Kakali+Bhattacharya

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=November 15, 2006= Today's class was a mix of professional development issues along with a focus on the second data analysis project for the students. We began our class discussing about various possibilities of panel presentation at the QI conference and the roles that students would like to play. We re-worked the deadlines to ensure a longer time for students to be able to do good work in their second data analysis project. We also decided that we wanted t-shirts for our group at the conference in Illinois and that we will get 15 t-shirts so that I can give it to people that I need to suck up to. :) Grand idea guys! One student volunteered to look into it.

As we discussed what students' roles might be in the panel presentation, we entered into discussions about politics of evidence, who is in the room, who gets to make decisions, where do people publish, what journals are subscribed by the university, etc. There was an element of passion in the positions taken by each of the students and that always makes my job easier. The discussion around wikis, politics of evidence, and praxis made me beam with pride in terms of how well informed these students are already about qualitative methods and the troublings through which knowledge gets constructed. They said that they are going to the conference to make me look good. I think that is a hypebolic praise as they are such independent and motivated learners that I barely deserve any credit.

However, we discussed various stages of the dissertation process, the role of the data analysis paper in the bigger dissertation picture and whether or not it would be ok to double or triple dip. My goal, as I communicated, was to move the students forward in their dissertation. Anything that can help them think sharper and write better would be definitely a plus. It continues to astonish me that the students are not given any specific guidance and they are left to fumble on their own how everything might fit into their dissertation. I have done so much professional development in my classes, which I dont mind, but it surely speaks to the lack of help that is much needed for graduate students to be successful in their respective programs.

Finally we had a break and to my surprise the students barely took a break and continued to stay on task! I just think they are all freaks from another planet! :) It just makes me so happy to see that the students are excited and motivated to stay on task. One of the students said to me that for a lot of them there are a few things left in their lives that they can truly be excited about. If I play even a miniscule of a role to bring some passion and excitement, I think that I am on the right track for things I want to achieve about my teaching and mentoring. I don't see my teaching to end at the end of the class. I always think of building relationships that can develop beyond the duration of the course. After the break I discussed the various stages of phenomenological research methods. People seemed to take copious notes which never cease to make me giggle in my head because I feel like I am a prophet on a mountain top with words of wisdom! Ha! Not! (There is a not joke for you Borat! You read this or I will be execute!). I think I am still transitioning from being a graduate student to being a professor. However, its not always a bad thing because I can relate to the experiences of ambiguity and not having a benchmark for acceptable work. My analogy of running a race with an imaginary finish line which gets constantly removed resonated with many students today in class. I asked the students to do some writing exercise. I prompted them to think of their second data analysis project, where their head is at, what kind of analysis will they use, and why are they drawn to such an analysis. This activity actually replaced the NVivo demonstration I had planned for the second half of the class. Also the projector in the lab was absent! Yes I kid you not, there was no projector nor what happened to it nor any information of when it will be replaced. So anyway, I brought in my own projector to use in class although I abandoned the idea since I felt that the students needed to think about the second data analysis project so that they can get a good start at it and feel comfortable. After they finished the writing, I asked them to use the data analysis method that they want to use in their second analysis on their own reflection to see what that would produce. Students used Moustaka's data reduction, poetic expression, and story telling to work on their reflection pieces. Then as the students represented their work I offered some feedback for tightening and polishing pieces. The students seemed to appreciate the lack of NVivo and the insertion of the data analysis activity.

I informed the students that I am doing a NVivo training session for faculty on Jan 10 and 11th and that I could really use some helpers. I told them that they will definitely learn the software by being helpers and that they will be able to walk around and help people and I will give them a quick tour of the software before the class starts. I told them that they will not have to think about committing to the dates today but certainly to keep them in mind so that I can increase the number of faculty I can extend this workshop to which seems to be something that was encouraged by the powers that might be.

Finally as class ended, a student discussed his experience of presenting his first qualitative poster presentation and his ability to hold his ground (of which I had no doubt). We agreed to bring in our respective poster presentation for the next time we met. For the good of the group, students thanked me for extending the due date for the second data analysis paper. So thats it for now...until next time :)

=November 8, 2006= Well I missed last week's reflection. I have been sick and have been trying to catch up. Someone said that if you are caught up with everything you need to do then you are not doing enough. Oh well so here I am trying to summarize perhaps two of my most favorite topics in qualitative research - alternate forms of expression of qualitative data.

Last week we spoke about poetic and other forms of resistant practices. Students were able to identify even in such alternate forms of discussion some of the writing was boring where as the Cahnmann piece on poetic expression was an easy read and compelling. Students read out the poems and it felt like a powerful experience when words were used to focus in on an experience in embodied forms. the students looked at their data and crafted out a poem using strategies suggested by Cahnmann. The first take with the data revealed to the students that they were able to see things that they couldn't see on their first take. People were able to craft a found poem out of their work and identified that one would have to be good with the craft to be able to produce evocative pieces.

We also discussed the upcoming QI conference and the roles we wanted to play. We agreed that we need to begin to work on the proposal and collect our ideas together. One student already created a wikipage for the conference so that we can begin to collaborate together.What is interesting about this class is that they take a lot of initiative about their learning and how they want create their own journey for what they want to get out of their experiences. I have very little to do in this class and it is just such a rewarding feeling to be working with people who are accountable for their own learning experiences.

Finally I felt brave to share two poems I wrote. First was one about gender and violence, something I was considering for an autoethnographic piece for Qualitative Inquiry. It was not a poem that I had initially written to share with anyone. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that there needs to be challenges to how people understand women from India who are in multiple contested positions being in western cultures of thought, live, academics, and feminism. It was a troubling poem and after I finished sharing the poem there was a pregnant pause in the class. It rested heavy on some people and we got into a discussion about the transparency and vulnerability of autoethnographic pieces and how that might fit into a structured format of publication. Luckily for me there are feminist and qualitative journals that accept autoethnography and even if I get rejected it is part of the academic process. Secondly, I read a found poem from my dissertation data to show how you can juxtapose various parts of your data into a poetic narrative blurring in and out of the researcher's and participants' words. The second poem was safer and the students identified that. However, students were able to identify the role of descriptive detail as evidence when presenting data in poetic form. It was also evident that the students were able to identify that the poetic expressions could be a space to demonstrate contradictions and messiness of qualitative data while highlighting salient aspects of the participants' story.

At the end of the class students were able to identify the provocative nature of poetic expressions and how such alternate forms of expressions can say more in a short time and space than using prose at times. However, I hope that by presenting alternate forms of expressions, student feel the freedom and creativity involved in representing qualitative data. Within the next few days after this class I sent out a thank you email to students for their support in hearing my poem about gender and violence. I received very kind and supportive responses from the students.

Ok, moving on to today's class, we discussed issues of research design, word data, and politics of evidence. We also spoke about the need for faculty to hear about qualitative research so that the students can have some support as they defend their qualitative dissertation to their committee members who might not be as familiar with qualitative research. With this discussion we launched into the role of how surveys with word data fit into the research world. I made my subjectivities explicit when I called such research garbage that uses word data and calls it qualitative. However, upon an urging by a student I changed my language and called such research to be methodologically weak. :)

We moved into talking about the chapters on performance ethnography and autoethnography. students discussed a question from each of the chapters in groups. I am always amazed in terms of how well the students can process the complex ideas presented about representation and politics of evidence. The inductive analysis work submitted by the students were also an indication how far the students have come from when they first took qualitative methods. The discussion was informative and connected and I was able to show examples of Saldana's primer from chapter 3 of my dissertation. I am also amazed that not only students read these reflections but some have read my verbal diarrhea of chapter 3. I wonder if I put up my entire dissertation if they will read the entire thing :).

We discussed the difference between truth and fiction and how that difference can sometimes be delienated and sometimes blurred. While some students felt more comfortable with a clear declaration of parts of represnetation that were deliberately fictionalized, while I mentioned that I say that everything I say is suspect since I can't really delienate between truth and fiction in my head.

After break i tried Saldana's from page to stage activity. I asked students to tell a story about the first time or a time that they can recall when they felt different from other people around them. Then I asked them to begin with an engaging opening sentence. The activity was paired and students gave each other feedback and then changed partners and repeated the process. Then some students told their stories to the entire class. The ways in which students told their stories were indicative of their self expression and such expression ranged from being standing together as a part of a group picture to almost falling on the floor to using descriptive detail that can take you to the place and events recalled by the storyteller. I read my chocolate kisses to the students and then engaged them in a wrap up discussion. In the final discussion students were able to identify the power of embodied performance, descriptive detail, and situated subjectivities about what it means to be different and how that exposes people when one talks about such differences openly. I pointed out that we choose participants because we think they are different from others and therefore they can lend to the cause of whatever the researcher's agenda. We discussed the power of embodied experiences and how performing those experiences takes the audience on the journey with the performer and therefore can work towards creating awareness and evoking people to act.

Thats all I can think of right now. Time for bed. Until next time.

=October 25, 2006=

I think we have come to that point in the semester where the students are just fatigued and I was too. I had a really long week already and my days had been extended beyond my imagination. So today at class I opened the class with questions that they might have about their inductive analysis assignment. We discussed what people gathered so far, what they learned and realized so far and how this project and the next project fits into the bigger picture of their qualitative dissertation. We had an extensive discussion about dissertation process, professional development, and how to make academically compelling arguments. I continue to realize how little support these students have as they go through the dissertation process. Oh two students were absent today and they got nominated to be the secretary and the treasurer of the qualitative student group. That just goes to show you never know what will happen to you if you miss the class.

Then we discussed several issues around data analysis, publication, and academic rigor. I mentioned that with the work that they do in the class, they are barely scraping the surface in terms of getting the data analysis to a publication level. In order for them to be published they need to immerse themselves in the field for a longer period of time. Thus the exercises in the class are for the purpose of learning data analysis techniques, writing up qualitative findings, getting a solid foundation for their chapter three and then using this information to build on for their residency project and/or dissertation. We discussed how to think and analyze data inductively but write the dissertation deductively. We continued the discussion further using a student's analogy of Sherlock Holmes and deducing that the "the butcher did it" and how that might be used to understand inductive analysis and deductive writing. I tried to visually represent the ideas except there were no markers in the class. The students were very helpful trying to look for a marker in their bags and one student pulled out a toothbrush instead. We had a good laugh and I really appreciate the open learning environment of the class. However, we continued on the discussion about various chapters in the dissertation and how apart from chapter 3 every other chapter is deductive.

As we continued our discussion on inductive analysis and coming to a thematic representation, one student identified that he knows more than the data speaks. He has some intuitive awareness, issues of differences in subjectivities with the participants, all of which shape the way he constructs knowledge. The question was how should those issues be addressed in qualitative research. I showed the students excerpts from my chapter 3 where I discussed tacit data and various tangible and untangible sites of data. A few students really liked that kind of representation including my sites of data representation and said that it represented rigor to them. At the end of the class, students asked how long I will keep the chapter 3's up there and I said as long as I work for the university. They thought that the chapter 3's being up on my website was a very useful process. I hope that being a recent graduate allows me to remain connected to the students' needs and offer support and flexibility. I even discussed how weird it felt last year to have no voice on August 6th in qualitative methods and suddenly on August 17th, I was an expert. I think I am still in the transition stage and its not a bad place to be actually. It allows me to develop honest relationships with the students and I am able to elicit strong performances from the students.

We discussed the issue of attending the QI conference and who might be able to come. We will know better next week and we can then discuss our topics, who is going to be on the panel and how we might think of presenting ourselves. There was considerable interest. I have to really honest and say that I am so proud of this class. I have thrown so much at them and they don't complain at all. They work at the tasks and really take an interest in their learning. I have so much joy as I go to class. They make my teaching experience that much better.

One thing that came out of the introductory class and the advanced class this week is that what I ask them to do in a qualitative class are exactly those things that other classes discourage them to do and are considered bad academic practices. Therefore, to stay in these multiple spaces as students who want to perform highly is very frustrating, difficult, and I am sure inducive to multiple headaches. I wish that social scientists would create a broader understanding of scientific research from multiple perspectives so that students are not going to feel so pulled apart when they can feel legitimized in their academic pursuits instead of existing in contradictory learning spaces simultaneously. After the break we worked on Moustaka's data reduction and students found the technique to be an effective one for their purposes. People who were interested in phenomenology were able to create small story excerpts from Alex's in-depth interview transcription. This data reduction technique actually followed a discussion that we had before the break when a student asked me to explain the idea of data reduction and chunking. We discussed how Moustaka's data reduction can be used in any framework including a postmodern framework or a narrative analysis, or even a phenomenological study.

Finally the students had their own time to work on their goals for their wiki projects. I asked them to figure out what they wanted to do by the end of the class and how they wanted to approach that by next week and what they would include in their wiki posts by next week. So the requirements for next week is goals for final wiki entries, goals for entries for next week, and then presenting entries next week as an indication of their accomplishment of the goals they set. They said that it sounds like a performance evaluation and they can just write cream puff goals and try to accomplish them. This is what happens when you have way too...ummm... lets say very "smart" students :). The students stayed back an extra 10 minutes even after I reminded them that they are no longer expected to stay. Both groups continued to talk and discuss what they wanted to do with their wiki projects and how they wanted to work with each other. They showed me their initial approach and both of the groups were working towards fruitful directions. I am looking forward to what comes out of their discussion next week.

I think thats it for me today. Every time I think oh today's reflections will be short l write the longest possible reflection one can imagine. Alright...goodnight and goodluck...until next time.

=October 18, 2006=

Today's class was information rich. The class first started out with my new found playground of second life.From that we went into discussing postmodern liminality, simulacra, lines of flight, regimes of truth, and permanent deferral of meaning. I warned the students that if they are interested in having prolonged headaches then they can play in any posty field that they like. We then discussed the upcoming assignment next week and expectations around lit review. The lit review would have to be a methodological lit review that reflects the data analysis method that the student is using in the paper. It can be straight inductive analysis, or narrative analysis, or spradley's analysis. The idea is to create a thematic understanding using multiple sources data. If the students did not have the mutliple sources of data at this time, then they can use Alex's data as well just to get through the assignment. Once again, I assured, if they really missed the assignment, its not the end of the world and they can redo the work as it is all about the learning experience. The students are also free to produce more experimental pieces as a way to engage the reader, in this case, it would be their instructor who might have some form of mild adult ADHD.

We also discussed informed consent from the IRB perspective and how that might vary from person to person in terms of levels of confidentiality, using multimedia, and producing dramatic performances. The students discussed the formation of a student group that would get $500 per semester and Sandi was already nominated as the President. Karen, who was not here today, was nominated as the Vice President. You never know what will happen to you if you are not in class.

Then we had a break and went to work upstairs on the computer. The Phenoms needed to meet face to face because they had to iron out some wiki issues and it seemed like the preferred mode of meeting. I forgot to ask what those issues are. Maybe next week I can ask to see how face-to-face and wiki entries were collaborated in order for them to have some effective strategies to create their final product. Overall the students' accountability of their learning process is extremely high in this class and that makes it so much easier for me to teach the class.

In the NVivo part of the evening, we revisited uploading documents, free nodes, tree nodes, memos, project logs, inserting dates and times and general structuring of projects. I also showed them autocoding and sets. However, I know that I covered more information than the students could handle at that hour because I really threw a lot in their direction. They felt comfortable enough with some stuff but wanted to know if they can achieve analysis using word and other software for the project next week if that would be ok. The answer was yes. Because there is a learning curve around NVivo, I have decided that I will use the second half of the class for the rest of the semester getting students comfortable with NVivo. Then when I offer a training session in spring, the students can come back to either refresh or as helpers which would be extremely helpful to me and to their own level of expertise and comfort around NVivo. That was it for the class today and students were exhausted at the end. I kept them back for an extra 10 minutes and they didnt even complain or try to pack up! They said that it was a lot of information thrown their way and they are just tired by that time of the night. They just couldn't think anymore. Ughh, I think I am feeling the same way as my fingers are refusing to move. So thats it thats all...goodnight and goodlUck!



=October 11, 2006= What a bunch of [|slackers!]They did not want to do any work around grounded theory. All they wanted to do today was talk professional development issues. The academic games, posturing, dissertation process, publication, conference presentation, how many pieces can actually come out of a dissertation and what sorts of pieces are called methods pieces. It was a really engaged discussion, at least I was engaged because I was doing most of the talking (slackers!!!) and I think the students mentioned that this is a huge need for them in order to get through the dissertation process. I wish they had an equalizer course or a seminar course or something that offered them these kinds of information. We don't have enough students in Ed Research, otherwise, I would suggest one for Ed Research.

We discussed grounded theory a little bit but for the most part we stuck to discussions that the students would feel would be relevant in their graduate careers. One student asked me about de/colonizing methodologies and there was no turning back from there. Get me talk about my passion and off I went and the train did not stop for how long no one knows. We discussed the politics of evidence from the angles of publication, collaboration, name recognition, and also from de/colonizing epistemologies. It was interesting that there are some programs that require people to get a doctorate degree but do not encourage them to publish. In my opinion, and very humble one that is, an unpublished dissertation is a lot of hardwork without any recognition beyond being a step towards obtaining a degree. I cannot imagine the hard work the students would put in using qualitative methods and then let it collect dust. I had to be very blunt about my expectation should I serve on anyone's committee. That I expect publication and that I expect to be second author on methods pieces and third author on substantive pieces. I also said that if I am on your committee I will make you work much harder than I do in class. They laughed.

We discussed academic politics and relationships and bridges that a graduate student needs to build during his/her career. I shared a lot of my experiences and what I learned from them and I hope that it was helpful. Of course I put a disclaimer that it is my experience, and oh I also said if what I shared gets out then I will deny :) what I said and this post will self destruct in 30 seconds. Are you still reading this? Get away from the computer. Its about to blow. Hurry, run now! Run for your life mate!



Still here? Phew that was a close one! I suppose we can continue on. I had brought some journals that I picked up at QI and gave the students copies of various journals as a way to expose them to the world of qualitative academics. They also had access to QI Conference proceedings to get a feel for what abstracts might look like as they prepare for their own conference proposal later on in the semester. We also discussed the politics of evidence associated with my article at QI and also how knowledge can be legitimated if you call yourself the Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. Later the students said that if they were to create a student organization for those who are doing qualitative dissertation, they might call themselves the Congress of Qualitative Dissertation at the University of Memphis. Thats what you get when you have smart "you know what" students. I am still amazed though how little support the students get in terms of getting through their dissertation. It feels like they are in a sink or swim situation. I hardly know how Memphis works. I am just sharing my experience but I hope that it is beneficial in their own context here. I attached my job talk in the handout section for the students to see since they required some guidance in thinking through macro, midlevel, and micro level theories. Thank you Bettie St. Pierre for introducing me to that idea. I would have not seen theories clearly if it wasn't for you. I advised the students to stick to 2 theories. One broad substantive theory and one methodological theory for them to keep their life simple. God I hope their lit review isn't as long as mine was.

We discussed about combining phenomenological techniques of data reduction even if you were not from the phenomenological framework. The whole bricoleur, using any tools that make sense for your research came up as long as the arguments are aligned and justified. Oh we discussed writing, citing, unpacking, and relating to the research as a common practice in qualitative research. Students were taking notes here as well and I suspect that their training thus far has been mostly to paraphrase and not use direct quotes. Students were able to recognize patterns of data reduction in general inductive analysis, grounded theory, and phenomenological approaches which made me proud and instantly made me want to do a happy dance. I think I did a [|happy dance] in my head. However, we discussed the vulnerability and strength of qualitative research in terms of methodological creativity and structure. While we discussed that Grounded Theory offers structure and can be represented and argued well to many quantitative minded people, students also saw the merits of having open-ended experimental ways of creating knowledge as a strength of qualitative research. However, we discussed that because qualitative research takes on such a vigilant gaze on itself, it falls prey to criticisms of not having universally agreed standards of rigor. It is a tough balance to be reflexive and not appear as though I am presenting qualitative research as anything goes.



I mentioned that until you actually do your own research, you wouldn't know exactly what is rigor in your own study and how you maintained it and how you are going to justify your study. I suppose the short and sweet end of it is just do it. Perhaps those that criticize qualitative research should just do some qualitative research under the supervision of Lincoln, Guba, Lather, etc. and see what its like to stand up to the scrutiny of those who masterminded the field and continues to evolve with theoretical, methodological, and political challenges.

Anyway, at about 6:45 pm, I realized that there is no way I can stick to my agenda. So I just let it go.I told them that they are not going to get a long break and that we will go upstairs and work on NVivo either using their data or using the transcript from Alex's in-depth interview. Some people had their project data and others used Alex's data. We needed a refresher on how to import documents, create free and tree nodes. I also showed how to do memo links and insert date and time when creating memos. We found out that one memo can be linked to one document at a time however, the see also link can be used in a document to link any source of information in the entire project. Some people followed along pretty quickly and others needed a bit more hands-on help. Given that this class only has 8 students, it offers me the ability to work one-on-one with everyone pretty closely and address their methodological and technological issues. I really like that aspect of the class that if there is a student who might need some extra time, there are either other students to help that person, or I can go around and help because there are various levels of technical expertise amongst the students. On a side note, I discovered that when I stand on top of a raised platform I can get very authoritative in terms of kicking non-students out of the lab. Woohoo! Who knew that being just a bit taller could add that much weight to what I say. :) My plan is to stand on top of the table next time if the students decide to throw me off my agenda again :). Here now that I have said it in writing I might just have to stand on top of the table next time:).

I think at the end of the class, students were at least able to bring a new document in, create a new project, create free and tree nodes, create a memo and link the memo to existing documents. Some may have mastered all of it, but most have mastered most of it, or so I think. How is that for a really bad sentence? It was after eight pm and if I didn't tell them so, they would have continued to work. The geekiness of my students make me very happy. Anyway as part of the end of the class reflection, students remarked that although they threw me off track today, they found the discussions very helpful and much needed. Another student said I can begin to see how I would use Nvivo to look at how some ideas are coming up in my data. At the end, we came up with the idea of creating a qualitative student group where they can get some money and buy whatever it is that they need as students. I told them that writing the dissertation is a lonely process and if they can have support it would help them and I can bring in the intro students as well. They nominated a student who was absent as the president of the Congress of Qualitative Dissertation Students at the University of Memphis. Dear God, what have I spawned?:)) Anyway, I volunteered to be faculty advisor should they need one, except I said that I don't want to do any work. Its their group, they can figure out what they want. Perhaps its a discussion for next time and that better not take any more than 10 minutes. I will have to practice on standing on the table before the students get there:).

Ok thats it for now. I am off to watching Jon Stewart after doing the recap page. Everything I ever needed to know about current events come from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And thanks to any student who is reading this long drawn out pointless ramble of free floating thoughts. Thats the best that I can do at the end of a 14 hour day.

=October 4, 2006= Today's class was a combination of conceptual work and integrating technology. The students were expected to put their domain analysis on the wikipages and also add to their discussion on the final wikiproject. The discussions were engaging and there was a moment where a student felt that she lost all the wikidata that her group posted. I used the notify me function to retrieve a previous version of the information and uploaded the data. I showed the students the history tab and the notify me tab on every page and told them that this might be a good way to protect the data in case something like this happens again or the software messes up. I kept getting questions about the final structure and I deflected it back to the students as they feel would be relevant. This is a new concept and I assume an uncomfortable one for those that like structures. However, I am getting them comfortable with ambiguities and trusting the process of construction of knowledge. The structure I present is no more relevant than the one they come up with from their shared understanding and dialoguing. I didn't grade them for their entries. I felt that they had done a decent job of working at the wikiprojects. So I passed around a coupon book and rewarded them with coupons. They seemed happy or so I tell myself. :)

What I really like about this class is the level at which they are willing to adapt. There is a level of preparedness, a presence of independent learners, and a willingness to work hard. From my end, it is really easy and rewarding and I enjoy teaching so much when the students take accountability of their learning environment. They keep me on track and together we create a learning environment that works for all of us. I love that the students feel safe to laugh, tease each other, and create a camraderie amongst themselves as researchers. One student told me today that I wish I didn't have to work full time and I wish I could just be a researcher. Comments like that are so encouraging to hear and make me feel that in some small way I played some role in creating that interest and enthusiasm for research and a need to be immersed in it longer. The students even stayed after class was over and did not try to run away from me at 8:00 pm. I am so continually impressed with this group. The ownership they take for their learning process is tremendous and makes me feel honored to be a part of this experience.

Ok so that was nothing about wiki but I felt that I needed to put that in there somehow. So I began to ask questions about how the experience was to collaborate and share discussions on the wiki spaces. Many ideas were shared and I am listing them as much as I can remember:
 * ability to have an ongoing dialogue and develop ideas
 * ability to share ideas and not have to drive to campus to meet
 * intimidated to share ideas because the content is too complex
 * ability to collaborate with adult learners to construct knowledge, it juices me up
 * ability to think and reflect instead of a knee-jerk reaction
 * ability to see each other's ways of thinking and learning new information and new ways of constructing knowledge
 * ability to use individual learning styles to create dialogue and organize information
 * ability to use other people's learning styles and apply to own thinking
 * ability to create a final product that is a reflection of multiple learning styles
 * use of table of contents as a way to hyperlink the final document

I felt that these topics were very useful and the students were able to articulate what they were getting out of the process. However, not all was well with wikis as one student stated that while they appreciated the lack of the need to meet face to face being a positive aspect of working with wikis, some face to face interaction is still helpful to hash out the direction in which the group wanted to go to create a synchronous dialogue about their project. So I have to be mindful of that and create some time for them in class to hash out their ideas.

Also, one student emailed me and requested an organization on the left navigation bar that is divided alphabetically according to topics and personal pages.Once I did that, the organization of the space made much more sense and people were able to work with the wiki in a better way. Some people are still struggling with creating a new page and not finding it in the navigation menu. I showed one student that they have to edit the navigation menu and insert the link manually. Apart from that I am sensing that the students are becoming really comfortable with the wiki, creating tables, inserting pictures, inserting their own signature picture icons and creating bulleted subpages. I don't have to do much of orienting them to the site nor do I have to much troubleshooting with the students in terms of navigation, posting, or any other aspect of wiki. Its interesting that it took about a month and a half for students to get to this place. However, I am happy that they are here though. Growing pains for all of us but I think we are at a good place now with the wikis.

I have also begun to use the wiki as a way to brainstorm for research proposals, research purposes, research questions with students. However, that began to create some confusion for students because they felt they all had to post similar information as that posted from my individual brainstorming sessions with students. So we began to create subpages for things that are of more personal nature reflecting the student's dialogue with me or capturing some aspect of their research project which is not something required of everyone. This worked for me as well because students felt that it would keep their sessions with me separate from class related posts on their wikipages. On the other hand, people also created subtopical pages under their names as a way to work on some topic and dump all the information there in that topical page. The possibilities are really endless how this space can be used and I am glad to see that students are using the board to suit their learning needs.

Finally, we went up to the PC lab to work on NVivo in bringing in a source document and also working with free and tree nodes. I think the information was very new to the students and they need to be immersed a lot more into the software. We agreed that their personal data would be very helpful to use while we have these computerized classes. I intend to integrate NVivo more as we go along now that the software is loaded. For next week, I asked the students to post their taxonomic analysis on their personal wikipages in outline format based on the work they did in class. It was interesting that for some students, moving from domain analysis to taxonomic analysis created moments of discovery and identification of themes, while for one student it was an ineffective exercise. My guess is that the students' work on domain analysis was so powerful containing elements of analytical thinking with a close interaction with the data that hierarchical oragnization of those domains did not create any more meaning for him. Secondly, my guess is that this student might not also find much value in hierarchical thinking beyond the domain analysis. However, I think it was great to see the differences in learning experiences using a structured chunking and management of data. What I wanted to say is forget all of this hierarchy and lets just all be happy little posty deconstructivist feminist rhizoanalysts. But oh well! Can't influence everyone to think like I do. That would be jeopardizing their experience and limiting their range of understanding. Its not a very good strategy to spread my qualitative spawns out there in the big bad academic world.

Ok thats it for me for the night. I still have to work on class agenda for next week, recap page, presentation for Richard's class tomorrow morning, and an email for Friday's presentation to the college. Yikes...so much to do so little time. I wish I lived on Pluto, since I am not prejudiced against dwarfs or dwarf planets, and my days would have been so much longer. Are there any student from any of my class reading this? Or are these ramblings here purely for my amusement? Which is ok with me because I am very easily amused! Thats all folks in cyberspace. Cya in a week.

=September 27, 2006= Ok today's class had an extremely different feel than the rest of the class meetings for this course. I started out by discussing outstanding issues from last time, oriented the students to new additions on the website and discussed sample wikiprojects as well. Then I talked to them about the QI conference and asked them to perhaps create something that we can possibly present or put together for the conference. And most importantly, we went to the [|end of the internet]. I want to be known forever for the professor who took the students to the end of the internet. Anyway, we discussed my sample wiki page that I created for them and told them that this is a framework that makes sense to me but they do not have to stick to the framework. Then we discussed the possibility of threading politics of evidence in whatever wiki project that the students decided to do. The first part of the class was about obtaining hands-on experience about conducting document analysis and using Spradley's domain analysis worksheet to discover various semantic relationships. The students are going to post their domain analysis for next time on their wikipages along with a paragraph of interpretation they make from the domain analysis to understand how to work with data and use that as evidence to make meanings of data.

I did not notice students having any major difficulty with technology today. I think they have become much more comfortable with the technology and how everything is set up for class now and know how to get around on the website and get in and out of wikispaces with posts. Some students added a signature picture for themselves as well. Which made me realize that I wanted to do the same as well so voila I now have my signature picture as well. Today I played with the wikispaces some more and realized that I cannot change font color but creating table of contents to link to various parts of the page according to headings is very easy. This will help when our space becomes larger and longer and we dont have to fumble through this vast amount of repository to figure out where something is located.

The second part of the class was designed for students to come up with what they will be able to do by next week realistically about their wiki projects. This is where some interesting group dynamics occurred. There were a group of 4 students who were very interested in working on phenomenology. They are either using it in their dissertation or have a methodological and epistemological curiosity towards phenomenology. The rest of the class, especially, one student, felt kind of lost in the process as she understood that it would be a collaborative effort amongst the whole group and not two sub-groups. I said that it sounds like she wanted all of you to be a happy family first before you split up. I can be such a smart ass. Oops am I allowed to say that? Oh well Beth's school has already banned this site anyway. The trouble-making qualitative researchers. Anyway, one student tried to engage the phenomenology group to first collaborate together before splitting up but somehow the phenomenology group was not hearing of it the way the other group wanted them to hear. So one student remarked that there is no dynamite to split them up so lets work together the four of us. And they began to talk about politics of evidence and what that might mean for them. I was ok with anyway they structured themselves. I did not provide a whole lot of instructions because it wasn't really critical to me how they create their social networks. I was more interested in seeing the knowledge constructed through those social networks instead of wielding my authoritarian voice and say **I say therefore you do**. I even asked the students do I need to get authoritarian and tell you what to do and they said no. I laughed because here I am trying to promote a constructivist learning environment trying to foster a collaborative environment, and as much as I did not provide structure, when I offered they said no! :)

But as far as the wiki projects were concerned I gave the students the freedom to construct what they wanted to construct in terms of what might be helpful for them. One group began to think of phenomenology and started to think what might of importance to them and what they would want to know about phenomenology. They said that they would engage in a dialogue about questions and thoughts they have about various aspects of phenomenology amongst the group. They called themselves the phenoms after rejecting phenomenology for dummies. I was asked to bless that name, I did not react one way or other or at least so I thought, but they interpreted as something I didn't approve and they decided that dummies might be too harsh of a name. I told them that they are on their own and they don't need my blessings. I think there were members in that group that could have used more structured directions from me because it has generally been the nature of learning in classrooms. I guess this is what happens when you get a posty instructor in the middle of messy methodology who cannot possibly put or want to put labels and boundaries around students' independent learning activities as that stunts the decisions they would make collaboratively as to what they would deem important.

After been excluded by the phenoms, the Other group began to discuss what might be interesting to them. I was asked to describe what politics of evidence means to me. Of course I answered with it depends and then went on to lecturing them about contested methodologies, multiplicies, voices and silencing, and limits and possibilities. From that they became interested in creating a shared dialogue about the iterative relationship between data, evidence, and construction of knowledge in terms of politics of evidence. They decided that they will have a shared dialogue between now and next week and then they will focus on how they will ground their discussion in methods, methodology, epistemology, praxis, etc. I cannot wait to see what kinds of dialogues emerge out of these discussion and where the students will take this project. Both groups had a good understanding that the dialoguing and the working on these projects are not linear but webbed in ways that inform each other to collaboratively come up with a product. When I tried to explain this collaborative approach, the students said they knew. Guess my work is done there:). Its great when students are on task and they get it!

At the end of the class, I asked my for the good of the group question and the dialogue went like this: student 1: This class and this activity is the reason I came to grad school KB: Oh thats such a great compliment. I think I am going to cry. student 2: But do you know that student 1 is a suck up? student 1: Yes I am known to suck up but really this class is exactly the reason why I came to grad school KB: Sucking up will get you everywhere student 3: thats quite the statement student 4: Well this class is not the reason why I came to grad school. I need more structure. I mean I can do it but it makes me nervous because there is so little structure to this project. student 5: Isn't it interesting how we have all this freedom and how differently people are reacting to the freedom?

So there you have it folks. Some people are loving this independent learning environment while others are feeling nervous probably because they think what happens if they don't meet my expectations and don't come through. I told them that I will tell them to raise their performance levels if I see that happening. Hopefully that assured the various levels of anxieties that were present in the room for the lack of structure on the wikiprojects. I am sure that we will be able to work together to create a meaningful product. So thats it for me for tonight. Its been a long day (14 hours) and miles to go before I sleep.

=September 20, 2006= Tonight we wrapped up most of the wiki issues. Most students seem to be comfortable with the wikispace assignments now. However, some are still experiencing their own learning curves around the wiki, so we looked at signing in to the wiki site, adding content to personal pages, saving content that were added to personal pages, creating new pages, and creating links on the navigation bars on the left hand side manually since this wiki software does not allow a point and click option for menubar on the left. I am thinking that there might be more advanced wiki softwares out there that might provide the option but those softwares might also require more html editing skills. I am hoping that as the wiki technology develops, it will contain more sophisticated html editor so that users dont have to know any html coding and can just implement design and format changes using appropriate icons and buttons. People made comments that they cant really attach formatted word documents the same way in here and I agreed that it was a drawback of the wikisoftware here. However, this wikispace can do just basic formatting like bolding, italicizing, underlining, creating numbered and bulleted lists, adding links, images, media, and table. I suppose if we were more skilled at html coding we could make this page look fancier but oh well, this will have to do for now.

The students talked about their wiki project and I told them that they will have class time next week for them to brainstorm on their wiki projects. I hope and pray to God (oh no I am too tired to deconstruct God right not so I will let this one go) we will have a laptop cart available. I am going to look into that tomorrow and book the cart or take them to the lab or something. Sometimes I wish that the college had more support and technological resources for faculty who would like to use it. Nevertheless, I am pleased that most of the wiki woes are over and people are in a place of comfort now with the wikis. What I learned from this experience is that with a varied set of technical skills that the students bring to the class, it takes about one month for everyone to be comfortable working with new technology, however user-friendly it might seem from my perspective. What saddens me about this lesson learned is that I wish the students here were exposed to more classes that demanded some technological skills. It almost seems like a general level class could be helpful for all graduate students on topics like navigating the internet, handling basic softwares, writing in APA styles, writing an IRB, milestones to meet in their graduate program and details of requirements of those milestones. Many faculty and students seem to think that this is a good idea but to implement it college wide would mean expecting students to take more credit hours and that may not be acceptable to many programs. Well the flip side of that is we cannot expect students then to be able to do e-portfolios when they come from such diverse backgrounds of technical skills where the responsibility falls on the instructor who wants to be innovative with technology to train the students. A professional development course for the students would be a great asset in my opinion.

What works really well for this class is that I have excellent students who are very independent learners and take accountability of their learning processes. This morning I sent out a reminder email reminding them what they had to do for class today. One student said that it was very helpful and if we could have a page on the wiki that displayed recaps from class and expectations for the following week, it would be great. He also expressed that he is getting used to the new idea of submitting electronic assignments as opposed to paper-based work. I created a Recap page and added the link to the navigation bar and listed what we needed to do next week before class. In class, I asked if the recap page would be an useful tool for the students and they all agreed that it would be an extremely effective way for them to stay on top of everything they need to do for this class. As the class went on and we conducted our observation exercises, the nature of what needed to be done next week changed a bit. I added more details and explained those details with examples to the students. Then I put the details on the recap page so the students can address them effectively in their next set of wikis. We also felt that we should organize wiki reflections with most recent reflections first progressing down to the first one instead of the other way around that we have been doing. So I changed the directions of my reflections here and thought it made a lot of sense.

Ok so I digressed. Well I didn't have an interviewer keeping me focused heh heh!! Anyway, the students reflected on various styles of interview on their personal webpages and I was very pleased with the depth and critical thinking of the interviews. It also seems to me that using the simulated case study worked very well as an instructional tool and one student commented on their wikispaces that how rich media can be such an effective way to teach techniques and methodology. Oh how badly I wish there was another qualitative person in the department so the poor students were not exposed to the qualitative world according to Kakali the Krrazzie:).

Today's class was mostly on observation techniques, strategies for field notes, etc. We conducted some mock observation exercises in class and then moved to the mall with specific research questions. The students came up with those research questions based on things that they felt would be interesting for them to watch in the mall. They observed for about 15 minutes and then we gathered at the food court to reflect on those observations. As we were conducting our reflections a security officer came and told that he was called and told that there was a group that was meeting and apparently you are not allowed to meet as a group in the mall. However, if we had bought something and ate at the mall, it would have been ok. With all the ills in the world, why would anyone care to call security is beyond me but one of the students addressed the officer's question and he was satisfied with why we were there and left us alone. Note to self: If conducting observation exercise at the mall, buy food or drinks otherwise bored people call security officers. Anyway, at the end of our illegal meeting (bunch of trouble makers those qualitative researchers - gotta keep an eye on them, they do crazy things like meet at the mall), we defined what needs to go on the wikipages, what should be contained in expanded field notes, narratives, critical reflections, and reactions to other people's wikireflections on observations. I added that on the recap page immediately after I came back to the office.

My last thought for the night is I introduced the idea of creating a symposium with us and the students for the QI conference next year. I said that it would be great if we could talk about how we used technology, pedagogy, and methodology together to create this culture of fluid and messy understanding of what counts as evidence, what is data, how are people informed about data and what role did this technological tool play in creating such knowledge and perpetuating such understanding. The class already has a conference proposal requirement and it is an international conference which will look good on anyone's CV. So I am hoping that we can get a group of people to go together and do the conference and then maybe one of us could video tape the conference and then bring it back and showcase it to the college and to the Dean and show what good work we are doing from the qualitative program and how we are putting Memphis on the international map of Qualitative Inquiry. Thats all for now. My brain is pretty fried right now. So I stop here before I start sounding crazier than I normally do. It has been a 14 hour day already and its not over yet. Somehow these reflections will have to pay off sometime...it just has to. :) Besides I am sure I will really appreciate it when I publish from it and see how critical it was to maintain these reflections instead of relying on general recall. There is politics of evidence for ya. :) So heres to goodnight and goodluck and until we meet again and all that jazz and every other cliche that my brain cannot come up with at this hour. Toodles!



=September 13, 2006= I received a couple of emails from students in terms of having a hard time getting into wikispaces and into my website. I figured out the wikispaces situation was that many did not realize that they needed to sign in, in order to get into wikispaces in order to edit the page and create their posts. I also realized that the class had members with varied technical skills from novice to advanced. I decided to bring in a laptop cart and walk people through the very basic technical requirements of the class. I am assuming that it addressed a lot of the hitches and glitches that people were experiencing. Its amazing how much learning new technology has to be a hands-on experience. What I learned from this experience is that for all my classes from here onwards, I will at least have a first class with laptop carts and devote 20 minutes to take the students through the website, to wikispaces and have them at least do the tasks themselves so that they can figure out where they need to assimilate and accommodate their schema information. I also told them that I will have a sample page with a sample wiki project thats in my head and they can use that to frame their thinking.

Then the students told me that they are learning to think differently about course content and materials where now they have to access video clips and sound and other form of information that is not text based. While I have a website that is very similar to the webCT and umdrive structure, I think that presentation in a different medium makes it look and feel different and therefore yet another new thing to learn. People expressed anxiety around that issue and I asked what I can do to extend a smooth transition for them and I was told that nothing. They will adapt to the technology as long as I am consistent with my thinking, they will figure out how to orient themselves to the class materials. Thats music to a crazy instructor's ears who wants to try out all sorts of weird things that are out there.

What was interesting was that right after people felt comfortable with the technology, they began to talk about the substantive matter of the class, data analysis, issues of rigor, using data analysis software etc and the entire class was conversation based on the questions that the students asked. We did not even take a break and my entire agenda was thrown out the window. I loved it because it felt that the students were getting answers and some of their anxieties around a lot of ambiguous issues were addressed. I really think that this college needs to have a graduate seminar class that addresses issues like dissertation, professional development, the milestones of getting to the dissertation, the paperwork that needs to get done, the requirements for IRB etc. I mean we spend a lot of time talking about so much of these structural and logistical issues and I am happy to do so but I think that the College ought to think of ways to be more helpful to the students and more specific in their requirements and policies.

Overall, I walked away from the class feeling much better today than any other meetings because I felt that some of the hitches and glitches around technology were effectively addressed, people were able to talk about their anxieties and we were able to get beyond what is working and not working with technology to the matter of the class and people were able to ask questions that were of critical importance to them. Why oh why do I not keep things simple? I could have always taught the class on overheads and power point presentations and posted them on the umdrive. Nah! Thats not me and I will always try to find new ways of thinking about teaching, technology, pedagogy, and methodology and sometimes all in the same place. I will say this though - it is much easier for me to support the students in the advanced methods class than the intro class because its a smaller class. I feel bad that I cannot provide the same kind of individual support to the other class. I will see how the other class responds to the wiki assignment by Friday and if they do not, then I will bring a laptop cart in next class as well.

One student in the other class emailed me and said that I have made an assumption about people's technical skills which I should not have even if they are doctoral students. I have been pretty astonished by that because it seems that the students' experiences in other classes demanded so little of them that the task of going to a website, logging in, and posting some information seem overwhelming to them. And the college wants to move towards a portfolio assessment? I think that until we as instructors help students become technology literate at the most basic level, they will not be able to compete with people out there on a local, national, or global level. And I am hoping that the students acquire some professional skills of presentation, navigation, technological literacy, and accountability of their learning experiences through classes that challenge their comfort level so that they can rise to the high expectations that should be held of them.

Thats it. I am done my ranting for today. It is time to call it a night. I am officially calling it a day and going home. It has been yet another very long 16 hour day and I am totally exhausted. I also think that if I did not write these reflections now, I would not have been able to recall much of this tomorrow. So its a necessary evil that I think I have to live with.

= =

=September 6, 2006= Today I discussed with the students the vision I have for the wikiproject but I emphasized my flexibility and openness should that vision not turn out to be realistic. I feel that the class is very supportive of all the crazy new things I throw in their direction. One student said that I would freak out if I knew it was someone else. But because I know its you, I know we will get through this. I am hoping so too that we will get through this and along with new and advanced content, new technology, very abstract theoretical framworks, guiding qualitative data analysis, we have our work cut out for us. But when have I walked away from a challenge? I think challenges make me think harder and come up with better ways to solve problems. The good thing is that I am not going to be the only person thinking through this. The students rephrased things that I were stating in much better terms than mine. I laughed because it sounded so much better when they stated that with the wikispaces it sounds like there is a substantive element to it and a discussion element to it. Another student defined the course better than I could and stated that it sounds like we do a bit of data collection and get deeply immersed in data analysis. Another student said that the initial take on the wiki sounds like it might just be a dumping ground and that they might not know till the end of the semester what might be the most relevant information. Another student said that last week when I discussed the wiki, it sounded like it was going to be messy and this week it sounds like it would get messier, but thats ok. We can filter through that mess, she said. We looked at the [|Brian Lamb] article and talked about how quickly a wiki can become messy.

This is true and I dont really have a need for it to be nonmessy. So I think thats ok by me. We went through the home page and the requirements for the wiki project and how their personal page will serve as a space for them to cut and paste their contributions for me to grade them. However, I made it very clear that at this stage of the game it is not about grade because I wanted them to learn. So if they did not do well on an assignment, they can do it again as I am more interested in their learning than grading them down. I guess my class is designed on a criteria based design as opposed to a norm based design. I have asked the students to look at the [|indepth] interview on my [|website] as stated in the guidelines in today's [|class agenda]. They are to reflect on interviews and the process of generating knowledge on their own wiki pages here. I am looking forward to what that means for everyone and what it was like for them to work in this wikispace. Something that I found was very interesting was that people agreed that while this class is structured, most of the learning and ownership of what they get out of it lies on the students.

I guess I have gone all the way to constructivism valhalla with that remark. Other students agreed and I tried to assure them that I will support them in all possible ways, meet in the middle of the semester individually to touch base with them, and also reminded them that I see them as future colleagues. Therefore it is just as much their learning environment and more so than mine. I see myself as a facilatator instead of the knower of all knowledge. God I cant imagine posturing like that. Yeah I have a degree that gives me some privileges and rights but this is an advanced data analysis class for doctoral students. They will be independent scholars within the next couple or so years. So why not create a supportive learning environment that allows them to become effective scholars and communicators in their field so that they can author their experiences as they see fit. I think methodologically and pedagogically many interesting things will happen in this class. One student wants to bring in a portable projector and collaboratively work on wikispaces with the rest of the class where people can project from their laptop without actually making a connection.

I am interested in seeing what kinds of learning that can create. It would also be interesting to see how data analysis is conceptualized when we work on NVivo on different laptops and how people move through their own analysis and share information with each other. It pays to have a collaborative class that thinks progressively. I am open to the ideas and I suggested that student can discuss the idea of bringing in a portable projector with the other students and if they agree, then thats fine with me, since its their learning environment after all. Thats it from my end for tonight. I am going to think of creating more pedagogical aids for the students to make their learning process easier and the transition from being beginner to advanced qualitative learner smoother than what they feel right now or maybe what meaning I have given to their facial expressions when I was going through the syllabus and the class requirements.

=September 5, 2006= This wikispace is for my advanced qualitative data analysis class. I have a small group of students of whom most of them worked with me in their introduction to qual methods class, except for one student. Last time I discussed the open-ended nature of the wiki data analysis project, and while I think the students in the class know that I am more about learning than grades, they needed more directions initially from me than what I provided them. I told them that they need to create a repository of information on data analysis that would be useful for people in their positions. While they knew that I was not looking for an exhaustive library of qualitative data analysis, they felt that the project's scope was still too broad and vague and needed more focus.

So I created the home page and included what I envisioned as the project's focus and created an [|appropriate rubric]for their individual roles in the project as well. I left the option to the students to modify these guidelines as well because I feel that being new at this as an instructor and working with independent adult learners, they can just as well take ownership of their learning, their collaborative construction, and the benchmarks they want to achieve realistically as a group. So while my guidelines can serve as an initial focus, I fully expect this class to work with those guidelines and modify or reinvent them if they deem it necessary. Perhaps this is one of the best part of being and wanting to be a decentred instructor.

An ability to offer students a collaborative learning space where they can define their own learning and benchmarks for their own achievements mean that not only students are taking ownership, but there is a social learning environment that is giving meaning to their learning experiences. I also created individual student pages for this wikispace like the introductory qualmethods wikispace.The creation of personal pages can possibly alleviate the nervousness and anxieties of students who are not so fond of learning new technologies. I chose wikispaces because it is very easy to use, user friendly, very intuitive, and can allow easy editing, insertion of links, images, and embedded media, without requiring the students to know or use any html coding. I know that when I was looking at wiki designs for the class, I felt overwhelmed even by the simple list of html commands.

While those commands are easy enough to remember, a simple html editor or basic CSS style sheet options can make the process very easy for students and instructors new to the wikispaces. I think then I dont have to worry about going back and forth between looking at html codes and I can just concentrate on using this space and thinking of different ways I can integrate using this space in my classes. So thats it for now. We have a class tomorrow. I am looking forward to what comes out of the class discussion and the role of wikispaces in the students' projects, and how they might want to approach their wikiproject.