InterdisciplinarityFostering dialogue and creating new meaning

Gráinne Conole and Eileen Scanlon IET, The Open University

TEL Interdisciplinarity workshopNottingham University

14th November 2008

Plan

• Some musings on interdisciplinarity

• Case study from PI project

• Brainstorming exercise

• Reflections from pre-TEL: 2006

• Next steps - towards AERA 2009

ESRC Genomics network

• Sahra Gibbon followed 2 social science and 2 science Ph D students

• Students experienced research practices and methods of each others disciplines

• Shared difficulty in understanding each others specialist disciplinary language

• Some progress made with each other’s language

Initially the science students didn’t know what a trope was and the social science students were confused by what introns and possibly also by tropes

Smith and Gibbon

Two prerequisites

• Participants must be able to understand each others language

• The setting of specific goals for collaboration

Wootton (2004) and Kumar Giri (2002)

People become firmly attached to their disciplines and wholly entrenched with the associated disciplinary mindsets. It has been said that we belong and tend to think that the whole world is characterised by disciplinary significance. The problems of this tunnel vision include the fact that researchers may overlook the effects of their work on other disciplines and produce solutions of no use in the real world

CNRS seminar

• http://www.interdisciplines.org/interdisciplinarity

• Internet has introduced so-to-speak “soft-assembled” online research communities

• Interdisciplinary research is always a new synthesis of expertise. How can the necessary expertise be mounted to evaluate research results?

• Language• Methods• Institutional constraints• Cognitive constraints• Evolution of disciplines

• Mode 2 knowledge (Nowotny, Fuller)• Cosmetic interdisciplinarity?

Redekkal, 1994•Pre-subject area – no evidence of the area or perceived need

•Beginnings – individuals begin to ask new questions triggered by some event or catalyst

•Emergence – more researchers begin to work in the area and a community begins to develop

•Establishment – the area becomes recognised in its own right with a defined community, experts, associated journals and conferences, perceived of as ‘respected’ research with associated professional status, courses and career routes

Cognitive science?“At present most cognitive scientists are drawn from the rank of specific disciplines—in particular, philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience. … The hope is that some day the boundaries between these disciplines may become attenuated or perhaps disappear altogether, yielding a single unified cognitive science.” (Gardner 1985: 7). The Minds New Science: A History of the cognitive Revolution. New York: Basic books

RAE musingsSubmission in Chemistry – I published in the standard recognised journals for my area, I was lucky enough to be collaborating with a good range of internationally recognised researchers. When I moved into the area of e-learning things became less clear; as a relatively young research area should I be publishing in new e-learning focused journals or more main-stream, well established education journals?

Training and Evaluation

• What should be done about interdisciplinary training of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars ?

• What are effective criteria for evaluating interdisciplinary papers? Does interdisciplinary research require different or additional criteria for evaluation than disciplinary research?

What counts???• Covers an important and topical area• Likely to be cited a lot by others• Key positional paper or review which gives a definition of an area• New insight/ways of thinking• Impact – on policy makers, institutions or practitioners• Provides the development of new theory, framework or model• Includes good solid empirical studies • Grounded in the literature and evidence of knowledge of key issues• Evidence of novel, new thinking, new approaches• Retrospective piece showing how the work builds on or provides a

foundation for other work that followed• Provides clarity and insight into a well recognised problem

ALT-J editorial, 2007, Issue 15.3

Co-evolution of tools and practice

• Impact of new technologies

• Changing nature of academic discourse

• Rapidly evolving/changing technological environment

• Mismatch between new practices and old methods and metrics

Experiences from PI project• Language issues

– Trigger artefacts - terms such as scenario, task– ‘Stages’, ‘phases’, does it determine workflow?– Trigger events - workshop and wiki used to produce a

project glossary

• Inquiry learning cycle issues• School issues

– curriculum, ethics

• Stakeholder engagement– ‘buy in’, relevance, different perspectives on issues

• Participatory design

‘Personalisation’• Language from different perspectives

– Government agenda on choice– Perspective on individualisation of learning– Term appropriated by PLE and Web 2.0

communities– Postmodern perspective - will we ever get

shared agreement on terms anymore? folksonomy

– Co-evolution of practice and technologies

Inquiry Cycle

• Inquiry Learning Cycle developed from literature as part of working paper

• Discussion influenced curriculum planning

• Representation issues emerged when using it to guide design of (implemented) activity guide

Select domain and orientate

Create inquiry question or hypothesis

Plan method and procedure

Conduct inquiryAnalyse evidence

Draw conclusions

Present inquiry

Evaluate inquiry

Select domain and orientate

Create inquiry question or hypothesis

Plan method and procedure

Conduct inquiryAnalyse evidence

Draw conclusions

Present inquiry

Evaluate progress

‘Mediating artefacts’

• As mechanism for making issues explicit• Shared mediating artefact coupled with timed

targeted discussion• Diversification – the area starts to mature and different schools of

thought emerge

• Evolving understanding - vocabulary, representation, concepts

• Working paper 2 - Distinction between operation, technical and educational

Approaches

• Identify mediating artefacts to promote discussion– Process of facilitating dialogue – Staged outputs and face to face workshops

• Participatory design– Bringing together different stakeholder

perspectives– Targeted events

Team and institution

• What are the critical aspects of interdisciplinary team formation?

• Are there polices could adopt that would facilitate interdisciplinary research, such as different cost-sharing, allowing for co-PIs, etc.?

Workshop activity

• Brainstorm – ‘Birth disciplines’– Methodologies– Theoretical perspectives– Areas of research focus– Approaches to fostering interdisciplinarity

What do we mean by

Inquiry-basedConstructionConceptual u/sTaking testsProblem-solvingNarrativeLiteracyGame authoringSkill-learning (TCS)FieldworkCommunicationCollaborationLearning identityConceptual networksManipulation skillsInformal interestsSelf-worthModellingScenariosEvaluating evidence

GamesToolsCultural toolsAdaptive ITSAvatarsEmbodied interactionAugmented cognitionPers L EnvironmentLearner modelsPortable devicesConversation agentsEditable digital artefactsDigital data trackingHaptic devicesVirtual objectsOnline communitiesAdaptive supportSimulationCollaborative technology

Replacing less active methodsFrameworks for learning designOnly form of access to learningImprove quality of interactionMore practice in skillsAdaptive personalisationVisualisation in situAlternative modes or pathwaysConstructive personalisationBetter quality assessmentSharing and peer supportScaling upMore engaging activitiesMore flexible learningPersonalised guidance

Technology? Enhanced? Learning?

… from the current project proposals for TEL:

Learning as ‘doing’; and through ‘social interaction’

Enhancement as forms of personalisation, flexibility, inclusion and productivity

Laurillard, 2006

RAE UOA45: Research scope - methodologies

Educational researchApplied linguisticsEconomicsGeographyHistoryHumanitiesLinguisticsMathematicsPhilosophyPsychologyScienceSociology

Usingaction researchcase studyethnographyevaluationliterature reviewcritical theorydocumentary analysisanalytic work

TEL researchApplied linguisticsEconomicsHumanitiesGeographyPhilosophyPsychologyScienceSociology

Usingaction researchcase studyethnographyevaluationliterature review

+ ComputingCognitive sciencesInformation mgt, systemsHCI, AIAnthropologyDesign, architecture + design studies, creative

discourse analysispre- and post-testingobservationexperimentationInterviewssurveyscritical incident analysisquestionnairesactivity monitoringmodelling

TEL

Education

TEL is extending the methodologies of research

Are there other key methodologies? Laurillard, 2006

Towards AERA 2009• Issues of design: How can we design for innovation and

adopt a more participatory, inclusive approach to design? What is the relationship between design and instantiation of practice?

• Transformation of practice: How might innovative technologies lead to real transformation of practice? What are the barriers and enablers? What new forms of pedagogy are possible?

• Methodological development and interdisciplinary inquiry: What are the methodological challenges and what are methodological innovations? What are the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary research?

Breakout rooms

• 2nd Floor– C42: A -F– C45: G - L– C47: M - R– C49: S - Z

• Appoint a report back person!!

• Come back at 2.30