LessonByLesson

Detailed Lesson Plans and Resources

(Interpretive Inquiry I)

Week 1: JAN 09

Lesson topics

Introductions, instructor & participants;
Whole-class session: Quantitative vs qualitative research, hermeneutics of understanding and explanation;
1. What is qualitative research?
2. What is quantitative research?
3. Does counting make a study quantitative?
4. How is qualitative research distinct/ different from quantitative research?
5. Which is more difficult, qualitative or quantitative research?
6. What method should I take? When should I use qualitative/quantitative methods?
7. Dialectic of understanding and explanation
  1. Diagram1 Diagram2
  2. Lived experience and representation.
Identifying a topic of research: Research question for your (ongoing final) writing assignment (practice)
1. Take a moment to reflect on a possible area of interest. Take notes.
2. What are some interesting situations for you to look at?
3. What is it that you want to know about?
4. What are methods for getting the data?
Minilecture: Sharing a sample study: Roth, W.-M., & Lucas, K. B. (1997). From "truth" to "invented reality": A discourse analysis of high school physics students' talk about scientific knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34, 145-179. [Study Design] [Interview Questions] [Research Data] [Categories] [Analytic notes]
Student input in the organization and planning of this course;
Reflective practice: How do we do it?

Resources

If you are interested in the teacher as researcher paradigm, and ways of doing research in classrooms without making your students into 'research subjects' (as this term was/is used in experimental psychology and experimental educational psychology), you may want to read the following article. There is a lot about the relationship between teachers and students.

Roth, W.-M. (2000). Learning environments research, lifeworld analysis, and solidarity in practice. Learning Environments Research, 2, 225-247. [LER.pdf] (Penultimate version)

Week 2: JAN 16

Lesson Topics

Questions of process
1. What are the needs of students (content, process) and how are these best met?
2. What are modes of interactions that best address the needs of students and instructor in this class?
Minilecture: Sharing a sample study: Roth, W.-M., & Lucas, K. B. (1997). From "truth" to "invented reality": A discourse analysis of high school physics students' talk about scientific knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34, 145-179. [Study Design] [Interview Questions] [Research Data] [Categories] [Analytic notes]
What are some of the categories that you would identify in the researach data provided? [Data Analysis Example]
Student questions arising from the readings
Instructor questions and activities related to the readings (Chapter 3&endash;4, and 1&endash;2)
1. Modern and postmodernism: In our everyday life (provide examples). Where do we find life modern? Where is it postmodern? What are the effects of philosophy on everyday life? (Whole class)
2. What are some of the ideologies we bring to inquiry? How do we get at them? (Construct examples) (Small groups)
Students talk about ideas for research projects

Week 3: JAN 23

Lesson Topics

Minilectures
1. Minilecture 1: mindful inquiry
  1. Phenomenology, hermeneutics as methodology (Heidegger, Ric¦ur); understanding and explaining---> implications for cultural-historical contingency of questions and findings
  2. Critical social science (Habermas: technical, practical, emancipatory interests ---> Marx, Holzkamp, critical psychology
  3. Cultural-historical approach
  4. Mindful inquiry: self-discipline, ethics of research
  5. Cultures of inquiry [Roth & McGinn]
2. Questions: Student questions arising from the readings and minilecture
3. Minilecture 2: Coteaching/cogenerative dialoguing as praxis of method. (Implementing mindful inquiry as outlined in minilecture 1: Coteaching, cogenerative dialoguing) (Wolff-Michael Roth, Daniel V. Lawless & Kenneth Tobin: {Coteaching |Cogenerative Dialoguing} as Praxis of Dialectic Method (Abstract German, Full text English)
Activity 1: Data analysis
1. (follow up) Where can discourse analysis be used?
2. The politics of representation (Three times the same?) [Transcript 1][Transcript 2][Transcript 3]
3. How to analyse video? [Transcript]
  1. Analyse the video provided in small groups
  2. Compare the analyses across groups
  3. What are the assumptions underlying the different analyses?
  4. An analysis of the same sequence by 8 scholars: [Kamen, M., Roth, W.-M., Flick, L., Shapiro, B., Barden, L., Kean, E., Marble, S., & Lemke, J. (1997). A multiple perspective analysis of the role of language in inquiry science learning: To build a tower. Electronic Journal of Science Education.[http://unr.edu/homepage/jcannon/ejse/kamen_etal.html]
Activity 2: Design of Research
1. Students present their ideas for research projects; design of the studies; analysis

Week 4: JAN 30

Questions of process
1. What are the needs of students (content, process) and how are these best met?
2. What are modes of interactions that best address the needs of students and instructor in this class?
Activity 1: Design of Research
1. Students present their ideas for research projects; design of the studies; analysis
  
  (Break ~6pm)
Minilecture 1: mindful inquiry
1. Action research, participatory action research, reflective practitioner
2. Research as socialization (Roth & McGinn, 1998), familliarization with research literature
  1. ("When the same names keep coming up in your literature research, you have probably covered the area")
  2. (Search engines)
  3. (Subscribe to journals)
3. Research traditions, what counts as knowledge
  1. Shallow, hollow research; "questionnaire"
  2. Research as (sub-)culture; marginality
  3. Multiple triangulation, multi-method
  4. Writing research
Activity 2: Presentation of Qualitative Research Design from Articles
1. Students present design of published studies
  
  (if time)
Activity 3: Presentation of Qualitative Research Design from Articles
1. Students present design of published studies

Week 5: FEB 06

Minilecture 1: Design of Research. An example of teacher research involving two science teachers, Michael Bowen and Michael Roth.
1. Context (Private school, traditional curriculum)
2. Show videotape excerpts
3. Theory: Cognitive apprenticeship
4. Design
  1. Data: video, student reports, notebooks, reflections; teacher reflection; all curriculum materials, "problems"; interviews, tests, exams, grades on all units, Classroom Learning Environment Scale (CLES)
  2. Mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative (correlation, achievement, gender, views of learning environment...)
  3. Transcriptions
  4. Interpretations
5. Published Pieces
  1. Roth, W.-M. (1996). Where is the context in contextual word problems?: Mathematical practices and products in Grade 8 students' answers to story problems. Cognition and Instruction, 14, 487-527.
  2. Roth, W.-M., & Bowen, G. M. (1995). Knowing and interacting: A study of culture, practices, and resources in a grade 8 open-inquiry science classroom guided by a cognitive apprenticeship metaphor. Cognition and Instruction, 13, 73-128.
  3. Roth, W.-M., & Bowen, G. M. (1994). Mathematization of experience in a grade 8 open-inquiry environment: An introduction to the representational practices of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31, 293-318.
  4. Roth, W.-M., & Bowen, G. M. (1993). An investigation of problem solving in the context of a grade 8 open-inquiry science program. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3, 165-204.
Activity 1: Design of Research
1. Students present their ideas for research projects; design of the studies; analysis
  
  (Break ~6pm)
Minilecture 2: Phenomenological inquiry (Chapter 7)
1. Fathers: Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty; Ric¦ur and Bourdieu (sociological phenomenology)
2. Example: Everyday cognition = hammering, the blind man's cane (compare to traditional cognition)
3. Varela, 1996; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1993; Ric¦ur (reflexive, phenomenological, hermeneutic) philosophy
4. Example: Discovery learning; how do we come to note new things? (Pathic practice in nursing)
5. Lebenswelt (= lifeworld) analysis; going deeper than "How do you feel?" and "How do I feel?"
6. Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis [Conceptualizing this type of research]
7. Example: [Spielraum] Roth, W.-M., Lawless, D., & Masciotra, D. (in press). Spielraum and teaching. Curriculum Inquiry.
Activity 2: Presentation of Qualitative Research Design from Articles
1. Students present design of published studies

Week 6: FEB 13

Human ethics
1. Key elements to be considered in the application
2. Discussion of submitted applications [Ethics Application #1] [Ethics Application #2] [Ethics Application #3] (These are pdf files that you need to download and print. Acrobat Reader programs are available from many places on the internet.)
Minilecture 1: Hermeneutic inquiry (Chapter 8)
1. The relation between understanding and explanation (Ricoeur text)
2. Husserl's way of conceptualizing the history of hermeneutic interpretation (Diagram)
3. Keypoints of mini-lecture
  1. Hermeneutics: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ric¦ur, and Derrida
  2. Interpretation and interpretative history
  3. Interpretation revealing things before the text rather than meanings behind it
  4. Are there meaningful things?
  5. The dialectic of understanding and explaining; lifeworlds
  6. The constitution of Self; the dialectic of Self and Other
  7. Differences between the hermeneutic inquirer and other researchers
  8. Relationship between hermeneutics and phenomenology
  9. Toward an inquiry that is hermeneutic, phenomenological, and reflexive
Activity: Analyzing data
1. I will bring a piece of text, which students will be analyzing and, subsequently, will be discussing

Week 7: FEB 20

(Planned and conducted by Antoinette Oberg.)

Week 8: FEB 27

Feedback. Brief discussion about what works and what doesn't.
Activity 1. Students update on the progress of their activities.
Minilecture 1: Hermeneutic inquiry (Chapter 8)
1. The relation between understanding and explanation (Ricoeur text)
2. Husserl's way of conceptualizing the history of hermeneutic interpretation (Diagram)
3. Keypoints of mini-lecture
  1. Hermeneutics: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ric¦ur, and Derrida
  2. Interpretation and interpretative history
  3. Interpretation revealing things before the text rather than meanings behind it
  4. Are there meaningful things?
  5. The dialectic of understanding and explaining; lifeworlds
  6. The constitution of Self; the dialectic of Self and Other
  7. Differences between the hermeneutic inquirer and other researchers
  8. Relationship between hermeneutics and phenomenology
  9. Toward an inquiry that is hermeneutic, phenomenological, and reflexive
Activity 2. Students report on the first reading of an article in their field. Structure your presentation in the following way:
1. What is the research question?
2. What did they do to find out an answer? Who did they ask to participate? How did the authors interpret the data? What is the theoretical framework for data analysis? etc.
3. 1-paragraph statement about the results.
Activity 3. Analyzing data. Praxis of "Interaction Analysis"
(We will play a video and analyze it together.) (Reference: Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4, 39-103. )

Week 9: MAR 06

(Planned by myself and Stuart Lee, conducted by Stuart Lee.)

Week 10: MAR 13

Feedback. Brief discussion about what works and what doesn't. Debriefing of previous lesson conducted by Stuart Lee.
Individual Writing: Ideology in Everyday Research
Whole group debriefing: Ideology in Everyday Research
Minilecture 1: Action research, participatory action research and evaluation research (Chapter 9)
1. Teaching and learning to teach at City High (See: Wolff-Michael Roth, Daniel V. Lawless & Kenneth Tobin: {Coteaching |Cogenerative Dialoguing} as Praxis of Dialectic Method.) (See also: Wolff-Michael Roth & Kenneth Tobin, in press. The Implications of Coteaching/Cogenerative Dialogue for Teacher Evaluation: Learning from Multiple Perspectives of Everyday Practice. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education.)
2. Explanation, understanding, (in quantitative and qualitative research)
3. The relation of praxis and theory, and change of praxis (Bourdieu, Marx & Engels, Mao)
4. Inside or outside observer?
5. Ideology
6. Restricted actions, generalized actions (The psychological approach by Klaus Holzkamp)
7. Resource 1: Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1989). Fourth generation evaluation. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
8. Resource 2: W. F. Whyte (Ed.). (1991). Participatory action research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
9. Resource 3: Holzkamp, K. (1991). Societal and individual life processes. In C. W. Tolman & W. Maiers (eds), Critical psychology: Contributions to an historical science of the subject (pp. 50-64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10. Resource 4: Holzkamp, K. (1991). Experience of self and scientific objectivity. In C. W. Tolman & W. Maiers (eds), Critical psychology: Contributions to an historical science of the subject (pp. 65-80). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Minilecture 2: Writing research
1. Reflexivity: The congruence of research claims and content of writing
2. Frames: Medium is the message. Structural features of writing and consistency with the content of writing.
3. Derrida's Glas and intertextuality
4. Resources: Roth, W.-M., & McRobbie, C. (1999). Lifeworlds and the 'w/ri(gh)ting' of classroom research. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31, 501-522. Roth, W.-M., McRobbie, C., & Lucas, K. B. (1998). Four dialogues and metalogues about the nature of science. Research in Science Education, 28, 107-118. (Penultimate version)
Activity 1. Small group analysis of transcripts from a public hearing. (Comments on "grounded theory", Glaser & Strauss 1967, Strauss 1987, Strauss & Corbin, 1990)
1. Highlight themes
2. Articulate in a 3-4 sentence statement the core characteristics of your theme.
3. What would be an appropriate form of writing your research about this topic? Justify.
Activity 2. Large group debriefing of Activity 1 and its results.

Week 11: MAR 20

Feedback. Brief discussion about what works and what doesn't. Debriefing of previous lesson.
Activity 1: Research as phenomenological, hermeneutic, and reflexive process: Another recursion
1. Individually read the short piece provided From: Derrida, J. (1998). Monolingualism of the Other; or, The prosthesis of origin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ) [pdf version]
2. Phase 1: Take 10 minutes to write an interpretation
3. Phase 2: Take 5 minutes to write about the knowledge that allowed you to do Phase 1
Minilecture 1: Data analysis, writing proposal
1. Constant comparison (kaleidoscope analogy)
  1. data sources versus data
  2. categorizing bits
  3. comparing data
  4. refining categories
2. Research proposal
  1. Introduction, research question "opening statement > research question"
  2. review of the literature
  3. method (paradigm, population, context, research process, interprative methods, analytic methods)
  4. "prejudices"
  5. biobliography, references
3. Beginning the research
  1. getting to know the people, building trust
  2. introducing technology; use of appropriate technology
4. Writing research, research proposals: the "STORY" analogy. Audience, tension, ...
Minilecture 2: Research Example
I will talk about the methodology of a study in an Australian high school concerned with physics knowing, learning, discourse about nature of science, and learning environment. Should you be interested, here are some articles, available references or online.
1. Roth, W.-M., McRobbie, C., & Lucas, K. B. (2001). Students' talk about circular motion within and across contexts and teacher awareness. International Journal of Science Education, 23, 151-179.
2. Roth, W.-M., & McRobbie, C. (1999). Lifeworlds and the 'w/ri(gh)ting' of classroom research. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31, 501-522.
3. Roth, W.-M., Boutonné, S., McRobbie, C., & Lucas, K. B. (1999). One class, many worlds. International Journal of Science Education, 21, 59-75.
4. Roth, W.-M., McRobbie, C., & Lucas, K. B. (1998). Four dialogues and metalogues about the nature of science. Research in Science Education, 28, 107-118.
5. McRobbie, C. J., Roth, W.-M., & Lucas, K. B. (1997). Multiple learning environments in a physics classroom. International Journal of Educational Research, 27, 333-342.
6. Roth, W.-M., McRobbie, C., Lucas, K. B., & Boutonné, S. (1997). Why do students fail to learn from demonstrations? A social practice perspective on learning in physics. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34, 509-533.
7. Roth, W.-M., McRobbie, C., Lucas, K. B., & Boutonné, S. (1997). The local production of order in traditional science laboratories: A phenomenological analysis. Learning and Instruction, 7, 107-136.
Activity 2: Students each present the qualitative methodology used in an article of their choice

Week 12: MAR 27

(I am away at the annual conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, St. Louis, MO. Students will use the time to work/ complete their project and the presentation to be given during the last week of class [APR13].)