Posts from the ‘quotes’ Category
Upper Quote from: Andrews, Molly; Squire, Corinne & Tambokou, Maria (Eds.) (2008). Doing narrative research. London: Sage.
Lower Quote from: Riessman, Catherine Kohler & Speedy, Jane (2007). Narrative inquiry in the psychotherapy professions: A critical review. In D. Jean Clandinin (Ed.), Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology (pp.426-456). Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage.
“na’aseh v’nishma” or, if your Hebrew is a bit rusty, “We will do and we will understand.”
I’m in the thick of creating a presentation and writing a paper on Assignment 2 for 803 which is all about an instructional method or approach. I chose Discovery-Based Instruction because I like the sound of it and I liked the feel of it and the more I learn….the more I like it. As generally happens when one begins to enter the tunnel of research/writing/thinking about a topic, everything in the universe somehow converges to have a deeper meaning that somehow encompasses whatever lens you happen to be seeing through per your studies. For me, this past week nothing has been experienced without a small part of me trying to find the “discovery-based instruction” element to it and indeed it’s pretty uncanny all the places it’s shown up!
This most recent addition was spoken to me tonight by a Rabbi more in passing than anything. Basically this is what the Israelites said when standing at Mount Sinai and Moses first brought down the Commandments. Generally you think you have to understand first and then you “do” but here the people inverted that idea and it was quite purposeful. The idea in this turn of phrase is that for you to truly understand, it’s vital that you have the doing part first. Understanding without doing is empty and vapid. Bingo!! Discovery-Based Instruction is clearly divine!! And had I not been “doing” all this research and reflection…I’d never understand the connections. Genius. : )
…institutionally based formal education where the learning group is separated and where interactive communications systems are used to connect instructors, learners, and resources.
Yep, that pretty much sounds correct.
And lest you think I’ve come up with that astute definition on my own (as if! I’m only a second year!) here’s where you can find all the citations in APA goodness format:
Garrison, D. R., & Shale, D. G. (1987). Mapping the boundaries of distance education: Problems in defining the field [Electronic version]. American Journal of Distance Education, 1(1). Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://www.ajde.com/Contents/vol1_1.htm#abstracts
Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles.
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But, conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Courage breeds creativity…as a creative and someone who is (somewhat) obsessed with the development of creativity in others this quote and these ideas are golden to me. If courage breeds creativity, does creativity breed courage? Could being more creative make you more courageous in other areas of your life? Do those who are courageous in the face of so many challenges self identify as creative as well? And on a more personal level…every time I am courageous do I see that as an act of creativity? An act of making something out of nothing…seeing a new way?
I don’t know. But, what I do know in my tenure as an applied arts educator is that creative work takes courage because it involves so much confrontation. Without a thick skin and a large dose of tenacity, first your teachers and then your clients will squelch the creativity from you because you’re constantly pushed and prodded and told your ideas are “okay…but why not go this way instead??”
Students who succeed are those who have the courage either to say “Nope. This is my vision because _______ .” Or those who have the courageous humility to say “Let’s do it! This job/project/assignment is bigger than my own ego and I’m going to listen to what you have to say so we can co-create something better than either of us thought possible.”
Now…how to go about developing this creative courage.
Two posts in one day because I’m kind of an overachiever. Haha..not. But I am almost finished with my faculty presentation about massive change, burn out, and other such fun topics that make everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside. This is one slide and kind of encapsulates the some of the style of it all for right now. Actually, who am I kidding…this kind of encapsulates my style for everything. Open, minimal, modern and of course…orange-love.
“It is however remarkable that a profession that prides itself to be change-driven, visual, and communicative is so poor in changing its education, visualising its educational problems, and communicating in a clear way about these.”
—Karel van der Waarde and Maurits Vroombout in Communication design education: could nine reflections be sufficient?
“Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes when things are all heavily weighted down like moving trucks. It comes when you think it never will, like a shimmering Las Vegas rising up out of the dry desert, sparkling and humming with energy, a blessing that rose up out of a bone-dry, dusty curse.”—Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines
Yep. I’m tracking…out from under the weight of the future seems to reverberate through my own head. This is heavy work I’m doing, growing myself. And it’s also heavy future work I’m doing, dabbling in theories and systems that will indeed someday change things for the better. But it’s good work too. And ever onward I shall go…
“If you don’t fail regularly you are not trying hard enough things. The trouble, of course, is that it is emotionally much harder to restart after a failure because the risks seem clearer. This may be why the energy and enthusiasm of youth are so important in research and in new businesses.”
Fabulous advice from Ivan Sutherland’s address, Technology and Courage given to Carnegie Mellon students in 1982. As courage was one of my main mantras of 2013 and I’ve recently been put into a place where it seems that failing lots is the way I’m actually going to learn stuff, this quote is indeed quite heartening. The learning process—always so messy, yet always so so good. May all of our hearts never grow too discouraged to risk it all once more and trust that even though it’s scary, maybe this new move/idea/conversation act might be the very thing that can bring a bit more good to the world and amazingly enough, we get to be part of it.
“Participatory design practitioners share the view that every participant is an expert in how they live their lives and that design ideas arise in collaboration with participants from diverse backgrounds.”
…wisdom gleaned from this article about embarking on a participatory design project in collaboration with an under-served people group. While I like the idea of participatory research, once I read the article, it seems that in theory it’s ideal but in practice…not so much. The article was full of things that hadn’t worked out and anecdotes of trials and challenges.
Perhaps people not knowing they are “experts” in how they live their lives mucks things up, thus they look to the academic in the room to model expert behavior which only further complicates things? Perhaps before you embark on participatory research you need to provide participants with some self efficacy training? Or you yourself must be incarnated into the community so that you’re not perceived as the all-knowing outsider, come down to “save the world?” Interesting stuff indeed and something that I think will be timely for my own research.
Hussain, S., Sanders, E. B.-N., & Steinert, M. (2012). Participatory design with marginalized people in developing countries: Challenges and opportunities experienced in a field study in Cambodia. International Journal of Design, 6(2), 91-109.
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