Reading around the subject...

I have to say, I've never really enjoyed reading.  I don't know why.  But the idea of picking up a tome and spending hours just immersed in someone else's world, their thoughts, their ideas...  there's something about that process that kind of freaks me out.  Even in fiction reading, the authors language can really confuse me and, depending on they way I read the authors content, it can dramatically change my understanding of a book.  Maybe it's a lack of confidence in my own abilities, or maybe I'm just a naturally slow reader.  And it's probably one of the reasons why I did my undergrad degree in mathematics.  As a strategy to help me with reading I tend to find audio-books helpful in this respect.  Without an audiobook to accompany a text, I genuinely spend hours and hours labouring over the language and never feel like I'm getting the author's meaning.

("Reading" by be creator is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

 

But in academia there's no escaping the necessity of reading.

The process of reading critically, reflecting, writing thoughtfully and sharing openly has become a big part of my professional practice.  In preparation for commencing my EdD studies I've been trying to read around my topic of interest so that have a broader picture of what's going on currently in the field, then attempting to marry what I'm reading with my own professional experience and comparing all of that to my research proposal.  For a slow reader like myself it feels like an endless chore and something of a Gordian knot.  

I haven't been slogging away at textbooks and papers all that much.  But since I submitted my EdD proposal I'm aiming to read maybe one or two papers per week, or a chapter of a book here and there.  I'm trying to be consistent in developing good reading/writing habits and not to get too anxious about the process ahead of me.  But in doing so I came to something of a realisation and I wanted to take time to document that.  

You see my research interest was informed by the view that technology and 'blended learning' had somehow damaged the sense of community that teaching staff and students were experiencing.  Moreover, I was very much keen to to look at ways of repairing that sense of damage.  So I went forward from my interview with aim in mind. 

("knowledge" by pfv. is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.)

Punch et al. (2013) in their book entitled Sociology: Making Sense of Society refer to various forms of knowledge: experiential, authority based, common sense, traditional, non-rational and scientific.  The interesting thing is that, I remembered during my interview for my EdD being asked about evidence.  Where was the evidence for my thinking?  I can see now that my hunch was very much based on experiential knowledge.  As teachers I think we often get into the a way of thinking whereby over time we develop a wealth of experiences and we draw on that experience to inform our practice.  However, it's not the same as having hard, measurable, empirical evidence.

I began reading.  I started by reviewing the literature I had already studied in my MA ODE which is where I first encountered the work of Leithwood (2013) and his Four Paths model of educational leadership. Then I started to expand my reading by examining learning outcomes, how they're measured, how they can be enhanced and the role of leadership/management in this process.  If you've read my previous blogs you'll be familiar with my reflections on the work of Vincent Tinto (1993) and his work on retention of students.  Based on that work I've been led to explore the work of Brunzell and Norrish (2020) on trauma informed practice and the work of Palloff and Pratt (2007) in building online communitties of learning.  My future reading list includes the more from the work of Kenneth Leithwood  as well as the work of Robin Dunbar and Robert J. Marzano who are considered experts in social anthropology and educational leadership respectively.  

But what I'm finding is that the more I read, certain themes are emerging from the existing literature, surprising patterns are energing which I didn't expect to find.  Specifically, there are four themes that have captured my attention:

• The varied definitions of hybrid learning and teaching practice.  
• Mental Health
• eLeadership
• The Impact of hybrid working, blended learning, technology enhanced learning and teaching practice on Leithwood's Paths

But these themes pointed me to realise something about my own development as a learner.  Aside from the fact that I see that what I have here is an emerging structure within my research, in addition I have started to move from a position of experiential knowledge to one of authority based scientific knowledge.  Wow!  That might seem like a simple and obvious thing to say but I can see now, despite my resistance to reading, it's part of a tried and tested process that works.  That there is the very definition of a science.

So having gone from a position of experiential interest in a subject area, my knowledge has enabled me to be clearer about my research question.  Don't get me wrong, this is nowhere near as refined as I would like it to be.  But, having gone from a vague sense of a damaged community, I would now like to specifically research the following question:

"Following the rise of remote working practice and hybrid learning and teaching practice, how has technology impacted college curriculum leaders/managers abilities to harness the thirteen variables identified by Leithwood et al. (2013) in order to improve learning outcomes in the Scottish Further Education Sector?"

While I don't claim that this is nearly specific enough, I think it's much better than the vague experiential notion that I put forward in my proposal.  It feels like I'm making progress here.  Maybe I'm wrong and time will tell I suppose.  

If anyone out there has any reading that you would like to recommend that might further inform my thinking then please let me know by either leaving a comment here on my blog or by getting in touch with me on twitter @McintoshMclean.

References

Brunzell, T. and Norrish, J. (2020)  Creating Trauma-Informed, Strengths Based ClassroomsL  Teacher Strategies for Nurturing Students Healing, Growth and Learning [ebook reader].  London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.   

Leithwood, K. (2013) ‘Leadership and student learning: what works and how’, in Wise, C., Bradshaw, P. and Cartwright, M. (eds) Leading Professional Practice in Education, Sage, London/The Open University, Milton Keynes, pp. 25–37.

Palloff, R. M. & Pratt, K. (2007)  Building Online Communities:  Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom [ebook reader].  San Francisco, Wiley. 

Punch, S., Marsh, M., Keating, M. and Harden, J. (2013)  *Sociology: Making Sense of Society*, 5th Edn., London, Pearson.  

Tinto, V. (1993) _Leaving College:  Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition [ebook reader], London, University of Chicago Press.