The problem of interpretation in vignette methodology in research with young people

In this paper we explore how interpretation is dealt with by researchers using a vignette methodology. Researchers using vignette methodology often struggle with interpretation: how to interpret the responses when participants shift between discussing the vignettes as themselves, taking the perspective of the character in the vignette and commenting on what ‘ought’ to happen. We argue that by foregrounding a consideration of the method with an explicitly articulated theoretical position of dialogicality, issues inherent in interpretation become a valuable addition to the research rather than an obstacle to be overcome. In the paper we discuss ‘Louise’ a young carer, detailing the various positions she takes in her talk about the vignette of Mary, a fictitious young carer, to illustrate how a perspective based in dialogical theory contributed to the analysis of her various moves through different identity positions

Present teaching stories as re-membering the humanities

he ways in which Humanities scholars talk about teaching tell something about how we interact with the past of our own discipline as well as anticipate our students’ futures. In this we express collective memories as truths of learning and teaching. As cultural artifacts of our present, such stories are worthy of excavation for what they imply about ourselves as well as messages they pass onto our successors. This paper outlines “collective re-membering” as one way to understand these stories, particularly as they present in qualitative interviews commonly being used to research higher education practice in the Humanities. It defines such collective re-membering through an interweaving of Halbwachs, Ricoeur, Wertsch and Bakhtin. It proposes that a dialogic reading between this understanding of collective re-membering and qualitative data-sets enables us to both access our discursive tendencies within the Humanities and understand the impact they might have on student engagement with our disciplines, noting that when discussing learning and teaching, we engage in collectively influenced myth-making and hagiography. The paper finishes by positing that the Humanities need to change their orientation from generating myths and pious teaching sagas towards the complex and ultimately more intellectually satisfying, articulation of learning and teaching parables

Children's creative collaboration during a computer-based music task

The purpose of this study was to identify and analyse specific instances of transactive communication as children engaged in a paired melody writing task using a computer-based composing environment. Transactive communication has been identified as one of the features of general collaborative engagement that is most helpful in an educational sense, and which makes collaborative learning an important tool for learning and teaching. The paper reports the results of an empirical study in which a group of 10 and 11 year olds worked in pairs to compose short melodies using computers. Analysis of between-pupil dialogue suggested that levels of transactive communication varied between pairs, and also within pairs as pupils took on different roles at the computer. Factors of individual difference, such as musical expertise or whether the pair were friends, did not appear to have a significant influence on the extent of, or nature or, transactive communication

Texto e dialogismo no estudo da memória coletiva

As ideias bakhtinianas sobre texto e dialogismo oferecem ferramentas importantes para trazer ordem ao caótico e fragmentado campo dos estudos da memória coletiva. Embora a definição de memória coletiva neste momento ainda esteja por ser resolvida, é possível obter alguma compreensão do espectro de opções, situando-se as discussões em termos do contraste entre versões fortes e distribuídas da memória coletiva. Tendo por base a noção de mediação semiótica e as afirmações a ela relacionadas sobre uma versão distribuída da memória coletiva, invoca-se a noção bakhtiniana de texto dialogicamente organizado. O fato de que o 'sistema da linguagem' concebido por Bakhtin inclui as orientações dialógicas do diálogo coletivo, generalizado assim como os elementos gramaticais padrão, significa que ele introduz um elemento essencial de dinamismo na memória coletiva.Bakhtinian ideas about text and dialogism provide important tools for bringing order to the otherwise chaotic and fragmented field of collective memory studies. While the definition of collective remembering may remain unsettled at this point, some appreciation of the range of options can be derived by situating discussions in terms of the contrast between strong and distributed versions of collective remembering. Building on the notion of semiotic mediation and associated claims about a distributed version of collective remembering, Bakhtin's notion of dialogically organized text is invoked. The fact that the "language system" envisioned by Bakhtin includes the dialogical orientations of generalized collective dialogue as well as standard grammatical elements means that it introduces an essential element of dynamism into collective remembering

New perspectives on health professions students' e-learning:Looking through the lens of the "visitor and resident" model

<p><b>Background:</b> The growth of e-learning in health professional education reflects expansion of personal use of online resources. Understanding the user perspective in a fast-changing digital world is essential to maintain the currency of our approach.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Mixed methods were used to investigate a cohort of postgraduate, e-learning healthcare students’ perspectives on their use of online resources for personal and/or professional roles, via questionnaire and student-constructed diagrams, capturing use of online resources (underpinned by White’s model of “resident” and “visitor” online engagement). Semistructured interviews explored the use and value of resources afforded via the online environment.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> The 45 study participants described a range of prior experiences with online resources in personal and professional capacities, but overall students tended to use online “tools” (“visitor” mode) rather than highly collaborative networks (“resident” mode). In relation to e-learning, the dominant interview theme was valuing knowledge transfer from the tutor and using “visitor” behaviors to maximize knowledge acquisition. Peer-learning opportunities were less valued and barriers to collaborative “resident” modes were identified.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> These findings help to inform e-learning course design to promote engagement. The results enable recommendations for use of the “Visitor and Residents” model and for planning activities that learners might utilize effectively.</p

Co-curate: Working with Schools and Communities to Add Value to Open Collections

Co-Curate North East is a cross-disciplinary initiative involving Newcastle University and partner organisations, working with schools and community groups in the North East of England. Co-curation builds on the concept of the ‘ecomuseum’ model for heritage based around a virtual territory, social memory and participative input from the wider population. The project also leverages open licencing and facilities to harvest and repurpose collections of photographs, video clips, and other artefacts. Technologies were developed to support co-production and co-curation, including facilities to combine (‘Mashup’) materials from formal collections of museums and archives with Open Access (OA) content from informal community-based resources. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the technologies used and developed during the project, with a particular focus on how Open collections were used, in both formal and informal educational contexts.A diverse range of community and school groups participated in the project, including a large-scale pilot with a High School which integrated use of the Website as part of an ‘enquiry-based’ scheme of work over several weeks, culminating in the students giving an exhibition in a prominent regional gallery. Levels of knowledge of copyright and licensing varied between groups, but were generally low. Issues around copyright and licenses were a major component of ongoing discussion with groups as part of the co-curation process.Co-Curate is an innovative project using OA materials in a range of educational and cultural settings

Employing culturally responsive pedagogy to foster literacy learning in schools

 In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that, to enable students in schools from an increasingly diverse range of cultural backgrounds to acquire literacy to a standard that will support them to achieve academically, it is important to adopt pedagogy that is responsive to, and respectful of, them as culturally situated. What largely has been omitted from the literature, however, is discussion of a relevant model of learning to underpin this approach. For this reason this paper adopts a socio-cultural lens (Vygotsky, 1978) through which to view such pedagogy and refers to a number of seminal texts to justify of its relevance. Use of this lens is seen as having a particular rationale. It forces a focus on the agency of the teacher as a mediator of learning who needs to acknowledge the learner’s cultural situatedness (Kozulin, 2003) if school literacy learning for all students is to be as successful as it might be. It also focuses attention on the predominant value systems and social practices that characterize the school settings in which students’ literacy learning is acquired. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice at whole-school, classroom and individual student levels of culturally-responsive pedagogy that is based on a socio-cultural model of learning. In doing so it draws on illustrations from the work of a number of researchers, including that of the author