Students Experiences and Understandings of Critical Discourse

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Students Experiences and Understandings of
Critical Discourse

• Liam Rourke
• Learning Sciences Lab
• Nanyang Technological University
• Singapore

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Overview

• Students experiences and understandings of
  critical discourse
• Problem
• Literature review
• Method
• Findings

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The Role of Dialogue in Learning
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Problem

• The Hope Critical discourse gt critical thinking
• The Happening
• Our results reveal that the interaction between
  students turns out to be mainly non-argumentative
  in nature only a small percentage of students
  references to each others texts express opinions
  opposed to those of fellow students, and only a
  smaller fraction indicate grounded disagreement.
  The results suggest that the pedagogical aim of
  our studies, to engage students in argumentative
  interaction, is not realized very well.
• Marttunen, 1998, p. 397

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Method

• Qualitative case study
• Dynamic, holistic, emergent, non-linear, complex
• Graduate level, interdisciplinary humanities
• Participants
• Marshall, Ruth, Saul, Jacques, Judith
• Adults, careers, families, experiences with DE
  and computer conferencing,
• Credentials, self-actualization
• Observation, interview

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Findings

• 15 weeks
• Several conferences per week (67)
• Working groups,
• Plenary forums
• student moderated
• Instructor moderated
• Few episodes of critical discourse
• Interpretive flexibility, critique as affront,
  time

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Marshall Informal argumentation

• I see the Internet, like many technologies, as
  having both positive and negative social
  consequences. What you point to is true for
  certain personality types, it can replace
  meaningful interaction with others.
  (www.netaddiction.com presents some disturbing
  statistics concerning internet addiction
  disorder.) For others, however, including the
  less mobile, the isolated, the ill, and the
  displaced, the Internet allows them to maintain
  relationships. In addition to the valuable forum
  it provides for these special populations, I
  think about how it is enhancing my experience in
  this course. For me, this is much superior to the
  correspondence courses Ive taken.

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Judith

• Non-judgmental support
• Marshall,
• I enjoyed your responses. The question you posed
  is worth thinking about. I completely agree with
  your statement.

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Saul Malapropism

• If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is
  the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice
  derangement of epitaphs!
• Stage developments represent the various life
  markers that we experience as we age and develop.
  This has an advent of being a paradoxical
  assertion with latent tendencies for an
  anarchical response

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Malaprops, (Not Bushisms)

• Our childrens is bein' misundereducated
• The illiteracy level of our children are
  appalling.
• I refuse to be sucked into your hypnotheoretical
  arguments

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Jacques Ruth

• Connect content to personal experience
• When I first came to Canada, I lived in a small
  rural village. I had moved from a large
  industrial city. Even though both cultures were
  WASP, I experienced culture shock. Everything I
  did was wrong by their standards. For example, I
  would never have asked visitors to my home to
  help wash the dishes after the meal, but they
  thought we were rude not to offer to pitch in.

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Competing Orientations

• Few shared presuppositions
• 1st course in program
• Interdisciplinary program
• Working in different locations

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Interpret critiques as attacks

• Marshall Ruth
• Which I never said
• He was taunting me
• Smoothing ruffled feathers
• Bringing the temperature down

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Time limitations (Absolute)

• 1-week, 12 participants, other assignments,
  careers, families
• In the conference youve got like 3 days to
  discuss an issue, a week at the most. So, youre
  not going to change someones opinion in three
  days by arguing with them. You cant do too much
  in three days.

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Time (Relative)

• Receive materials (late / early)
• Prior knowledge (limited / extensive)
• Other responsibilities (none / many)
• Its really hard to offer criticism to someone
  else whos already read the text and knows a lot
  more about it than I do. Hes a content area
  buff, and for me its not my thing. I mean I
  cant really criticize something I dont know.

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Discussion

• Little critical discourse
• Conferences still useful
• Scheduling, pacing, completion
• Discover and clarify thoughts
• Establish rapport, camaraderie
• Integrate academic social selves
• Dialogic medium or monologic medium?

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Implications

• Determinism Mutual not Technological
• Facilitation
• Media selection
• Learning activities
• Assessment procedures
• Use conferencing judiciously

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• liam.rourke_at_gmail.com