Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Notes on my current research projects involving weblogs, knowledge creation, and communities of practice

During the interrogation process known as the “oral defense” of my doctoral qualifying examination, I presented an outline for the research that I am pursuing as part of my dissertation (aka the “big science fair project”).

I am curious to know how a medium like weblogs might add value in supporting a geographically dispersed group of facilitators working with practicing teachers engaged in action research.

Committee members asked what my unit of analysis would be: would it be the facilitators, the weblogs, the community? My answer was “yes.”

Apparently, they didn’t like that answer; it wasn’t specific enough. What theoretical lens would I use to study this seeming mass of activity? In reality, I was still looking for the right approach to examine how knowledge creation could be supported by weblogging. My answer: Can I get back to you on that in a few weeks?

Now, my committee is pretty bright. Yet, I was entering uncharted waters for most of them. How does one go about creating knowledge on a weblog?

I found myself arguing from a situative perspective that suggests that knowledge and learning is a social phenomenon (Lave & Wenger 1991). Weblogs are a social medium, especially when they are ‘plugged” into a community of practice or interest. Since I was curious how weblogs might assist a community of facilitators, I suggested that perhaps weblogs might be a means of capturing the facilitators thinking processes (given a set of prompts to get participants actively thinking and writing about their thinking). I mentioned I was curious to see if in the process of thinking aloud on their weblogs, participants could read each others’ thoughts, make comments, provide feedback and offer suggestions in an effort to improve each others’ practice. Would this lead to better facilitation and more robust action research projects?

Since this initial meeting I have been actively engaged in four projects that support my initial inquiry.

The first project is a weblog community created in an Elgg environment. This site is designed to support a face-to-face course wherein I created a “motherblog” that serves as an announcement space and coordination hub connecting participants and their weblogs. Each week students use their weblogs to reflect on weekly class readings and discussions as well as turn in all written assignments and projects. We also use the community space as a document distribution site for class readings and lecture notes/powerpoints. I intentionally provided few directions on how to use the site. None of the participants were active bloggers prior to taking this class. I wanted to see how students would take to it, how they might use it. Would they use their own blogs for anything other than classwork? Will they use the site only if prompted by the instructor? What value, if any, will they perceive? Perhaps it is too soon for these particular students to tell.

The second project I am involved in is the co-creation of a weblogging community (built in Drupal) designed to support geographically separate facilitators working with classroom teachers on action research projects. This is essentially a pilot study that allows me to better understand a) what value weblogs might provide facilitators and b) how one might design an online community to support a particular practice (i.e., facilitating facilitators). We have 15 participant facilitators who are working with between 6-10 practicing teachers each. We meet with facilitators three times face to face throughout the course of this project that culminates in April 2007 at a showcase of teacher action research projects. In between these meetings all communication will be supported via the community site. Facilitators have been given a schedule and timeline for working with their teachers and we have created a number of weblog prompts to stimulate critical reflection on the facilitation process.

The third project involves looking for the right lens to analyze weblogging for formal research purposes. After swimming through the cognitivists (Vygotsky, Piaget) and the situativists (Lave, Wenger, Engestrom, Bereiter) I have recently come across a framework that I think might fit the bill: activity theory. Bonnie Nardi has done a stellar job compiling the reflections and research of a number of scholars into a text titled Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human Computer Interaction (1996). The activity theory framework posits the activity itself as the context or unit of analysis. So, if we want to study the value of weblogging among a specific group, i.e., the relations among individuals and the artifacts created, activity theory provides a systematic conceptual framework for the study of consciousness and intentionality within a specific context. Using this framework I am hoping to uncover the broad patterns of activity that participants bring to the weblog community, how participants collaborate (or don’t collaborate), how much of their thinking do they reveal (or not reveal), what might participants reveal about their own sense of self-efficacy? etc.

 Finally, I am working to develop a rubric to help identify what a robust action research project looks like. I found a helpful developmental framework from the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) that I will be adapting then sending out for feedback using a modified Delphi approach. I hope to use this rubric as a tool for assisting facilitators in their work with teachers as they develop and refine their action research projects.

So in between, eating, sleeping, reading, writing, commuting, attending conferences, hanging with the fam, and my full-time job, this what I’ve been up to (whew). At this point I would be curious to know your thoughts on these projects and any feedback or advice you might be willing to share.

References:

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nardi, B. (1996). Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human Computer Interaction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.