At some point this semester,
please post a link to an article, video, website, etc. that made you think
about something we’ve done in class. Also, please provide a brief discussion
about whatever you submitted. This has no due date, but my hope is that you
will check it periodically and read what your classmates are posting (feel free
to comment, too).
Kendra
ReplyDeleteTed Talk by Margaret Heffernan: “Dare to Disagree”
Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree
This Ted talk although not directly about the nuances of education, speaks to much of what we’ve been discussing about conflict that inhibits new developments in research, that can ultimately be applied in practice. Interestingly, she uses medicine as a major example. This seems to be consistent with overarching conceptions of what research is; medical and scientific.
On the one hand, what the speaker highlights as fear of conflict, is in many ways reminiscent of explanations for why educational research and educational researchers may not be given the respect they are due. She encourages remaining open and bold in our convictions that hearing other outlooks and perspectives are important for the big picture, even when we fear they may discredit our individual work.
She encourages this push and pull at every level. I wonder what this might mean for each of us in our fields of interest. In k-12 settings, counselor settings, higher education, workplaces. How can we intentionally wrestle with “what works”? What do you think may be creating a disconnect between research and practice in your field? Is it that people are afraid to disagree? Or is it that people do disagree and then ignore critiques from the other side?
Stephanie -
ReplyDeleteNote: This is a lighter, less “academic” post
As we were reading Becker’s advice on writing, I was reminded of a list of “Never Say Neverisms” that I was given in high school. Although the list that I found was slightly different, it includes much of the same advice.
This list is more about grammar than style, but does have some advice that I believe Becker would appreciate. These include: “Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors” (This advice is probably not strong enough for Becker, but I think he would agree that this should be avoided, too.) and “Avoid clichés like the plague.”
It is very short, and actually has some good advice.
http://dmorgan.web.wesleyan.edu/materials/safire.htm
I'm going to include a citation here rather than a link, but this article is kind of the opposite of some of the stuff we see in the Anyon chapters and highlights issues of generalizability:
ReplyDeleteRobinson, D. H., Levin, J. R., Sehraw, G., Patall, E. A., & Hunt, E. B. (2013). On going (way) beyond one's data: a proposal to restrict recommendations for practice in primary educational research journals. Educational Psychology Review, 291-302.
Essentially, the authors describe how a lot of educational research makes conclusions that, as the title of the article suggests, go way beyond what the data supports. Or authors of articles speculate in their discussion sections about "why's" that, again, the data doesn't really allow.
I started thinking about this article when reading/skimming through some of the Anyon chapters. The authors of these chapters make a lot of bold claims (e.g. "...schools like UPHS have become an integral part of the overall criminal justice project", p. 44; "While it is inevitably true that experiences at the hands of security hurt and mark students...", p. 68). I think the authors of the article I linked would disapprove of the (unwarranted) generalization implicit in "schools like UPHS" considering that the authors only studied the one school (so what justifies this generalization?) and would similarly disapprove of the phrase "inevitably true" in the second quote.
I think a lot about this article when writing up discussions and deciding what I can, can't, should, and shouldn't include.
Becker urged us to drop the temporizing language when discussing the import of our findings, but I've never been comfortable with that academic equivalent of a mic drop. After one study, make a tentative claim; after the study has been reproduced multiple times with similar results, then it's safer to make more sweeping statements of generalizability. Looking forward to reading this article.
DeleteSpeaking of which, I put my librarian hat on and grabbed the article permalink from our master search box: http://search.library.vcu.edu/VCU:all_scope:TN_springer_jour10.1007/s10648-013-9223-5
A NYT blog post on nominalizations, or "zombie nouns": https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/zombie-nouns/?_r=0
ReplyDeleteThis post mirrors some of Becker's exhortations against "classy" writing, and perhaps explains why Kurt feels William James may have been a better writer, if a less brilliant thinker, than Dewey: "I have seen academic colleagues become so enchanted by zombie nouns like heteronormativity and interpellation that they forget how ordinary people speak. Their students, in turn, absorb the dangerous message that people who use big words are smarter – or at least appear to be – than those who don’t. In fact, the more abstract your subject matter, the more your readers will appreciate stories, anecdotes, examples and other handholds to help them stay on track."
Like Becker, this author argues that these "zombie nouns" obscure who is the agent of the action, and charges social scientists of being particularly guilty of this crime.
Added bonus: at the end, there's a link to a website that will tell you whether you have dangerously high levels of nominalizations in your writing.
And here's a related tweet from @ShitMyReviewersSay: https://twitter.com/YourPaperSucks/status/881440035974893568
Here is a link to the Season 3 trailer for the podcast Invisibilia: http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/528784184/invisibilia-season-3-trailer
ReplyDeleteI mentioned a story from this podcast several weeks ago to defend postmodernism in the face of Pring’s casual dismissal of it as a legitimate worldview in the research world. No need to go back to previous seasons (although they are great), because Season 3 is a kind of concept album about concepts. The stories told in this season try to upend our understanding of our own reality. I know the idea of postmodernism can get a bad reputation for being nihilistic or overly relativistic, but all theories have their limitations. (Quick side note: this is not to say that there are not any bad theories out there. Some deserve their bad reputations and should be dismissed.) Postmodernism stretches our thinking and forces us to consider ideas that were previously inconceivable. It certainly makes things messy and policy makers hate it, but that doesn’t mean we should not engage with the kinds of stories that Hanna Rosin and Alix Spiegal present to us in this season of their podcast. I think engaging with postmodern thinking encourages creativity, which is good for both theoretical work and research. Even if you are the most postpositive, scientific researcher out there, you can still use postmodernism in your life. When you make a hypothesis, aren’t you sometimes engaging in envisioning an alternate explanation (aka reality)? Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this podcast as much as I did. If it doesn’t change your perception on postmodern thinking, then at the very least it is a good listen! Oh, and just in case you decide to take a listen, at least one episode (maybe two if I am recalling correctly) from this season deals with the loss of a loved one, so if you are not in a place right now where you want to consume media on that topic I would read the synopses first and decide which episodes to listen to based on that.
Why I Hate School, But Love Education - Suli Breaks
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI
We shared a Suli Breaks video as part of our Anyon presentation. But this is the original video that propelled him to youtube fame. I like it because it reminds us to critically examine ourselves as educators. Are we really adding value to people's lives? Are we really offering something that empowers students to a better life? If not, we should be working to change it. --Tom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8juebyo_Z4
ReplyDeleteI like how this video pretty much summarizes a lot of what we discussed in class. It allowed for a good discussion about things in a big picture sense.
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/jun/30/pressure-to-publish-in-journals-drives-too-much-cookie-cutter-research
ReplyDeleteThis article critiques why we have to publish so much and how it impacts quality. Are we really getting at any knowledge that brings about change? Or is it being done just to be done? This articles brings up some good questions to consider.