I had a very restful break at Christmas and had the opportunity to re-read and consolidate the ideas from 700A and also read the thesis I am going to critique for part B, so I feel good starting the term. I feel confident that I am on the right track after reading the thesis because I can see how my worldview fits well with my area of interest. So basically I have a paradigm to work from. I also have the Community of Inquiry model which also sits within the Interpretivist/Contructionist area so I am confident about that part of the process.
I have just commenced the third semester of my Doctoral program. In order not to take too long with the program, I am doing two courses this semester. I was worried at first because I am not a numbers person but the quantitative methods course is really well organized and aimed an non-mathematicians. One of the primary texts is Statistics without Tears by Derek Rowntree. It is a very reasonable and readable book which makes statistics really user friendly. I can see the relevance to my thesis and in interpreting the work of others. It is primarily individual work-based but there is a group presentation. I am working with Jean Slick and Bob Sochowsy. I must double check the due dates for the assignments since it is a mostly asynchronous course.
Aside from required work, I am trying to read more to get some work done surrounding developing a proposal. At this point I need to think about research questions. My fear is that I am enjoying the reading and work so much that I am loosing interest in people. How will I be able to have a balanced approach to this program?
Gerona
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Gerona's Radical Change
These past three weeks have been devoted to Radical Humanism! Like Interpretivism, according to Burrell and Morgan (1979), radical humanism also flows out of German idealism and consequently both are considered subjectivist in orientation and share the notion that the “individual creates the world in which he lives” (p. 279). The large distinction between the two paradigms is the notion of understanding versus critique: the Interpretivist observes and seeks to understand while the radical humanist seeks to critique and change.
There are two main lines which critique may follow:
a) subjective idealist = the external world is created through the stream of ideas. (p. 278)
This is the projection of individual consciousness on the external world which does exist.
b) objective idealist = reality exists in spirit…absolute knowledge suggests that consciousness is spirit and the object of consciousness is itself.
Marx comes from the objective idealist tradition originally but took the ideas of Hegel in a different direction; towards the individual. Here is my story of ‘radical’ awakening in terms of not listening to the status-quo…
Now I have to admit that I have (now had) a deep seated bias against Marx. I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s when the Cold War was raging and we were being told nuclear war could happen at any time. The doomsday clock (remember that?) was ticking down towards midnight. Then along came Gorbachov and in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. So much for Marxism! Having never read Marx I just had been taught or learned to associate Communism with him and thus I basically summarily dismissed him as a theorist. Craib who was writing in the early 1990s mentions that one should not confuse the fall of Communism with the temptation to dismiss Marxist thought. Then I actually started being open to learning about what Marx actually wrote/expounded and gained a totally different appreciation for him as a theorist and seminal influencer of our thought systems today. This has been an important lesson for me to not be so closed-minded about something that I only know about through the statements of societies/organizations/individuals with agendas.
Next we are going into Radical Structuralism...I think Interpretivism really was the paradigm for me. Maybe there is something I can do with Hermeneutics and Garrison's Community of Inquiry model? Hummm...lot's to think about in the coming weeks.
There are two main lines which critique may follow:
a) subjective idealist = the external world is created through the stream of ideas. (p. 278)
This is the projection of individual consciousness on the external world which does exist.
b) objective idealist = reality exists in spirit…absolute knowledge suggests that consciousness is spirit and the object of consciousness is itself.
Marx comes from the objective idealist tradition originally but took the ideas of Hegel in a different direction; towards the individual. Here is my story of ‘radical’ awakening in terms of not listening to the status-quo…
Now I have to admit that I have (now had) a deep seated bias against Marx. I grew up in the 1970s and early 1980s when the Cold War was raging and we were being told nuclear war could happen at any time. The doomsday clock (remember that?) was ticking down towards midnight. Then along came Gorbachov and in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. So much for Marxism! Having never read Marx I just had been taught or learned to associate Communism with him and thus I basically summarily dismissed him as a theorist. Craib who was writing in the early 1990s mentions that one should not confuse the fall of Communism with the temptation to dismiss Marxist thought. Then I actually started being open to learning about what Marx actually wrote/expounded and gained a totally different appreciation for him as a theorist and seminal influencer of our thought systems today. This has been an important lesson for me to not be so closed-minded about something that I only know about through the statements of societies/organizations/individuals with agendas.
Next we are going into Radical Structuralism...I think Interpretivism really was the paradigm for me. Maybe there is something I can do with Hermeneutics and Garrison's Community of Inquiry model? Hummm...lot's to think about in the coming weeks.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Ah ha moment
I have come to the realization that perhaps I am worrying too much about a "Grand Paradigm" at this point in the course and my research. I have been reading Anfara and Mertz's Theoretical Frameworks in Qualitative Research by Sage Publications (2006). They state that theoretical frameworks can be found at three levels: grand, mid-range and explanatory (p. xxvii) and that can be applied to understanding phenomena. For some reason this gave me a bit of an "ah-ha" moment because I started thinking that there may be other frameworks we can use that are not tied expressly to the four super-structure (am I using that word correctly?) paradigms we are studying now. Many of the studies that are mentioned in the book resulted in articles, not doctoral theses, but they do discuss a variety of frameworks like Chaos and Complexity Theory and Liminality Theory for example.
So this got me thinking about how students have done theses on Dr. Michael Moore's "theory of transactional distance" and Dr. Randy Garrison's (et al) "Community of Inquiry" model. So ultimately, while we have to know the different streams of the paradigms, I am coming to understand that I can relax to some degree about slotting myself into one of the four dominant paradigms we are learning about. There are a plethora of theories out there from the social-sciences at different levels that may be useful to us as we narrow down our research topics. My understanding has changed now to the point where I will find a framework suited to my area of interest and not worry so much about which methods to use or which paradigm it is located in.
G.
So this got me thinking about how students have done theses on Dr. Michael Moore's "theory of transactional distance" and Dr. Randy Garrison's (et al) "Community of Inquiry" model. So ultimately, while we have to know the different streams of the paradigms, I am coming to understand that I can relax to some degree about slotting myself into one of the four dominant paradigms we are learning about. There are a plethora of theories out there from the social-sciences at different levels that may be useful to us as we narrow down our research topics. My understanding has changed now to the point where I will find a framework suited to my area of interest and not worry so much about which methods to use or which paradigm it is located in.
G.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Doctoral Seminar update
It has been a couple of months since I have taken time to compose my thoughts on the doctoral program. We are on the third of four perspectives/paradigms. Thus far we have covered postivism/funtionalism, Interpretivism and now Radical Humanism. We have Radical Structuralism to cover after Christmas. I am still having some trouble with the material in the sense that it is difficult to get a consistent message on meanings. Now that I have some theoretical knowledge I am starting to read more about the role of theory on research projects (i.e., which comes first, the method or the paradigm?) and what do theses using a paradigmatic framework look like? I have one dissertation now that I am reading and will try to review others. I am also realizing that in studying a topic such as blended learning I will need to find an organization theory to work with. Hence I will review Burrell and Morgan's discussion of systems structure. Perhaps the upcoming Radical Structuralism readings will help guide me?
The course itself seems to be lacking in participation in the discussion forum. Some of us have speculated that it may be because the material is so dense that none of us are really confident in our answers or it could be that because it is a pass/fail situation there is sense that one would really have to be disengaged to fail. The result is that while some posts are very well thought out, there is not a regular dialogue developing.
On the positive side, I have had the opportunity to work closely with two of my peers from the Educational Technology stream on Interpretivism and that was very productive. Also, the workload is not too onerous. There is a lot of reading and re-reading but it is manageable.
On the programmatic note, I was very disappointed that my Educational Technology course was canceled this winter due to low enrollment. Qualitative Methods was also canceled. I find this troubling for three reasons. Firstly, what guarantee do we have that we can complete our courses in a timely manner? Secondly, as graduate seminar courses, shouldn't the numbers be small? What is wrong with a course with 6 people? Thirdly, one would think that rather than wholesale cancel the two courses students could be appraised of the situation and asked if they would be interested in switching to a different section. Now we have two classes canceled when perhaps there would have been enough students for at least one of them to have run. Anyway, I am disappointed at this point and am currently awaiting the information on next summer's session.
G.
The course itself seems to be lacking in participation in the discussion forum. Some of us have speculated that it may be because the material is so dense that none of us are really confident in our answers or it could be that because it is a pass/fail situation there is sense that one would really have to be disengaged to fail. The result is that while some posts are very well thought out, there is not a regular dialogue developing.
On the positive side, I have had the opportunity to work closely with two of my peers from the Educational Technology stream on Interpretivism and that was very productive. Also, the workload is not too onerous. There is a lot of reading and re-reading but it is manageable.
On the programmatic note, I was very disappointed that my Educational Technology course was canceled this winter due to low enrollment. Qualitative Methods was also canceled. I find this troubling for three reasons. Firstly, what guarantee do we have that we can complete our courses in a timely manner? Secondly, as graduate seminar courses, shouldn't the numbers be small? What is wrong with a course with 6 people? Thirdly, one would think that rather than wholesale cancel the two courses students could be appraised of the situation and asked if they would be interested in switching to a different section. Now we have two classes canceled when perhaps there would have been enough students for at least one of them to have run. Anyway, I am disappointed at this point and am currently awaiting the information on next summer's session.
G.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Paradigm reading, reading, reading
Although it has been a while since posting, I do not have much to report. I have been reading away with the different paradigms and having trouble sorting it all out. The Burrell and Morgan (1979) book was the last to arrive but by far the most helpful, next to Crotty. Until I read Burrell and Morgan last weekend all I was getting was a list of names of different thinkers and lots of different versions of information about ontology and epistemology complicated by different perspectives such as feminism and arts based research, etc. Burrell and Morgan provided an excellent framework to outline the basic 4 paradigms. First they discussed the nature of social science as a field, then assumptions about the nature of society. They then went on to outline the "extreme" ends of each of the two dimensions with views of social sciences as being either subjective or objective and society being either tied to regulation or radical change. Then the four paradigms are discussed as falling somewhere within the four areas of the matrix. FUNCTIONALISM is primarily objective and regulation. INTERPRETIVISM is subjective and regulation. RADICAL HUMANIST is subjective and interested in radical changes while RADICAL STRUCTURALISM is objective and radical.
Of course if we could all just place ourselves and others in the neat boxes things would be easy, or easier at least. But, no, all of these paradigm. Within Functionalism we see objectivism, social system theory, integrative theory and interactionism and social action theory. Interpretive contains hermeneutics, phenomenological sociology, phenomenology. Solipsim straddles both interpretive and radical humanism with French existentialism and Critical theory with anarchistic individualism on the outskirts of the box closest to the radical side of the equation. Finally radical structuralism contains contemporary Mediterranean marxism, conflict theory and russian social theory. I assume there are other forms of thought that could be itemized as well. Very confusing!
Our challenge now is to find two theorists for each of our groups. That is not easy with so much ambiguity still in place. Thankfully I have a great group! Hopefully we can work together to get this all sorted out.
G.
Of course if we could all just place ourselves and others in the neat boxes things would be easy, or easier at least. But, no, all of these paradigm. Within Functionalism we see objectivism, social system theory, integrative theory and interactionism and social action theory. Interpretive contains hermeneutics, phenomenological sociology, phenomenology. Solipsim straddles both interpretive and radical humanism with French existentialism and Critical theory with anarchistic individualism on the outskirts of the box closest to the radical side of the equation. Finally radical structuralism contains contemporary Mediterranean marxism, conflict theory and russian social theory. I assume there are other forms of thought that could be itemized as well. Very confusing!
Our challenge now is to find two theorists for each of our groups. That is not easy with so much ambiguity still in place. Thankfully I have a great group! Hopefully we can work together to get this all sorted out.
G.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Day 1 - Semester 2
OK it is the first day of the second term of the Ed D. Of course while today is the first day I, like many of my classmates no doubt, have been trying to do some advance reading for the course. The topic of philosophical frameworks is quite facinating and confusing. I am enjoying the Crotty book and when I compare that to Paul and Allan things start coming together slowly but surely.
In terms of what to pursue, I think I am still a pragmatist (but I am not 100% sure) based on the literature thus far. In any case, I have signed up for Group B which will pursue the Interpretivist perspective. It seems eclectic and I like the readings about constructed reality and the meaning of language. This is somewhat new to me so I am sure it will be an intriguing semester 2!
G.
In terms of what to pursue, I think I am still a pragmatist (but I am not 100% sure) based on the literature thus far. In any case, I have signed up for Group B which will pursue the Interpretivist perspective. It seems eclectic and I like the readings about constructed reality and the meaning of language. This is somewhat new to me so I am sure it will be an intriguing semester 2!
G.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Between semester thoughts
Well it has been a week since the courses ended for the first semester. Some marks and feedback have been received and so far so good, which is a relief. It is reassuring to know one has not missed the boat in terms of the introductory level courses and now I have some level of confidence that I will be able to succeed in the rest of the course work.
Two of the books for my fall course have arrived. I started reading one and found it rather confusing. Each different perspective is only glazed over so it is difficult to get a thorough understanding of the material. That particular book then shows a series of studies and offers critiques from the different perspectives. That will hopefully make the concepts clearer in practice. The other book seems to offer a more in depth discussion of various philosophies so that should be very beneficial.
G
Two of the books for my fall course have arrived. I started reading one and found it rather confusing. Each different perspective is only glazed over so it is difficult to get a thorough understanding of the material. That particular book then shows a series of studies and offers critiques from the different perspectives. That will hopefully make the concepts clearer in practice. The other book seems to offer a more in depth discussion of various philosophies so that should be very beneficial.
G
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