When I began reading the first article for this week, I was once again struck by the use of the word "tension" in describing the various aspects of learning and technology. It has appeared in several of the books/readings we have had. I will be the first to admit that I am VERY weak in the area of doing research. I've read plenty of studies, but I learn better by doing and my education is not very strong in research methods. For me, this week's readings made sense when I first read them -- far more than that distributed cognition stuff which just blew my mind. I'm still trying to get straight in my head all of the different types of research -- quantitative, qualitative, action research, design-based research... and I admit to being quite confused. I'd better get it straight because for the first time in six years of graduate school I have the opportunity to assist in a research project and I'm wondering whether I'll be able to do it. It's a great opportunity to do something I've had an interest in for several years. As I mentioned with last week's readings, I think I suffer from scattered cognition and I'm feeling that I'm in way over my head with much of this. I probably should not have taken this class. Well, it's too late now so I'll try to muddle through and not let myself or anyone else down.
Sandoval and Bell's article, the Introduction to the other articles for this week, is basically a short overview of design-based research and the challenges inherent in it that are set forth in the other articles. I like the idea of "natural laboratories" and "interventionist research" (p. 200) -- it just makes more sense to me in terms of doing research that will make an impact on the practice of teaching and learning. How else to really learn, let alone teach, "what makes a particular intervention successful in a particular place." (p. 200)?
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Leslie,
ReplyDeleteI think you are going to do fine in your research. The tension you mention is probably more pronounced in the classroom and where working with people than in the hard sciences where, plants in my case, don't suffer from prior knowledge (to my knowledge). But, people are messy and it is quite possible that the traditional experimental controls don't really work or don't really answer the questions we might like answers to. Design-based research is an attempt to methodologize this messiness of people.
What really helped me understand the distributed cognition was the article that was optional, that of the cockpit scenario.