Category: discourse community/community of practice

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discourse community/community of practice politics

Prof at UC vet school asks students to vote on classmate’s grade

Updated below.

This story is just really disturbing. A UC Davis prof has asked his students to vote on what a pregnant classmate’s grade should be. See the full story at Dr. Isis’ blog.

In summary, the prof (who is chair of his department!) sent out an e-mail to students asking them to vote on the way he should grade their classmate, who is likely to miss some quizzes due to childbirth. Apparently, the vet school is very strict about no make-up assignments. However, it is inconceivable that this situation has not arisen in the past. Has no student missed assignments because of childbirth or an accident before? Shouldn’t there be a policy for this?

Regardless of whether the prof was poorly-prepared for this eventuality or not, it seems completely unethical to allow students to vote on another’s grade.

More unethical is his singling out of this one individual for attention due to her medical state. In effect, this professor is shaming the student to the class. While he did not specifically name the student, it either is or will become obvious who she is by the end of the semester.

While my own teaching experience has certainly not been decades-long, like this professor’s, I would never single out one student for criticism by her peers in this way. I’m sure more details will emerge, but at the moment this seems completely unethical, and unacceptable.

Update: Apparently, this incident is now being investigated by the UC Davis administration.

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings information representation visuals

Exam readings: diagrams as boundary objects

For today, two takes on the concept of “boundary objects:” concepts, texts, machines, diagrams, etc. that serve as meeting points between different social worlds.These focus on diagrams (natch): infrastructure schematics and Gantt charts.

Lucy Suchman. “Embodied Practices of Engineering Work.” Mind, Culture, and Activity 7(1&2): 4–18, 2000.

Summary: Uses ethnomethodology (EM) and activity theory (AT; doesn’t use the triangle) to describe design practices in civil engineering. Her focus is the use of CAD and paper diagrams in planning; these diagrams connect EM & AT. EM is phenomenological & descriptive of artifacts in use and work practices; it’s not used to build generalizable theory. AT focuses on how tools mediate and are in turn created by social work practices; it’s also ultimately not generalizable b/c of its focus on specific situations (framework, not theory). Her research comes from conversations with/tutorial of the process of designing a road by an engineer. The CAD display is complex: 2-D and 3-D views, puts plans onto 3-D topographical layer than lets engineers take viewing sections through it, and includes natural and built infrastructural features (old infrastructure, new project, and temporary elements needed to support construction). Engineers also use paper: maps (taking collective notes, getting sense of big picture) and notes. Two key practices bring together these elements: “professional vision” (mental simulation of the project site, as aided by the CAD tools), and embodiment of engineers (gestures, hand motions to indicate third dimension, etc.). Paper and CAD have different affordances, so engineers use both. Concludes by describing similarities/differences between EM and AT.

Comments: This paper touched on AT, but was not strictly an AT analysis (more an EM-based description). Point seems to have been to use her case study as a way to draw parallels between the two methodologies.

Links to: Roth (AT description); Sharples et al. (more standard? AT analysis)

Elaine K. Yakura. “Timelines as Temporal Boundary Objects.” The Academy of Management Journal. 45(5): 956-970, 2002.

Summary: Yakura looks at timelines (Gantt charts) in work environments as “temporal boundary objects:” they render time concrete and serve as points of synthesis and negotiation among different groups in a business (e.g., programmers, managers, clients). They also embody elements of narrative (beginning, middle, end) that helps people envision milestones as well as project completion. They are “monotemporal” (mechanistic & standardized view of time), in contrast to “pluritemporal” (multiple cultural/occupational groups mark time with different activities), and serve as sites of negotiation and translation among different groups. Three functions of timelines are for scheduling, synchronization, and time allocation for various tasks; these categories are not interpreted the same by all groups involved in a project, so the timeline is a site of discussion. Presents a case study of timeline use, discussion, and renegotiation (as unforeseen events required updating it); the case study illustrates pluritemporalism & use as a boundary object.

Comments: Example of a visualization as a boundary object between different groups. Timelines aren’t intended as permanent artifacts, but Yakura points out that they’re treated as reality even while undergoing revision; they also symbolize a tangible work product between milestones/when tasks are in process.

Links to: Suchman (paper maps as boundary objects in engineering)

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings learning theory visuals

Exam readings: using visuals to understand science

More on the use of diagrams in understanding science. First, a paper which suggests that a key process of science education is a process of learning how to take observations, make diagrams (or other descriptions), and then communicate about those diagrams with other people. This is a relatively simple concept, but one which is often not emphasized in science education (at least, it’s not emphasized how these skills will help students learn science. The second paper is tangentially connected to this idea. It’s about the challenges in incorporating data visualization tools into community science projects- tools that many scientists have no trouble interpreting, but that members of the public do.

Wolff-Michael Roth and Michelle K. McGinn. “Inscriptions: Toward a Theory of Representing as Social Practice.” Review of Educational Research. 68(1): 35-59, 1998.

Summary: The authors use the concept of inscriptions (=physical graphical displays; distinct from mental representations) to argue for a social, rather than purely individually cognitive, view of activity. Their focus is on emphasizing the conscious consideration of inscription-creating practices during science learning; I’m skipping the discussion of pedagogy/classroom practice. Inscriptions are used in several ways in discussions: talked about, talked over (e.g., used as backgrounds), serve as boundary objects for discussion among different groups, have rhetorical functions (demonstrative), and serve as pedagogical devices. Inscriptions are materially embodied signs: mobile (immutable while moving); can be incorporated into different contexts, rescaled, combined, reproduced easily; can be merged with geometry (i.e., mathematicized/ gridded); and can be “translated” into other inscriptions. The relationship between inscription and inscribed is traditionally thought of as correspondence or “truth;” current thought is that inscriptions are a result of distinct social practice, so distinct from the thing inscribed. Inscriptions’ creation practices determine whether they’ll be accepted by a community; this is grounded in social practice and suggests that inscriptions can’t be properly interpreted outside the context of their use. Also discuss their use as boundary objects with different functions in face-to-face vs. dispersed settings (though they mention that networked presentation tools are allowing a fuller range of discussion using inscriptions among dispersed groups).

Comments: Focus is on formal education environments and framing science practice as a series of creating, interpreting, and sharing inscriptions. Their background discussion helps tie together some of my other readings on communities of participation, distributed cognition, and visualizations.
Links to: various things…

Stephanie Thompson and Rick Bonney. “Evaluating the Impact of Participation in an On-line Citizen Science Project: A Mixed-methods approach.” in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.) Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 1, 2007.

Summary: Report on assessment of participant use of eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology online bird sighting tracking software. In eBird, participants enter information about their bird sightings either from a list or on a map; this data is then pooled with other observations. Users can use several tools for data visualization of all bird observations, either selecting one species to focus on or selecting all observations from a particular area. Tools include maps and various types of charts. This project has educational goals, but in entirely self-instructed and –directed (instructions and a FAQ are available). In 2005, CLO conducted a new user survey, which surveyed users on registration and again eight weeks later; this included a standard demographic questionnaire, an assessment of users’ understanding of the “View and Explore Data” tools, and a “Personal Meaning Mapping” about conservation (a short-answer assessment approach). For the data analysis tools, they found that most users who responded didn’t select the correct tools to answer the question asked. In addition, many people didn’t answer this question, probably because they hadn’t used or weren’t comfortable with these tools. The authors suggest that more active instruction in how to use the tools is probably needed.

Comments: This paper mainly presents an example of the challenge in incorporating data visualization tools into an informal learning setting.

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings networks

Exam readings: what makes an online community?

“Community” is a well-discussed term in the online realm- are online communities really communities? If so, how do they work (e.g., language-based, activity-based, social network-based)? And what is a community, anyway (village, workplace, civic organization, fandom)?

One of the issues that’s come up in my readings is how varying definitions of what a community is interact with different frameworks for how learning occurs. For example, the “communities of practice” framework says that people learn as an effect of the process of becoming members of a community. How a concept like this intersects with online communities, without the kind of face-to-face interactions that characterize traditional communities, is an interesting question. These three readings touch on this in varying ways.

Steven Brint. “Gemeinschaft Revisited: A Critique and Reconstruction of the Community Concept.” Sociological Theory 19(1): 1-23, 2001.

Summary: The concept of “community” is fuzzy and has fallen out of favor in sociology; replaced by oversimplified ideas of “interaction rituals,” social networks (focus on material benefits to participants), and social capital (focus on motives). Brint proposes a new definition of community: an aggregate of people with common activities & beliefs, bound together principally by values, concerns, affect & loyalty. The motives for interaction are central (though rational or financial motives can be a part, the ones listed are primary-work or interest groups/clubs mainly bound by rational means, so not communities), and groups can be any size, or dispersed. He provides a framework for differentiating subtypes at different levels of interaction: 1) ultimate context (geographic or choice-based), 2) primary motivation (activity or belief-based), and 3) either frequency of interaction (for geog. communities) or location of other members (for choice communities; dispersed groups here get 4th level of interaction, depending on whether they ever meet in person). The key is that these organizational features predict organization & “climate” features of the different types of communities (though he states that these are hypotheses), e.g., monitoring, levels of investment, pressure for conformity. However, there are factors of environmental context (e.g., geography, tolerance as a norm) and community-building (e.g., hazing, meeting places, enforced appearance) that will also be important in shaping communities.

Comments: Discusses the implications of this framework for liberal vs. socialist models of community; suggests that “community” persists as an ideal even though our typical experiences of it tend to be non-egalitarian and non-validating. However, he speculates that virtual or “imaginary” communities, experiences are closer to this ideal of egalitarian & validating community; perhaps these communities will be freer of vice and less judgmental of members. I’m not sure how this last idea really holds up in online communities- there’s certainly a lot of demoninzing of the “other” that goes on online…

Links to: Lave & Wenger (community/participatory knowledge)

Molly M. Wasco, Samer Faraj, and Robin Teigland. “Collective Action and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice.” Journal for the Association of Information Systems. 5(11-12): 494-513, 2004.

Summary: The authors describe a model for “electronic networks of practice:” informal groups that primarily exchange information online. They call ENPs a special case of communities of practice, in which there are no formal controls and participation isn’t face to face (CPs would lie on the other end of a continuum of such groups). One distinction in ENPs is that individuals’ use of collective knowledge is “non-rival” and “non-excludable” (though individuals can “free-ride” on others’ contributions). In their model, macrostructural properties (e.g., medium of communication, network size and access) determine structural ties (generalized patterns of exchange- generally non-reciprocal bet. individuals). Structural ties affect the relational strength of ties (e.g., obligation, identification, trust-between network as a whole and individuals); these influence creation of understanding and community norms. Relative strength of ties affects both social controls (reputation, status, flaming, shunning, banning) and knowledge contribution. Knowledge contribution both influences and is influenced by individual motivations and resources; it also feeds back onto structural ties (this is the mechanism for re-creating, strengthening, and expanding the network).

Comments: The authors end with discussion of the model’s limitations (e.g., need to make modifications if there are F2F interactions, formal incentives for participation, reciprocal relationships that develop over time). They also see a need for looking at individual roles-many times, an active core of participants does most of the work.

Links to: Lave & Wenger (communities of practice); Preece & Schneiderman (discussion of process of enrollment & individual participation)

Jennifer Preece and Ben Shneiderman. “The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation.” Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction. 1(1): 13-32, 2009.

Summary: Describes how people get involved in social media by gradually increasing the extent of their participation. The authors’ framework tries to incorporate various related areas of research with the goal of providing a unifying framework for future research. At each of the successive stages of participation (reader, contributor, collaborator, leader), numbers of participants decrease; people can also jump stages, move backwards, or terminate participation. Readers can be attracted with ads, word of mouth; good interface design and reading user-generated content keep them coming back. Contributors add to the communal effort without the intention of getting too involved. Reputation systems (with communal ranking or tagging) and ethos garnered from association with credible figures help drive increasing participation.  Collaborators develop common ground with others and work on mutual creations (short or long-term). Satisfying discussions, building social capital, collectivism are all contributing factors. Leaders promote, mentor, set policy; they need good editing & synthesis tools, recognition, and opportunities to contribute meaningfully. Well-defined and focused groups are likely to have stronger group identity & participation. Final section focuses on future research needs (e.g., research at each stage, metrics for assessment).

Comments: Authors suggest using data logging/tracking for research, which has ethical implications. Also suggest that young people care less about privacy; I’m not sure this is a generational shift or just young people being dumb.

Links to: Lave & Wenger (LPP); Von Ahn & Dabbish (getting people involved with GWPs); Howe (crowdsourcing); Brint (discusses online communities)

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings learning theory research methods/philosophy

Exam reading: “Expanding conceptions”

Tara J. Fenwick. “Expanding Conceptions of Experiential Learning: A Review of the Five Contemporary Perspectives on Cognition.” Adult Education Quarterly 50: 243-272, 2000.

Summary: Fenwick summarizes & contrasts five current theories of experiential/informal learning. She argues that traditional theory is based on an experience + individual reflection model, which neglects embodied activity and communal processes; these theories include both individual and sociocultural processes. 1) Constructivist: individuals construct meaning from experience to produce knowledge; knowledge is a set of mental constructs. 2) Psychoanalytic: interested in how the unconscious shapes the self; knowledge is driven by passionate tensions. 3) Situative: Adaptive learning through participation; knowledge is based on situated effectiveness, rather than theoretical. 4) Critical-cultural: Focus on power effects and identity; knowledge is emancipation from passive acceptance of identity and dominant cultural critiques. 5) Enactivist: cognition and the environment are simultaneously enacted; cognition is embodied action; knowledge is collective, not individual.

Comments: I’ve left off the critiques for this summary, but she basically looks at each theory through the lens of the other four (mostly based on other researchers’ criticism, but enactivist ideas are pretty new, so for these she uses the looking through the lens approach.) Basically, this is an overview and useful for me in comparing and contrasting. The most relevant frameworks for my research are probably constructivist (more traditional, and a lot of the digital media research seems to build off of this) and situative (e.g., Lave & Wenger). The enactivist approach is newest; not sure if I’ve seen much in that vein at this point…

Links to: Lave & Wenger, others (community participation); Zhang & Norman (constructivist/cognitive)

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings knowledge work learning theory

Exam reading: “Minds on fire”

I had a strong reaction to this paper, probably because I’ve been thinking about these issues from a different perspective than the authors. This paper ties into some of my core T&T readings, like “Laws of Cool” and “Datacloud,” that address the knowledge economy and the future of work. However, here the focus is on learning.

John Seely Brown, and Richard P. Adler. “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0.” Educause Review Jan/Feb 2008.

Summary: Main idea is that an educated workforce with opportunities for lifelong learning is necessary to maintain competitive centers in a globalized world. The need for education for multiple careers and constant re-skilling (my term; they use more positive vocabulary) can be facilitated by Web-based free education & Web 2.0 networking technologies. The Web facilitates social, collaborative learning: work in small groups, “learning to be” a participant plus traditional “learning about” a subject, problem-based collaboration. Idea of legitimate peripheral participation: learners gain both explicit (factual) and implicit (social) knowledge at once. The authors look at online tools for learning: Second Life, “e-science,” informal discussions in social networking sites (I would argue that several of their suggestions aren’t good examples.) Discuss similarities between “long tail” niche marketing being supported by more popular commerce- the Web facilitates this setup- and how online education can be similar (once niche courses are developed, they’re out there forever.) Overall idea is to provide an environment that both facilitates and promotes lifelong learning; they call this “demand-pull” rather than “supply-push” approach.

Comments: Authors do not discuss what to do about the digital divide, the social dislocation associated with constant retraining, how hypothetical developers of free online courses would actually be employed themselves, how to evaluate accurate vs. inaccurate content, erosion of expertise and traditional methods of validating knowledge, etc. Basically, this reads like a Web 2.0 cheerleading piece for non-centralized/distributed education systems, and does not address a wide range of major economic and social justice issues (granted, this is probably not their intent.) The fact that the authors lump in non-online examples into their “online tools for learning” section suggests that they are stretching for examples.

Links to: Howe (discusses crowdsourcing-ultimate result of this educational style? or at least linked); Lave & Wenger (LPP)

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings identity learning theory

Exam reading: Situated learning

Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger’s Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation is a foundational text for several key concepts.

Summary: Their main thesis is that learning occurs as “legitimate peripheral participation” in communities of practice: it’s not only situated/place-based (negotiated meanings, relational character of knowledge), but an integral part of the social fabric. Knowledge is comprehensive & activity-based (vs. received), and there’s a mutually constitutive relationship between actors, activities, and the world. The traditional approach of learning as internalization is too cerebral; they see learning as a process of increasing participation in the comm. of practice. Their focus is on the “person-in-world,” rather than the solitary learner or abstract knowledge domains. They also take a historical approach; e.g., comms. are constantly renewing themselves through the admission of newcomers and centripetal movement of newcomers into full participation. They discuss several aspects of traditional apprenticeships as case studies: technology use, recruitment, power relations, and organization of activity. The learning process is a set of steps of conferring legitimacy on the newcomer; learning starts as observation of community, who to emulate, etc., while doing peripheral tasks like running errands (core tasks come later.)

Comments: Authors suggest that more research is needed on defining “communities of practice” and power relations within communities. They summarize with a few ways their approach differs from traditional approaches: person becomes practitioner, situated learning becomes LPP in comm. of practice, knowing is inherent in identity transformation, and the social world is always reproducing itself while changing (there’s a conflict between continuity and shifting membership- “displacement contradiction”). They also discuss technology use: tech has both “invisible” (unproblematic/easily integrated use) and “visible” (salience/utility for task) components- these together create the degree of technological “transparency” (tech. that are both easy to use and the user can understand the significance of tech. within the community are transparent.) Their ideas tie into the idea of discourse community (and they do discuss language), but they’re more interested in language as a way to talk about the community than as a vehicle for information transmission.

Links to: foundational text for a lot of stuff…

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discourse community/community of practice exam readings information representation rhetoric visuals

Exam reading: The rhetoric of visual conventions

On to my next exam reading list, which is focused on discourse communities, and the use of new media technologies and visuals in these communities.

Charles Kostelnick  and Michael Hassett’s Shaping Information: The Rhetoric of Visual Conventions wasn’t exactly what I expected. It presents a rhetorical view of visual design, in a framework of discourse communities. I think I was expecting more specific recommendations from this book, but it does provide a good link between the visual and community-focused materials on my list:

Summary: The authors attempt to construct a framework for analyzing visual rhetoric, based on conventions used in various genres, the social forces that shape those conventions, and the situation-specific interpretation of conventions by users/readers. Visual conventions frame our understanding of the world; they make design coherent and provide shortcuts for interpretation by readers. Three types of factors shape conventions: discourse community (e.g., disciplinary, cultural), rhetorical (e.g., pragmatic, imitation), and practical (e.g., cost, laws). Conventions are generated within discourse communities (and learning conventions is required for joining those communities); they’re mutable but can appear permanent. There are different levels of understanding conventions, e.g., using a physics formula on a t-shirt to evoke “geekiness;” increasing centrality in a specialist d.c. leads to more complex understanding of codes. Conventions have shifting “currency” (size of user pool + frequency of use); designers must make rhetorical choices about what to use. Finally, conventions can be hard to see, because they’re usually deployed with other conventions, and especially in specialist discourse can seem “natural.”

Comments: Emphasis is on the discourse community process as the basis for discussion of convention use in different genres; there’s a large social aspect to visual design for the authors. They discuss the ways conventions can either simplify or complicate the act of perception, but do not include a lot of detail from empirical studies; they do include a chapter on the types of convention “breakdown” that can occur (designers and users are in different d.c.’s, conflict with other conventions in the same work, etc.). They also discuss evolution of conventions, framed by the ways that the discourse communities that gave rise to those conventions changed.

Links to: Tufte 1, 2 (K&H would call his a specific type of rhetoric)