
• searching for hidden assumptions
• Describe
• depict, (make a picture) tell the story,
• rich detail provide telling facts
• get it down (or out)

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Focus on Practice critical incidents

• Identify
• people, place, actions feelings
• Where did this happen?
• What sort of place is it?
• Who was there?
• Can you describe the characters?
• Aim for rich evocative description

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Interpret

• Explore meanings
• interpretations (multiple)
• perspectives (multiple)
• Identify
• principles, theory,
• rationale assumptions
• It looks as if
• What did you mean by ..?
• What youre doing seems to be

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Challenge

• Confront assumptions
• challenge rationale
• problematize the simple
• Ask Why? Why not?
• What makes you think ?
• Where do/did these ideas/beliefs come from?
• Is it true?

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Reconstruct

• Reframe the situation/action/problem
• reconsider
• Does it have to be this way?
• (just because it is)
• What could I do differently?
• What actions to take?

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Story argument

• A good story and a well formed argument are
  different natural kinds. Both can be used as a
  means of convincing another arguments convince
  one of their truth, stories of their
  lifelikeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal
  to procedures for establishing formal and
  empirical proof. The other establishes not truth,
  but verisimilitude.
• Jerome Bruner 1986, p.11

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Story telling

• Like naming, story telling is a universal habit,
  a part of our common humanity. As far as we know,
  all cultures have forms of narrative. Stories are
  part of our conversation, our recollections, our
  hopes, our fears. Young and old, we all tell
  stories as soon as we begin to explain or
  describe events and actions, feelings and
  motives. (Meek 1991, p.103)