18/07/2010 by lizit.

Like many research students, one of my concerns is the need for some kind of originality in the work I am undertaking. I am still unsure exactly what that means - and how much originality is necessary - but it seems to relate to various different things.

It could be originality of method - not so much inventing a new methodology as using existing methodologies in different ways.

It could be exploring an area which hasn’t been explored before.

It could be exploring an area which has been explored before but from a different perspective.

It could be bringing a range of ideas from different areas together and looking at how they interconnect and may provide a different way of looking at an area.

The more I read about my area of interest - the learning journeys of those involved in caring for and supporting children and young people on the autistic spectrum - the more work I realise has already been done. I also realise that much of this work has been done from very specific perspectives: the support needs of parents following diagnosis; the parent as advocate; the continued professional development of teachers or doctors or social workers; the role of electronic media in informing patients. Although partnership is a theme - partnership between parents and professionals in various settings - it is unclear how much this is a reality most of the time, although there is a fair bit about the advocacy role of parents.

One of the possible areas of interest is the contrast between the formal processes and the informal processes, for example what the code of practice says should happen and what happens in practice - and why don’t the two match up. Another area is the whole question of whether there is an autistic spectrum community of practice. If it exists, where does it exist and in what form? Or is it a number of discrete areas of expertise in which some participants are able to act as gatekeepers giving access to their area of expertise, or infiltrators gaining knowledge of another area.

Looking at learning journeys is about the various ways in which people learn about the spectrum. Knowing that there is a mix of formal, informal and serendipitous probably doesn’t tell us much of itself, but when this is applied to the outputs of the domain, i.e. the services, resources, support, etc, and the decision making processes, life gets very interesting.

Posted in decision making, resources, systems, community of practice, learning, reflections, planning | Print | 1 Comment »

03/06/2010 by lizit.

I’m reading Merrill and West’s book on using biographical methods and working through the first set of transcriptions. Perhaps inevitably, there is a lot of stuff going on in my head.

Perhaps one of the key learning points is seeing just how much my own perspective colours how I understand others. I was working on one of the transcriptions yesterday and can see very much the psychodynamics of the interaction and why I found it so difficult. At the same time, I can see how in other interactions, transference was working differently with me feeling far more positive about the exchange.

I am interested by the section on analysis - and the different ways in which Merrill and West approach the task. West’s use of the gestalt - a holistic approach - resonates with me, but I can also see how looking at the parts can be useful, as long as this does not become mechanistic when key ideas and insights can be lost within a category rather than the significance being recognised.

Perhaps because I am reading other people’s stories, I am also returning to my own. Although this stems as well from my attempts at diagramming the autistic spectrum domain, I found myself remembering the nightmare scenario of the only respite that could be offered to a troubled young man was a police cell - and having mental health workers in my house telling me I had no option but to ring the police as they had no appropriate provision (and they were from the tier 4 regional mental health services!). There is something totally wrong about a child acquiring a criminal record - a formal warning - for behaviour within the home stemming directly from a neurological condition.

But that points to the complexity of the domain. It may well be that it is possible to envision the people working as a community of practice, but the people come from different organisations and each organisation has its own procedures, systems and structures and each is involved in making available or rationing scare resources. A person might well see the relevance of making a particular provision, but that person also has a role within a system and…. Maybe it is easier and safer for those employed to care for and support people on the spectrum not to know too much about systems and organisations other than their own. Maybe too, this is when I have to look again at the work of Harry Daniels and Anne Edwards…

Merrill, B., & West, L. (2009). Using Biographical Methods in Social Research. London: Sage.
Edwards, A., Daniels, H., Gallagher, T., Leadbetter, J., & Warmington, P. (2009). Improving Inter-professional Collaborations: Multi-agency working for children’s wellbeing. London: Routledge.
Daniels, H., Edwards, A., Engeström, Y., Gallagher, T., & Ludvigsen, S. R. (2010). Activity Theory in Practice: Promoting learning across boundaries and agencies. London: Routledge.

Posted in biography, systems, community of practice, Aspergers/HFA, narratives, reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

10/02/2010 by lizit.

I had a lengthy conversation yesterday with Amy Scatliff. We had been put in touch by another colleague who had met Amy at a conference last autumn. Amy and I are both interested in learning in other than classroom situations, which means we have a lot of common territory though arriving there via different routes.

During our discussion, we found ourselves discussing the way different types of learning are valued. Although the distinction in the value afforded to formal and informal learning can be traced back to the Greek philosophers (Hager, 1998) who regarded theoretical knowledge as having greater meaning and importance than knowledge derived from doing or creating, we did wonder if the non-accredited, and often unrecognised, learning of adults in the community has diminished in status in recent decades.  The emphasis on accredited qualifications is probably greater now than ever before the expectation that  pre-defined achievement levels will be met from early years education and throughout schooling and on into further and higher education. Amy commented on the way people often devalue their skills and are sometimes surprised - and even shocked - to find they have skills which others value and want to learn.

We also commented on the changing nature of society and societal values in both the US and UK over the past 30 years, with an increasing emphasis on financial rewards and the changing role of women in the economy. There is a sense that the type of skill sharing around a family gathering described by Foley (1999) is less likely now than in the past, but that one of the positive effects of the credit crunch might be a recognition of the need to reacquire some basic skills. We laughed about the current series on UK TV where people are being encouraged to share their grandmothers’ recipes and wondered whether this might signal the beginning of a change in the way different types of knowledge and skills are valued.

Reflecting on our conversation - and we covered much more territory than that outlined here - I am reminded of the law of unintended consequences: so often when we make a change (or when change occurs) although some problems may be alleviated or there may be positive growth in some ways, there is all too often a flip side which has not been anticipated. Sometimes it may be the silver lining of the dark cloud, but all too often the unintended consequences are negative rather than positive.

Foley, G. (1999). Learning in social action: A contribution to understanding informal education. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Hager, P. (1998). Recognition of Informal Learning: Challenges and Issues. Journal of Vocational Education and Training: The Vocational Aspect of Education, 50(4), 521-535.

Posted in informal learning, reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in lace, ASD, empowerment, research ideas, concepts, learning, reflections, creativity, planning | Print | 1 Comment »

22/01/2010 by lizit.

It never ceases to surprise me how easy it is to forget the things which are so obvious and so well known.

The presentation I did at the recent OpenCetl conference started by acknowledging the previous learning of OU students. My notes read:

Open University students, not surprisingly, are not blank canvases when they commence their OU studies. They bring with them a wide range of learning experiences from previous educational settings as well as a lifetime’s experience of informal learning in a wide variety of different contexts. The challenge confronting educators is how to enable students to maximise their use of existing learning skills while encouraging the development of new learning skills and strategies which are useful not only for study, but for life.

Further on in my notes, on the same theme, I wrote:

OU students are not a blank canvas. On their journey to becoming a student, they have engaged in formal education at school and possibly at college or university. From that experience they bring a range of expectations of what education offers and how learning is done. Alongside the positive experiences, they bring skeletons in the cupboard of poor teachers, badly prepared materials and negative feedback.

Many OU students bring with them experiences of workplace learning and training courses. Again, a mix of the good, the ugly and the indifferent, but again colouring expectations both of the learning experience and of contact with fellow students.

Almost all OU students will have engaged in a hobby or developed other specialised interests. Many will have learned the skills necessary to manage a home and care for a family. Some will have specialist knowledge of the care needs of people with disabilities or increasing frailty. Others have learned to cope with the challenge of a learning disability.

Increasingly, students will be familiar with the use of technology to obtain information or to manage aspects of daily living.

OU students like other adults are informal learners. They bring their informal learning skills with them into the formality of a structured academic course. How do we enable students to evaluate their informal learning toolkit, refine it and incorporate it into a new toolkit alongside the formal learning skills they will acquire during their OU study.

This morning, in the lab meeting, the focus was on learning and knowledge transfer and acquisition. I was reminded of Hager and Hodkinson’s (2009) comments about a person entering a new workplace - they bring with them knowledge, skills and experience, but the knowledge and skills will be changed and adapted and modified  and expanded through the experience of the new work place and belonging to a different community of practice.

Quinn makes a similar point in speaking about making connections with prior knowledge.

During the discussion this morning, the fairly obvious point was made that in any class of adult learners, or university students, everybody will be starting from a different point because of what they already know, their interests beyond study, etc.

Reflecting on this, I think of the number of times I have been involved in facilitating training of different sorts  or have been engaged with a member of staff in discussion about possible career progression. So often, my starting point has been talking about considering the ruc-sac of skills, abilities, experience, knowledge, ideas that we all carry with us and trying to move from the idea of compartmentalising what we know into discrete domains, into connecting the contents of the ruc-sac to whatever domain we happen to be occupying at the time. It strikes me that connectivity is an important part of any examination of adult learning - and connectivity is more than transfer.

Hager, P., & Hodkinson, P. (2009). Moving beyond the metaphor of transfer of learning. British Educational Research Journal, 35(4), 619 - 638.

Quinn, C. N. (2009). Social Networking: Bridging formal and informal learning. Learning Solutions Magazine.

Posted in reflections, learning | Print | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in lace, creativity, reflections | Print | No Comments »

02/01/2010 by lizit.

A wordle showing the key words in this blog over the last six months.

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1498698/02012010

Posted in reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

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.

Posted in informal learning, lace, research ideas, community, motivation, reflections | Print | 1 Comment »

23/05/2009 by lizit.

I’m feeling a great deal happier about the DPhil than I have for weeks. I think there are two things contributing to that, one less expected than the other.

Driving into Sussex yesterday, it struck me that one of the positives out of the annual review meeting was something more than feeling affirmed; it was actually that I had a sense that I had as much right as anybody else to be a DPhil student.  In fact more than that, a recognition that I have always felt a bit of a fraud academically - sort of gate crashing a gathering full of clever people.  Although I haven’t suddenly started thinking of myself as clever, I do realise I am probably (note the slight caution there) as capable as anybody else who is on that path of working towards and completing a DPhil. No doubt there will be times ahead when I feel an even bigger academic imposter, but for the moment I’m staying with the positives!

The second thing is a sense that I have now got some ideas about what my DPhil will be about.  Although I know not many people read this blog, I don’t feel quite ready to formulate those ideas apart from for myself at the moment but I do have a much more distinct sense of where I am going and I am feeling quite excited and interested in the ideas I am playing with. I think it is also very clear to me that it is highly unlikely I would have arrived where I am at this moment if I hadn’t been on the circuitous journeys of the past months.

Posted in stuckness, motivation, reflections | Print | No Comments »

19/05/2009 by lizit.

I really didn’t know what was going to happen yesterday at my annual review.  it was all very well my supervisor telling me it would be OK, but I had paperwork that seemed to be making value judgments, and although the words pass/fail were not used, perhaps inevitably I felt there was some kind of hurdle to jump and feared that I would be found seriously wanting.

In reality, I found the meeting very positive, helpful and affirming.  OK, I came out of it aware that I have a whole heap of work to do, but it is work that I have plenty of time to do, and some of it is much more potentially onerous than other bits.  Some of it is around being clear why I am not looking at some things and some of it is stuff I do need to look at and understand. I am in awe of the breadth of knowledge of some people - how do some folk know so much, even to the level of being able to point at possible things to read! I also see the need for clarity of definition - what is a community? How does one differentiate different types of community?  How does Twitter, for example, compare with a text-based forum, or a 3-D virtual world, or a group of people who meet face to face, or a neighbourhood? What are the characteristics of community?  Are some communities in some way richer than others?

What is it that I am doing at the end of the day?  That is still a bit of a fog - and it was acknowledged that it is OK to be in a fog and that is part of the DPhil experience - but what was clear to me is that what I am saying probably has something to do with policy.  That perhaps isn’t that surprising given my background in voluntary organisation management and in community development, but no bad thing to acknowledge it and recognise that is OK.  I guess it also affirms one of the other things that has appeared in my diagrams which has been around change and being agents of change. This is as much about who I am as about what I know and what I understand.

Posted in community, change agents, reflections | Print | No Comments »