Category: Uncategorized

The word academy is like a label spread around the world. As legitimate peripheral learners in academia, doctoral students aim for a full member or a master member in the whole community of practice. Doctoral students are living in the space- between old-timers and new-timers; between novices and seasoned scholars; between fully online and face-to-face learning. It is intriguing to delve into doctoral students’ social learning space with a more holistic view as our minds, formal and informal learning contexts, and online and offline environments constitute each other.

Is loneliness the nature of doctoral students’ learning space? In fact, I have found there is a coexistence of solitude and cooperation in the doctoral journey. In the digital era, when various new technologies expand the connectedness and networks expand connectedness and networks, I feel the role of social learning in doctoral learning is getting more critical. From the perspective of the theory of social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978), knowledge is constructed within social activities and learning takes place in the daily interactions with others. Learners create and negotiate meanings through different activities in an active and inquiry-based way. Learners jointly co-create their reality and develop the professional knowledge body with multiple perspectives. Furthermore, according to social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), humans learn through observation, interactions, and modelling as we are social animals.

Nevertheless, doctoral learners’ social learning seems to be unique. We do not have fixed schedules like undergraduate and master’s students do. We spend much time doing our study alone. It does not mean social learning does not happen among students. Instead, doctoral students’ social learning happens in a specific way, which can be explained by the concept of situated learning from the theory of community of practice (Wenger, 1998). I am finding it useful to consider doctoral students as a group of legitimate peripheral learners in academia. Beyond our individual projects and outside some core skill and required classes in the early stage, as doctoral students we seek wider support from different layers and types of communities of practice within and outside academia. The networks are supporting us intellectually, socially, and emotionally, having great influences on our whole doctoral learning trajectories. The social connections play an important role in our identification with the scholarly community, facilitating our mental wellbeing. In addition, the social space has become a part of a hidden curriculum embedded in their doctoral learning.

From the Wengerian view, learning is doing. In the dynamic learning process, doctoral learning shapes our identity as doctoral students. Through legitimate peripheral participation, doctoral identity is a kind of ‘third space’ (Bhabha, 1994) since we are already a member of academia to some degree but have not achieved our full goals yet. This in-betweenness reflects the ambiguity of doctoral students’ status as a trainee or an apprentice. I analyse doctoral students’ learning experiences as a contextualised social phenomenon, and our legitimate peripheral participation identifies how we grow from newbies/novices to seasoned researchers by situated learning within multiple layers of practice. The communities in which doctoral students participate in can be institutional, culture-based, language-based, and common interest-based. These connections help us produce knowledge together, get socialised, and cultivate a sense of belonging and a doctoral persona. However, every community of practice required maintenance for sustainability. Overcoming diverse obstacles together in the academic odyssey relies on regular and meaningful connectedness. Support systems may not always be a defaulted part of the pedagogy offered, but we can be active in creating the social networking opportunities we need.

With portable technologies as a conduit for virtual communities of practice, doctoral students’ identity formation and belonging development become more expansive, fluid, and dynamic. Throughout education, we are traversing the spectrum of experiences that include identification and belonging’, ‘dis-identification’, and ‘dis-belonging’. This nonlinear socialisation unfolds within the regime of knowledge and happens when we cross boundaries to approach other landscapes of practice where boundaries are considered a learning asset. In the realm of doctoral education, there exists a decoupling of teaching and learning, implying that the act of learning is not soley a direct outcome of instructional efforts.

References

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Bhabha, H.K. (1994). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity.UK: Cambridge University Press

 

Date: October 16,  2023

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?“

This philosophical thought, often attributed to George Berkeley, considers the manner of sound and perception, does sound exist outside of the listening ear? Using funding from the TLC Research Centre, we are trialling ways to record and edit the soundscape of a school, using the School of Education as a test case. However, some of the questions that we are grappling with are these: What is a soundscape? Whose soundscape are we recording and when? What about ‘human created’ sounds, such as footsteps, encounters between the fabric of the building and the visitor? Research into otoacoustic emissions suggest that our ears make sounds when listening (see, for example, Shera, 2022). If sound exists in relation to the listening ear, can the school have a soundscape or are there multiple layers of soundscapes? Should we say OUR soundscape or MY soundscape? If we are focusing on sounds in the periphery of consciousness, whose cognitive and emotional responses are being considered?

Thinking reflexively, there are inevitable consequences of relying on our own listening ears as researchers, our own personal responses that affect the process. The sounds recorded depended on the recording devices and studies show that we are affected by inaudible, hence unrecordable, hypersonic sounds (see, or example, Kawai et al, 2022). Further questions arise that ask: What sounds are recorded? What sounds exist that we, as the researcher team, have not previously been aware of? How can we capture what we do not know exists? How can we be in the moment, hear what there is to hear, rather than what we expect to hear? How do we deal with silence, which could be said to have no sound but can be impactful as part of a person’s soundscape?

The challenges of recording a soundscape are the dilemmas of what to include and exclude, what is known and not known, what is heard and not heard. It could be argued that a soundscape exists in the act of listening to sounds rather than the sounds themselves, the responses that a person has and the memories and/or affect that are invoked. Not objective but subjective, a tapestry of sound, listening and response.

References

Kawai, N., Honda, M., Nishina, E. et al. (2022). Positive effect of inaudible high-frequency components of sounds on glucose tolerance: a quasi-experimental crossover study. Sci Rep 12, 18463 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23336-0

Shera, C.A. (2022). Whistling While it Works: Spontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions and the Cochlear Amplifier. JARO 23, 17–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-021-00829-9

A poem

                                        Thoughts about soundscapes

                                                       lead to

                                                                   questions

                                       A sound scape

                                                     layering?

                                                                  yours or mine?

                                      Listening ears

                                                   Lack of knowledge?

                                                                 In the moment?

                                     Silence

                                                  Soundless?

                                                              Impactful?

                                     A tapestry

                                                 listening?

                                                              response?

Victoria Bowen, Harriet Hand and Alf Coles

It all started with an idea… a seed of something indistinct… a way of acknowledging the kaleidoscope of research work happening daily within the Teaching Learning and Curriculum (TLC) community at the School of Education, University of Bristol. A group of three formed and we mused …

One of us shared this take on the idea of a pamphlet:

“One has complete freedom of expression, including, if one chooses, the freedom to be scurrilous, abusive, and seditious; or, on the other hand, to be more detailed, serious and ‘high-brow’ than is ever possible in a newspaper or in most kinds of periodicals… Above all, the pamphlet does not have to follow any prescribed pattern. It can be in prose or in verse, it can consist largely of maps or statistics or quotations, it can take the form of a story, a fable, a letter, an essay, a dialogue, or a piece of ‘reportage.’ All that is required of it is that it shall be topical, polemical, and short.” – George Orwell, in an introduction to the British Pamphleteer

And so, a seed was planted.

An invitation went out to the TLC community to contribute to a pamphlet that would showcase and connect the diversity of research happening in the research centre. This first pamphlet would be aimed at teachers and, in defining a pamphlet, would take inspiration from Orwell giving authors complete freedom of expression. We hoped the pamphlet would help connect some of our research to a those working close to practice.

Two weeks later, following a brief editorial process, the first ‘TLC pamphlet’ was curated with a range of contributions, images, and links to other work. A further two weeks welcomed its publication with the aim of helping the diverse perspectives and research interests and activities of the Centre reach a wider practitioner audience through distribution to the School’s PGCE students. We asked each PGCE student to read the pamphlet and then give it to a teacher in their placement school.

A seed was now a sapling, with hopes of one day becoming a tree, rooted and established in the teaching and learning community. A step towards this will be the publication of issue two in the summer.

Issue one of the ‘TLC pamphlet’ can be found here. There are some spare hard copies at the reception desk of 35 Berkeley Square. If you would like to contribute to future issues, we welcome submissions from postgraduate researchers and academic staff. Or, perhaps, you would like to be part of the editorial team. Contact: victoria.bowen.2018@bristol.ac.uk.

By Mrs Michelle Graffagnino, Senior Lecturer in Education, and Dr Nicola Warren-Lee, Senior Lecturer in Education.

After attending a Bristol Education Partnership Climate Change event at City Hall in Bristol, Nicola and Michelle recall the brilliance of the student contributions, the passion of the senior leaders and the ambiguity of the attending DfE representative.

City Hall in Bristol is impressive.  Even more so on a crisp autumnal morning full of enthusiastic school students armed with posters, and a cohort of beginning geography teachers ready to take their first steps into a microteaching event on climate change curriculum improvement in October 2022. The Bristol Education Partnership (BEP) had organised a climate conference to showcase individual schools’ climate change initiatives and to bring students to take part in workshops on different areas of climate action.  The School of Education, PGCE Secondary Geography group were there to support discussions on how the curriculum that students follow could be changed, improved and linked together.

Reflections on the day for school students

Young people don’t need to be told to think ’blue skies’, they just do.. A snippet of their ideas from the morning includes:

• write climate change speeches in English
• look at the industrial revolution and link to climate change in history
• explore the fight against climate change in France/Spain; helping to understand climate change as a worldwide issue
• meat-free Mondays
• Walk + Wheel; an initiative to get more people walking and cycling
• lesson time on empowering voices; encouraging their student climate voice

Full of ideas, they heard from Mya-Rose Craig in the afternoon whose recently published book ‘We Have a Dream’speaks of Indigenous people and people of colour who are disproportionately affected by climate change, yet often are not heard in global conversations.

The opportunity then came for a speaker from each school group to voice their concerns and offer strategies to the audience in the Grand Council Chamber at City Hall.  The students were passionate and articulate in voicing their aspirations for climate change to be at the heart of the curriculum, school and wider communities. The school students, representing the 14 BEP schools, ended the day by listening to Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, discussing council-led initiatives and how each city and their communities should be the focus of grassroots climate change initiatives to have the impact needed at a global scale.

Reflections on the views of senior school leaders

What was clear from attending the working lunch with senior leaders of the BEP schools is that there are different priorities across very different contexts. In feedback to the Bristol City Council, some school leaders present wanted quicker planning permission to make school site changes, some wanted acknowledgement that the current government showed complete ignorance of the day-to-day concerns of their student population, including their climate anxieties. One headteacher suggested they (the BEP) collectively reject some of the government guidance on what to teach/what not to teach (referring to guidance on being apolitical in classrooms).  Senior leaders present suggested taking a ‘Bristol Approach’ to the curriculum, featuring social justice and climate concerns at the heart. For our part, we spoke of a climate curriculum in schools which was research informed, joined-up and incremental. We emphasised it is not a case of a one size fits all approach, instead each school’s Climate Change Curriculum should include the context of its young people and their communities. The Climate Change Education Research Network (CCERN) was (re)introduced and all senior leaders showed interested in working with academics from the University of Bristol in helping to shape their school curricula going forwards. This is something we have trialled and hope to develop further (see Cabot climate project).

Bristol’s One City Climate Strategy states that, ‘We will move faster than the national average, learning with other cities on our journey. This strategy sets the vision for where we need to be in 2030 based on sound science’.  It is clear that Bristol’s schools must lead the way in creating and modelling a ‘fit for the future’ curriculum, one which uses robust and available research evidence on climate change and climate change education. This is something which we, as a university, are calling for as well (please see PolicyBristol).

Reflections on the views of a strategic lead

In attendance was Jonathan Clear, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Department for Education, who agreed to join the climate conference to hear the students’ ideas and to find out more about what Bristol is doing in response to the climate crisis. He spoke of “flexibility in the curriculum” to deliver a quality climate change education for Bristol’s young people. National curriculum documents that are “slow to change”, as he put it, can be enriched and enhanced by utilising this flexibility. Orchard et al. (2016) encourage teachers to discover and create ‘leaky spaces’ in the curriculum to explore and reflect on normative ethical inquiry – we wondered if Jonathan was referring to something similar.  If so, this raises many questions:

• How do (head)teachers know when, where and how to flex their 950 (ish) hours of curriculum time across the year to ensure the students are ready for living in, and positively contributing to, life in a net zero world?
• Aren’t all of the ‘leaky spaces’ often taken up with a knowledge-rich (heavy?) curriculum, post-pandemic literacy interventions, and an increasing need to evidence certain types of performance, etc.?
• Doesn’t leaving climate education down to inclination seem irresponsible and woefully inadequate?

Jonathan Clear has agreed to attend a future CCERN meeting so perhaps we can follow up these questions with him in the near future

 

Michelle Graffagnino and Nicola Warren-Lee

Many thanks to Dr Lucy Wenham and Dr Simon Brownhill for their encouragement to write a blog via the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Curriculum

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post contains details of our new “Research Collaboration Grant” for 2021-22. We have been given £1,000 to support Research Centre activities and we would like to use £900 of this to support research collaboration. So, if you have an idea you would like to pursue, we would love to hear from you! This grant is available for staff and for PGRs. You can bid for up to £300.

 

Examples of grant ideas include (but are not limited to):

• A small-scale research project or exploratory research activities with collaborator or partner.
• Purchasing of supplies to help support collaborative research.
• Fees for attendance at conference for collaborators.
• Research assistant time, to support research collaboration.

 

If you would like to bid for this money, please complete the application form (which you will find in an email sent on 29th Nov). The deadline is 31^st January 2022. Please send applications to: alf.coles@bris.ac.uk. If we receive applications for more money than we have available then we will email for volunteers to form a small group of TLC members, who have not put in a bid, to read the applications and to use the following criteria for selection:

(1) fit with TLC aims: (e.g., from our website: “The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Curriculum (TLC) is concerned with questions relating to education in schools, universities, community and out-of-school contexts, including a focus on issues of social justice. We research the learning of individuals, groups and systems from a range of perspectives, including practitioner research”);

(2) potential for/of collaboration;

(3) innovation.

 

If you would like to discuss this opportunity, please get in touch. We look forward to receiving your applications!

 

With best wishes

 

The TLC Planning Team!

SELF-REFLECTION: THE WHAT, THE WHY, AND THE HOW

Dr. Simon Brownhill

simon.brownhill@bristol.ac.uk

 

The call for learners to become accomplished in reflection is increasingly prevalent across much of the world (van Velzen, 2017). To aid this, a wealth of practical paper-based manuals, online tutorials and face-to-face training is available for teachers to learn from to help foster student engagement. However, a noticeable gap in this support is evident when teachers seek to engage learners in self-reflection. This blog entry aims to positively address this by offering adapted extracts from a literature-based thoughtpiece entitled Asking key questions of self-reflection which was written by Dr. Simon Brownhill and published in the journal Reflective Practice (2021). Let’s start with a very important question: what is self-reflection?

 

What is self-reflection?

In simple terms, Neale (2019) describes self-reflection as ‘taking time to think, contemplate, examine and review yourself as part of increasing your self-awareness.’ This resonates with the thinking of Shaw, Kuvalja and Suto (2018, p.2) who see self-reflection, in the context of students, as ‘reflect[ing] upon their own learning, which includes their personal experiences, perspectives, beliefs and claims.’ Synergies here are noted in the description of self-reflection proposed by Jonassen, Howland, Marra and Crismond (2008, p.3):

by reflecting on [a] puzzling experience, learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about the world, or they establish goals for what they need to learn in order to make sense out of what they observe.

Whilst some authors regard self-reflection as a trait or a state, self-reflection is commonly considered to be ‘a processof self-analysis, self-evaluation, self-dialogue and self-observation’ (Yip, 2006, p.777; added emphasis). Just as there are various types of reflection, so too are there different types of self-reflection. These include:

• Self-reflection which embraces a problem or solution-focused approach – this is where learners constructively reflect on how best to reach their goals.
• Self-reflection which utilises a self-focused approach – this is where learners attempt to understand, contain or dissipate their negative emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions. This approach connects to the idea ofcritical self-reflection which refers to the process of questioning one’s own assumptions, presuppositions, and meaning perspectives (Mezirow, 2006).
• Collaborative self-reflection – self-reflection is typically seen as a solo venture whereas collaborative self-reflection (involving two or more individuals, be they peers, teachers or family members) can be specifically used ‘to better understand the needs of [others]’ (Sutherland, 2013, p.113).
• Structured and unstructured self-reflection – this is either ‘organised around one or more questions, either evaluative or exploratory’ [structured] or ‘letting thoughts flow without restriction, permitting ideas, insights and connections to randomly surface’ [unstructured] (Johnson, 2020, p.26).

So, if we know a little about what self-reflection is, another key question that needs to be asked is: why is it important?

 

Why is self-reflection important?

Ardelt and Grunwald (2018, p.188) recognise the importance of self-reflection by arguing that it ‘foster[s] human development and personal transformation and, ultimately, a better society.’ To validate this claim, the development and transformation of select groups of learners in different contexts as a result of engaging in self-reflection are presented in Table 1:

 

Location	Context	Details
United States of America	Middle schools	‘Self-reflection provides opportunit[ies] for students to think about their own thinking and their own progress … allow[ing] students to honestly evaluate their own engagement with learning’ (McCoy, 2013, p.151). As such, this enhances students’ self-awareness and helps them to associate their learning efforts with the evaluation and grades they ultimately receive for their work.
Estonia	Social work undergraduates	‘Self-reflection is significant to students’ training as it enhances their personal and professional development in practice … increas[ing] professional growth and competence, [which] in turn increases the quality of social work’ (Toros and Medar, 2015, p.89).
Lithuania	Special education degree students	‘[S]elf-reflection provides students with [a] deeper perception of themselves as people with special educators’ needs and problems, personal strengths and competence limitations that enable them to identify sources and means for solving existing and future professional activity problems’ (Bubnys, 2019, p.1).

 

TABLE 1: The development and transformation of select groups of learners in different contexts as a result of engaging in self-reflection.

 

So, if self-reflection is important, a key question that needs to be answered is: how can self-reflection be practically undertaken?

 

How can self-reflection be undertaken?

The most commonly advocated technique is the use of reflective questions and prompts for learners to ask themselves and answer. Osmond and Darlington (2005) support this, suggesting that these questions fall into different categories:

• case analysis questions – these are questions that help a student to self-reflect on an incident they were involved in, e.g. Why did you struggle to accept your teacher’s constructive feedback on your written work?
• exploring differences and presenting contingencies – these are questions that provide alternative eventualities, e.g. How would your explanation of the robbery (fictional) have differed if the alleged robber was found to be a woman? and
• before-and-after questions/sentence starters, e.g. What are your feelings before the mock job interview? What are your thoughts now?

Assertions that these questions and prompts are likely to only yield internalised responses from learners are challenged by Epler, Drape, Broyles and Rudd (2013) who advocate the use of ‘think-alouds’ which involve students verbalising their self-reflective thoughts and considerations while solving a problem. ‘Spoken self-reflection’ [my term] allows learners to articulate their self-reflective thoughts to facilitate deeper self-awareness and to allow others to be privy to their thinking and understanding. Other oral self-reflection techniques exist; these include:

• the recording of voiced thoughts as part of a digital diary (video or podcast),
• engaging in one-to-one discussions (face-to-face or online),
• giving verbal presentations, and
• partaking in a spoken dialogue with critical friends.

Self-reflection can also be facilitated through written activity, e.g. engaging with jotters, completing forms and templates, and producing essays, reports, papers/articles and blogs. Lindroth (2014, p.66) suggests that the use of journals has been identified as an ‘effective tool’ to promote self-reflection; indeed, Hatcher and Bringle (1996) recognise a variety of journals that students can engage with; these include personal, dialogue, highlighted, key phrase, double-entry, critical incident, and three-part journals. Creative approaches to self-reflection, including pictorial representation, mapping, game play and visualisations (Govaerts, Verbert, Klerkx and Duval, 2010) add to the plethora of techniques that are available to aid self-reflection. Of importance is the idea that learners are able to use and adapt techniques of their choosing that are both meaningful and work for them; this is due to the fact that it is theywho are the ones who have to put these selected techniques into action for their self-reflection.

 

Concluding thoughts

As a 21st Century Skill, self-reflection is deemed to be a new competency ‘which society is increasingly demanding of the existing workforce and, in educational terms, of the youth who need to be trained today for future jobs and careers’ (Joynes, Rossignoli and Amonoo-Kuofi, 2019, p.8). Its importance requires an academic investment in articulate, comprehensive and practically-informed resources to help teachers support their students engage in self-reflective activity. It is only by learning from literature such as that which is offered in this blog that a better understanding of self-reflection can be acquired, and the benefits of self-reflection to improve the potential for behavioural change can be reaped (Smith and Yates, 2012).

The spread of the worldwide pandemic of Covid 19 with all the strict measures and restrictions applied to minimize its impact on people’s lives have posed a serious challenge to the conduct of my research project. For instance, conducting fieldwork such as interviews and classroom observations during such circumstances was problematic and challenging for me.

The first issue I faced was to pass my progression and upgrade to the PhD level. My panel meeting was decided to be on the 25^th of March 2020, at the first hit of the pandemic when information about the disease was vague and scary. Like all international students in the UK, I decided to flee to my country with my two daughters, trying to take all the precautions to reach home safely. At the same time, I had to think about all the necessary arrangements to have my panel discussion online, bearing in mind that internet connectivity is an issue back home. During the eight-hour flight from the UK to Oman, I had a sleepless night, trying to comfort my two young daughters and assure them that things will be alright and we will reach home safely. I reached home four days before my panel discussion and started my twenty-one days quarantine period alone with my two daughters in a small, rented flat for this purpose. Having to self-isolate in a different place other than my own house was difficult because, as a mum, I had to take care of the three of us alone and on the top of this, I had to prepare for my progression meeting. I am grateful to the compassionate support I got from my supervisors, family, and friends, who gave me the courage to keep going and pass the progression discussion successfully. I will not also forget the professional conduct of the process I experienced as the two examiners in my panel were very insightful and considerate of the whole situation.

The second issue I encountered was recruiting enough participants for my research project. It was not possible for me to contact the college students directly as I had originally planned to engage them in my research. The lockdown measures applied in my national context at that time banned any face-to-face communication between people, so I had to contact the participants via emails first. In such complicated and uncertain circumstances, it was hard to get positive responses from them because they are not used to communicate via emails regularly. Therefore, I had to use my personal relationships with the heads of departments and teachers to encourage the students to respond to my emails. However, securing students’ participation via this way failed too as I did not receive a single reply to my emails from the students whom I have contacted. Hence, I decided to try another alternative. I got the help of a teacher who teaches an elective course to these students and had them all in two WhatsApp groups. I requested him to add my number in the two groups and to introduce me to the students. I introduced myself and my research to them and I requested them to text me directly in case they were interested to participate with me. After several reminders, I managed to get a positive response from four students who helped me to recruit the rest of the participants.

The third challenge was changing to online data collection in my research. I found it very difficult to communicate with the participants virtually because they only insisted on voice interviewing. Disconnecting their cameras and being unable to see them during the conversation was a weird situation for me. I could not read their facial expression or body language, which were important aspects in the communication process because they could help me understand and contextualize their responses to my questions. That was missing during the talks! In the beginning, I felt a bit disconnected during the first conversation. However, I decided to adjust myself to the new situation and accept and respect the participants decision. Appreciating and acknowledging that their participation is voluntary legitimated their request for security. Hence satisfying this need was indeed an essential ethical consideration. I tried to fulfil it because I believe that making the participants feel safe and comfortable during the data collection process results in much in depth data.

The final issue I faced during the second phase of the data collection was the college closure and the cancellation of the rest of the term due to my country’s decision to go into a total lockdown. This decision created a dilemma for me. Cancellation of studies means no online classes available for me to conduct the classroom observations. The other important issue which is directly linked to my research was that my participants will not be available because this was their final term. They will be graduates! I had to face the challenge and to take a decision in consultation with my supervision team. Discarding the data I had already gathered and start over again was not a wise thing to do, especially after the struggle I had to recruit volunteer students for the first phase of the data collection. Besides, cancelling the classroom observations and relying solely on interviews data pose a big limitation in my study because one of my research aims is to triangulate data from different sources. Therefore, I decided to recruit new participants for the focus groups to gather data for the second phase. It was not an easy thing to do, but my good rapport with students and constant communication with teachers helped me to attract and convince other students to participate with me.

It is true that researching in a pandemic is still challenging for me, but I discovered that I can be resilient and adaptable to such new and unexpected situation. All the hardships I have encountered so far, whether in passing the progression discussion or during the data collection process, taught me to be flexible and responsive to a high extent, which I am sure will benefit me in my future research endeavours.

by Salma Al Saifi

Two of the readings we have discussed in the TLC community this year are: Beyond business as usual: Higher education in the era of climate change (Facer, 2020) and Envisioning Black space in environmental education for young children (Nxumalo & ross, 2019). In this post I seek to make a connection between some of the ideas presented in these readings and possibilities offered by narrative inquiry.

 

Facer (2020) proposes that we might reshape existing knowledge structures of universities by collaborating across disciplines and drawing on knowledge traditions which can be excluded, with the result that we might then be better placed to consider the ‘complexity of sustainability challenges’ (p.56). Facer also suggests bringing students and teachers together as key in developing programmes ‘adequate to the emotional, intellectual and practical realities of living well as individuals and with others in the era of climate change’ (p.49).

 

Narrative inquiry is an example of a knowledge tradition living on the margins of what is widely accepted as academic research yet narrative methodology perhaps holds potential for the reshaping of knowledge structures. For my PhD I explored the experiences of three early career primary mathematics teachers through narrative inquiry. As I inquired, I encountered what might be termed grand narratives of deficit associated with the teaching of primary mathematics. I observed these narratives as perpetuated by a fast-paced drive to establish ‘what works’ and a quick recourse to making distinctions between novices and experts. Some reflections since completing my PhD, offered at a recent TLC gathering, have been on Slow processes I consider as inherent to narrative inquiry. Ulmer (2017) uses Slow (with a capital letter) to mark it as different from everyday uses of the word slow. Taking from Ulmer’s ideas, my use of Slow indicates thoughts of being slow and knowing slow. I currently describe these Slow narrative processes as:

• being with all aspects of a research process all of the time;
• seeking to show rather than tell;
• being comfortable and confident in uncertainty.

 

In the era of climate change it seems we can no longer pretend to be able to know ‘what works’ and definitions of novices and experts have been irreversibly disrupted. The Slow processes outlined above perhaps offer shapes for different knowledge structures, spaces in which it becomes possible to hear a range of voices and so engage differently with the complexity of lived experience. I offer more detail next.

 

In contrast to knowledge traditions that separate a research process into constituent parts, narrative inquiry deals with every aspect of a research process all of the time. Studies cannot be wrestled into sections titled ‘data analysis’ or ‘ethics’ or ‘literature review’. Rather, these ways of knowing bump up against each other and the boundaries between them dissolve. The blurred way of shaping knowledge offered by narrative methodologies may perhaps be helpful in supporting engagement with the complex challenges we face in learning to live in more sustainable ways.

 

In adopting a showing rather than telling position, narrative inquiry invites varied interpretations, so opening opportunities for discussion about ‘what’ might be important to know and ‘how’ we might come to know. The article byNxumalo & ross (2019) is powerful in contrasting showing and telling ways of knowing. The first half of the article tells of persistent narratives of deficit associated with environmental education for Black children in North America. In the second half of the paper we are shown how these issues might be lived, through fictional narratives. The article as a whole speaks to all of the knowings Facer (2020) outlines: complex, emotional, intellectual and practical.

 

In being comfortable and confident in uncertainty the impulse to make a fast grab for a discernable truth is relinquished; instead space is made to consider what ‘might’ be, or ‘could’ be. This more uncertain position is again illustrated in the second half of the Nxumalo & ross (2019) paper, with the fictional narratives offering awarenesses of what our futures might be like depending on changes we do, or do not, make.

 

Of course every research tradition has its limits. Narrative research typically takes place over a long period and in a time when the need to act fast becomes more and more pressing, it is perhaps somewhat counterintuitive to suggest a move to slower ways of being and knowing. However, some knowings, ethical ones in particular, take time. Possibly then, Slow knowledge traditions and those based on faster principles might act in complementarity so enabling different knowings of the complexities of living well with ourselves and others in an era of climate change.

 

Facer, K. (2020). Beyond business as usual: Higher education in the era of climate change. Retrieved from www.hepi.ac.uk

 

Nxumalo, F., & ross,  k. m. (2019). Envisioning Black space in environmental education for young children. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(4), 502–524. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592837

 

Ulmer, J. B. (2017). Writing Slow Ontology. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(3), 201–211. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800416643994

 

Caroline Ormesher is a teacher educator at Bath Spa University. She recently completed her PhD at the University of Bristol. These views are her own.