25/01/2010 by lizit.

Thought it was about time I posted a catch up on what I am actually doing!

The focus of my DPhil is now the learning journeys of the various participants involved in the support and care of children and young people on the autistic spectrum. There are many different people involved from parents and carers to support staff in schools and residential establishments to education, health and social service professionals - and probably a few others as well. Although there is a notion of partnership in the provision of care and support, this partnership can be uneven because of the different levels and types of expertise different partners bring to the table, the way this expertise is or is not valued by other partners and the relative power of the different partners in providing access to resources.

I am planning to focus specifically on learning - which in practice means how people develop knowledge and expertise about autistic spectrum conditions/disorders (the terminology is currently in flux).

I have written an outline of what I hope to cover in my study and am in the process of re-drafting and getting this into a format appropriate for applying for the appropriate ethical clearances.

Another strand I am working on at the moment is trying to clarify what I understand by learning and which learning theories and ideas inform my understanding. This exploration has taken me through formal and informal learning, situated learning, communities of practice and currently metaphors of learning, as well as along a number of interesting side turnings.  I have read lots of interesting stuff and am slowly learning to sift out the things that have less relevance to my proposed study, however interesting they may be. Other posts in this blog summarise some of those explorations.

The other area I am beginning to explore is that of how disability is seen by society and the effect of disability on a family. This is not a major focus for me, but there is a fair bit of evidence showing that families with a disabled member are disadvantaged in lots of different ways and there is other evidence pointing to people with disabilities forming an underclass. If it can be shown that parents caring for children and young people on the spectrum have a great deal of knowledge and expertise in a number of different areas, this might challenge the power structure and also empower parents.

At the moment it feels as though there are a lot of different threads in something of a disarray and my task is to try to identify them and put them in some sort of order so that I can progress. A bit like sorting out lace bobbins and threads after the cat has knocked the lace pillow on the floor yet again. I’ll be more than happy if I can get these threads organised and begin to make something of them.

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02/01/2010 by lizit.

I’m feeling really positive about where my DPhil is going as I move into the new year. Psychologically, I feel a sense of ownership both of what I am doing and how I am doing it.  I have a sense of purpose and direction and feel I am standing on solid ground rather than wading through a swamp. There is a lot of work to be done and I will need to be clear about what is possible and what isn’t  but the whole task feels much less daunting at this point in time. Whether I will feel the same in afew months time is another matter altogether!

If I look back 18 months to the earliest posts in this blog, I thought I knew what my DPhil would be about. What I did not expect was the experience of the past months, which has not only caused me to re-examine my assumptions, but has given me the time and space to read and think and to begin to formulate some of my own idea.

Some months ago, I wrote some notes which likened the DPhil process to making a piece of lace. When starting out, the pattern may not be at all clear, but it needs to be interpreted. Decisions have to be taken about where to start. It may even be that the pattern can be worked in more than one way. Past experience will be used in analysing the problem and it may well be necessary to seek the ideas of other lacemakers with greater or different experience. There may be new stitches to be learned through working samples. Decisions have to be made about threads - type and thickness - and more samples may be needed. Equipment needs to be assembled -  pillow, bobbins, cover cloths, pins, threads, scissors, etc. Even after all the preparation, the pattern needs to be set - a process that can involve a number of false starts. The first pattern repeat is inevitably challenging - working out which threads to introduce when and identifying the track they will take, where stitches can be worked in more than one way ensuring consistency in the number of twists. However, once the pattern is set and a few inches have been worked, it becomes much easier to see what needs to be done next - the pattern may even include repeats. To the non-lace maker, the pile of bobbins and mass of pins may look complex but the lacemaker can see what they are doing and trying to achieve. That does not mean there are no challenges - threads may break, errors may be made resulting in too many bobbins in the wrong place - and there may be near disasters if the pillow is knocked off its stand by an errant cat - but a process has been set in motion. That is until the point where thought has to be given to finishing the work and what to do with all the bobbins and threads so as to achieve a neat and tidy completion.

I feel as though I have done much of the preparation and am now gathering my equipment and tools together ready to start making lace. As with lace, this is a fairly solitary occupation, but there are opportunities for sharing, working together, and admiring other people’s work as the lace grows.

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29/10/2009 by lizit.

I’m aware that informal learning has been an issue for me for quite a long time and it seems appropriate to do another of those memory lane trips and think about my own informal learning - or at least some snapshots.

As I keep saying I must get back to lace making, my experience of learning to make lace seems a reasonable place to start. I have wanted to know how to make bobbin lace since I was a teenager.  I was always quite proficient with my hands - bodged needlework in sense of making garments, but enjoyed fine counted thread cross-stitch and tapestry, lots of different knitting (used to make Aran sweaters for friends because they were so quick to do), taught myself to crochet from a book and taught myself to tat having had the principles explained to me by a shop keeper. But teaching myself lace-making defeated me - I couldn’t make head or tail of the instructions in the various craft books given me as a girl - it might have helped if I had realised a lace pillow was not the same as the one I put my head on at night - but it was something I wanted to know how to do. About 6 years ago, I saw my first ever demonstration of bobbin lace being made at a exhibition and bought the kit that the demonstrator was selling.  I managed to follow the patterns in the kit, but the strips of fabric I produced looked more like badly woven cloth than lace. Then I got given a lace making weekend as a Christmas present. I suspect I would never have progressed without that formal instruction. I was taught how to set up a lace pillow and work a simple pattern - and I acquired a book on how to do it.  A passing comment had been made about the patterns being based on a grid and that there were computer programs available to aid lace design.  When I got home, I looked at the book and quickly saw how the patterns for that type of lace were indeed based on a grid.  I also started doing some web searches and found some lace software and plotted the first pattern in the book onto the grid, printed it and worked out how to work the pattern.  I quickly acquired some other books and realised that although there were different styles of lace, they all used the same basic stitches worked in different ways.  I then started using the program to design my own patterns by adapting patterns in the books, rather than just working them as printed. In the process, I learned a lot about types of threads, types of bobbins, history of lace (making and wearing), modern textile arts. The learning came from a mix of reading, talking to other lace makers, web searches and attending occasional weekend workshops. There was formal instruction, but most of what I learned was self-taught, and all was unaccredited.

Another skill area acquired a number of years ago was bicycle mechanics. I learned to strip down and rebuild a bicycle from a mixture of observation, reading and trial and error. Although self-taught, I got a number of free holidays in return for my mechanical skills, even if I rarely did more than mend the occasional puncture and replace the occasional cable.

Currently, I am learning a lot about using herbs and spices in cooking.  My teacher is my son who has developed an interest in cooking. He goes out and buys herbs and spices and experiments with them. From his experiments, I am beginning to recognise the flavour and effect of different herbs and spices and to experiment myself. This is not a case of following recipes but learning by observation and doing - and teaching each other by the comments we make on the results.

I could go on, but much of what I do, including what I am doing in my studies, is a mix of observation, reading and application. Some of my learning is assessed and accredited, but much/most of what I do is purely out of interest and may not even be known to others.

Would the things I have learned informally be any better or any different if I learned them formally, or if the skills acquired informally were formally assessed in some way? Would I gain more satisfaction from making lace if I knew I was getting a certificate for my efforts than from the pleasure of friends who have received a piece of lace I have made?

When and why are informal skills insufficient and formal recognition and accreditation needed?

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21/07/2009 by lizit.

In supervision yesterday, Judith suggested I write an abstract of my thesis as though I had already undertaken the research.  I could see the practical value of this as I have been mulling over what I might actually do, rather than think about doing. Although I am working on a draft abstract, there are a couple of issues that are concerning me, both of which I now think I can see a way round or through.

The first is the so what question - and here again yesterday was helpful.  I can now see that what I want to show is very much related to why people engage in informal learning.  Although the government white paper is suggesting that informal learning should be recognised and supported, my position is that this is unnecessary and possibly counter-productive - and not just for the reasons propounded elsewhere in this blog of possibly repeating the errors of the 80s in relation to voluntary action and community care.

The second concern relates to justifying the use of Second Life for my studies.  One clear argument is that there are no inbuilt extrinsic rewards in SL.  Today it struck me that there are elements of SL learning which are not dissimilar to that happening in some of the physical world communities I am part of. For example, if I am monitoring SL mailing lists for evidence of informal learning (probably SLED and one other), I could also monitor arachne.  At about this point my imagination takes off and I have to remind myself that I haven’t got unlimited time and resources…. But if the SL can be shown to be not dissimilar from other communities which engage in informal learning…

Time for a cuppa.

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