EDUC 580 "Interpretive Inquiry" Winter 2008 (January 7-March 31)

Detailed Lesson Plans and Resources

(Interpretive Inquiry I)

The outline is a "living" one, continuous growing and changing to meet of students and instructor, though the overall framework [reading, assignments] will stay.

The course description can be found at this link, including assignment: [handout]

 

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[JAN 07] [JAN 14] [JAN 21] [JAN 28] [FEB 04] [FEB 11] [FEB 18] [FEB 25] [MAR 03] [MAR 10] [MAR 17] [MAR 24] [MAR 31]

Some Useeful Resources

FQS: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum Qualitative Social Research is a tri-lingual (English, German, Spanish) online journal for issues related to qualitative research.

The Qualitative Report is an online journal dedicated to qualitative research and critical inquiry since 1990. It has lots of links to resources for qualitative research on the Internet.

PRAAT is a program that allows you to prepare very detailed transcripts and do a variety of analyses, including that of prosody.

A sample assignment that received an A+ can be found [here].

JAN 07

Assignment

Lesson topics

  1. Introduction
    1. instructor & participants
    2. "Why are you here?" (goals, objectives)
  2. Outline of the course--(including presentation and analysis of student research)
  3. Presentation and discussion of course objectives:
    1. Students will gain better understanding of qualitative research process,
    2. Students will gain better understanding of how to design qualitative studies,
    3. Students will gain better understanding of how to read qualitative studies in a critical way,
    4. Students will gain better understanding of how to interpret data.
  4. Presentation and discussion of the assignment;
  5. Textbook, structure,
  6. Which method? Research questions (quantitative, qualitative, integrated)
    1. Method vs methodology
    2. Which method?
    3. Role of research questions
    4. Quantitative versus qualitative research: (1) 5-10 min writing (2) minilecture (statistics; mixed methods [example, Roth, 1996] )
  7. Analyzing some data (AST), demo of clips, mov, aif (A relevant paper can be found here)
  8. Human research ethics--some basics and consent form [for sample form, click here] (For sample completed ethics application (click here)  (((Not completed))))

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JAN 14

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section I of textbook "chapters 1–3: Design Experiments"
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
    1. Feedback on the text would be appreciated; where would you like to see change?
    2. Please send me an email so that I know how to contact you.
  2. Course Assignment
    1. Anyone working together? Individuals, groups? for working on course assignment
    2. Questions about assignment? (e.g., record something related to your interests so that the assignment gives you a new angle on your field. If you are interested in policy, use some documents/documentary relating to educational policy; if it is )
  3. Planning of "designing experiments" sessions: Who would like to have a public planning session? Videotape?
  4. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section I
  5. Mini-lecture (any topics not covered under #3)
    1. Design experiments [logic] [here a draft entry to an encyclopedia on the pyschology of classroom learning]
    2. History of research questions: A matter of ascertaining quality of qualitative research (progressive subjectivity)
      1. find out if someone has answered the question, making it a lot less work; what in your research question is of interest to others?
      2. Nature of question drives the research design (interactive: What is a question you might be interested in researching?)
      3. How to conduct a background research (ISI [Uvic Lib], other databases [Databases A-Z], Google Advanced). Logical searches (AND, OR, NOT)
      4. Doing ethnographic background research; if you are a teacher, write ethnographic notes, making the familiar strange; in your thesis, you need to be able to show evidence for your claims, which cannot be of the "it-is-because-I-know" type [the AST tape]
    3. Designing a Design Experiment: Intervention and Research
      1. Making sure we know: what is causing the change? (History of the project)
      2. Data sources (difference data, data sources) (video, artifacts, interviews, transcripts, field notes, debriefing, peers, pretesting, post-testing. . .)
      3. Videotaping (team vs single person, teacher-researcher [helper])
      4. Generalizability
      5. Designing the curriculum: Designing and engineering for conversations (epistemology)
  6. Practice of interpreting
    1. Interaction analysis (Explanation of method [Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4, 39–103.]
    2. Ethics, reflexivity, recording interpretations, quality of qualitative research (progressive subjectivity)
    3. Practice of interaction analysis [video on computer]
    4. An early form of the transcript is [here]; an even earlier transcript of the whole conversation following the tug of war is available [here]
    5. A relevant article can be found [here] (Roth, W.-M. (1996). Thinking with hands, eyes, and signs: Multimodal science talk in a grade 6/7 unit on simple machines. Interactive Learning Environments, 4, 170–187.)

 

After this lesson, students should begin their assignment by making some recording to be used as the data source; alternative arrangements for those with ethics approval and their own data should be made with instructor.

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JAN 21

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section II of textbook "chapters 4–6: Ethnographic Designs"
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Classroom context:
    1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
    2. Assignment-related questions
    3. Design session for next lesson (JAN 28). A volunteer?
  2. Interviewing & Transcripts
    1. Preparing for the interview, generating questions, testing questions, doing an interview, transcribing, reflecting, reworking the questions
    2. Transcription, comparison [comparison of texts here]
    3. Themes, concepts, . . . [transcript, first markings]
    4. Activity: Interpreting an interview . [handout is section of the full transcript]
  3. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section II
  4. Mini-lecture
    1. Understanding research as process
      1. Activity systems [model here]
      2. Research/Inteview as activity system [model here]
      3. Reflexivity, ethnomethods (lay and professional analysts), fly on the wall
      4. Modes of participation, observer-participant vs. participant-observer, apprenticeship, coteaching
    2. Writing for specific audiences ( AUTHOR <--> TEXT <--> READER) or in dialectic form (AUTHOR | TEXT | READER)
  5. DISCUSSION & QUESTIONS: Ethics [for sample form, click here] (For sample completed ethics application (click here) (((Not completed))))

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JAN 28

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section III of textbook (chapters 7–9: "Zooming and Focusing")
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
  2. Design session (Jennifer Barber [50 min] "By giving positive public comments about students, can teachers increase student confidence as well as peer perceptions?")
  3. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section III
  4. Minilecture
    1. Where to look, how to look for patterns; (ANALOGY: navigating a dark room, darkness|light)
    2. Figure|ground
    3. Zooming and scale
    4. Time scales, developmental patterns (culture, setting [class], group, individual). How do we get analytically at these different time scales?
    5. Going native, being native
    6. Making gesture diagrams ([Fig1a], [Fig1b], [Fig1c])
  5. Activities
    1. Analyzing interview, different representation [horizontal pull-out format]
    2. Comparison with previous lesson. What new, different patterns does this format afford? Relate to zooming, focusing

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FEB 04

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section IV of textbook (chapters 10–12 "Cognitive Phenomenology")
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
    1. should we use some time on FEB 11 to analyze the transcript students have collected for their assignment?
    2. A sample assignment that received an A+ can be found [here].
  2. Jean-François is presenting his way of using EXCEL to analyze data (15 min)
  3. Design session for Priscilla Sabbas (50 min)
  4. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section IV
  5. Minilecture (Phenomenological research is the hardest of the methods I know, because it is not about our feelings, knowing, views, and perceptions but about the conditions that produce very different feelings, knowing, views, and perceptions.
    1. First- and third-person methods (personal account: researching 11th grade physics, perception)
    2. Dangers in first-person methods, ideology
    3. Phenomenography, auto/ethnography
    4. Variation, variance, conditions for producing variance
  6. Write Here In Plain Sight (WHIPS). I will analyze a piece of transcript in real time to show how ideas for analyses can be generated in the very process of analyzing. It is hoped that this will help students decrease their fears of approaching unfamiliar text and analyze it.
  7. IF TIME PERMITS: Analysis of a [transcript]
  8. IF TIME PERMITS: Ethics [for sample form, click here] (For sample completed ethics application (click here)

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FEB 11

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section V of the textbook (chapters 13–15 "Discourse Analysis")
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
  2. Complete the discussion of Ethics [for sample form, click here] (For sample completed ethics application (click here)
  3. Research planning session: Tania Halber (50 min)
  4. Analyzing Erin's [transcript]
  5. Write Here In Plain Sight (WHIPS). I will analyze a piece of transcript in real time to show how ideas for analyses can be generated in the very process of analyzing. It is hoped that this will help students decrease their fears of approaching unfamiliar text and analyze it.
  6. Analysis of a CA-type [transcript]
  7. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section V

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FEB 18

!!! READING BREAK. NO CLASSES !!!

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FEB 25

Assignment

  1. Reading: Section VI of the textbook (chapters 16–18 "Conversation Analysis")
  2. List of written questions concerning difficult concepts

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
    1. Organization of lesson of MAR 03
    2. Reading for lesson MAR 03
  2. Discussion of design: Priscilla Sabbas
  3. Section VI
    1. Distinguishing discourse analysis from conversation analysis
      1. the insider perspective; nature of the text; the different forms of discourse analysis
    2. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section VI
    3. Social structure, as reified, as produced/reproduced
    4. Ethnomethodology -- Analyzing a videotape: What social situation is produced here? How do we recognize it? How do the people do it?
    5. Transcribing
    6. Voice analysis
    7. Minilecture TOPICS:Talk; situated action; preparing the transcription; recipient design; accountability; formulating; cultural membership; going native; taking turns; sequencing interactions; dispreferred action; repair; adjacency pair; gestures; body orientation; time; rhythm; tempo; prosody; analysis of emotion; solidarity; entrainment; pitch analysis; relation between macro-, meso-, microlevels of society; ethnomethodology; social order; transcription; transcription conventions; open, continuing, and closing a session
    8. Doing a conversation analysis on a transcript from an elementary science classroom [transcript]

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MAR 03

Assignment

Lesson topics

The instructor is away. I will run the class via iCHAT from Ottawa.

  1. PART 1: Mini-Lecture. Quality of qualitative research.
  2. PART 2: OBJECTIVES: 580 students have the opportunity to listen to their research projects, which are presented in much more detail than any research article could present the background of a project. The question and discussion period following each presentation will allow students to develop an understanding of the criteria for the quality of qualitative research, by attempting to apply the criteria as described to the concrete research studies presented.
    1. There will be three presentations by graduate students [Pei-Ling Hsu, Gholamreza Emad, Jean-François Maheux], who already have considerable research experience under my supervision. For each of the three presentations, the following structure is proposed:
    2. PRESENTATION of the research (25-30 min)
      1. Motivation for the research (introduction)
      2. Methods, how was the research being conducted (rich description of how research was conducted, evidence from the data, how was analysis being conducted to assure quality of research)
      3. Some key findings: Assertion/data/discussion for each
      4. Conclusions & Implications: What did we learn with respect to the initial questions? and Where do we go from here?
    3. QUESTIONS/DISCUSSIONS: 580 students ask questions about (a) method and quality of research and (b) experience of doing this research as a newcomer, and how the presenter came to know (learning process) and have class discussion about the extent to which some/all criteria are being used or not used (20-25 min)
    4. GUBA/LINCOLN: Trustworthiness: CREDIBILITY (like internal validity: prolonged engagement, persistent observation, peer debriefing, negative cases, progressive subjectivity, member checks), TRANSEFRABILITY (like external validity, generalizability), DEPENDABILITY (like reliability), CONFIRMABILITY (like objectivity)
  3. PART 3

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MAR 10

Assignment

Lesson topics

  1. Questions about process, special needs, possible changes to be made;
  2. Discussion of design: Susan Jagger
  3. Data Analysis: Tania Halber
  4. GUBA/LINCOLN:
    1. Trustworthiness: CREDIBILITY (like internal validity: prolonged engagement, persistent observation, peer debriefing, negative cases, progressive subjectivity, member checks), TRANSEFRABILITY (like external validity, generalizability), DEPENDABILITY (like reliability), CONFIRMABILITY (like objectivity)
    2. Authenticity criteria [text]: Ontological; Educative; Catalytic; Tactical
  5. Discussion of student questions pertaining to Section VI
  6. Discourse Analysis vs Conversation Analysis
    1. Minilecture
    2. Activity: Analyzing turn-sequences
  7. Activities

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MAR 17

Assignment

Lesson topics

  1. Matters of organization
  2. Difference between discourse analysis and conversation analysis
    1. Here Jim Gee's website, where he describes recent developments in the study of language and reading
    2. Content versus process of interaction (technique, always look at 2 consecutive lines in CA.... to find out "what is being done")
    3. Click here for resources on conversation analysis
    4. Click here for resources on discourse analysis
  3. Tania Halber provides a transcript to be analyzed using CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
  4. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS of student-supplied sample data (Tony)
  5. If time: A sample analysis from 6th/7th grade classroom
  6. SUMMING UP

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MAR 24

!!! Easter Monday. NO CLASSES !!!

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MAR 31

Assignment

Lesson topics

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