Presentation
The Discursive Construction Of Learning Opportunities
American Educational Research Association (AERA)
(2017)
Abstract
Researchers who enter new learning environments or disciplines, those that are outside their own disciplines of study, are often required to follow the roots and routes of the records to gain an emic (insider) understanding of the local actors, artifacts, and language. Through exploration of everyday patterns, the researcher begins to uncover what actors are required to know, understand, and construct to engage socially, professionally, and academically. For this poster, I will make visible the processes required to gain an emic understanding in a 24/7 access third year undergraduate architecture studio at university site in California.
The present study is guided by an interactional ethnographic perspective (Green, Dixon & Zaharlick, 2003), as an epistemology, which allows the tracing over time the patterns, processes, and practices of a cultural group, moving from the whole to individual parts to the collective. This methodological approach involves two interrelated angles of analysis—one at the collective level focusing on the discourse(s), social actions, achievement, and outcomes, and the other focusing on individuals within the collective, how they take up (or not) what is constructed at the collective level and how the use of resources is transferred across subsequent events. As discussed by Green, Skukauskaite, and Baker (2012) ethnography is guided by a logicinuse that is nonlinear, recursive, and abductive and a researcher’s logicinuse is informed through “principled decisions about records to collect and pathways to follow” (p. 310) with the goal of understanding how everyday life is constructed.
Thus, to gain an emic perspective (Agar, 1994), as an outsider entering a new disciplinary study, requires a multilayered approach to trace over time how and in what ways processes and practices are proposed, established and (re)formulated and the relatedmeanings, interactions, history/ies, and resources that are jointly constructed before, during, and after the course. Discourseinuse (Bloome & Clark, 2006) is the driving construct of this research project as a way of tracing teaching and classroom (studio) interactions including what is being proposed, recognized, acknowledged, and socially significant (Bloome & EganRobertson, 1993) to the actors in this particular design studio setting, the profession, the department, and the institution. These key areas are examined through written fieldnotes, approximately sixty hours of video records, ethnographic interview conversations, and learning management system records (assignments, discussion boards, course materials, syllabus, and weekly readings) collected over the course of two academic quarters. Drawing on multiple record sources enabled the exploration of the course design, curriculum, departmental and professional practices and processes used in preparing students for academic, social and cultural demands in the architecture profession. These findings lay a foundation for further analyses of other phenomenon/a central to work in the design studio.
Keywords
- Architecture Design Studio Research
Disciplines
Publication Date
Spring April, 2017
Location
San Antonio, TX
Citation Information
Thomas Fowler and Ethny Stewart. "The Discursive Construction Of Learning Opportunities" American Educational Research Association (AERA) (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/tfowler/20/