I usually look for the nugget of insight that animated the author and find it valuable even when I disagree with their conclusions. The authors are often distracted by their own agenda, but as readers we don’t have to be distracted by it.
When trying to learn, the glow of reading something that validates my pre-existing views is just as blinding as the glare as an agenda I oppose.
A very interesting post, thanks. I appreciate your take on complexity and the need for a multi-perspective approach as well as the fact that you stress the collective dimension of learning in a class as being not a drawback but rather an essential feature. I have decided to embrace this too, holding some resistance against the current paradigm of taylor-made learning.
I would like to add the observation that didactics research in mathematics has very different accents in different countries, and it might be worth seeing what other regions of the world have produced. I teach in Germany and am less than enthusiastic about current German literature, although there is a great tradition like Mathilde Vaerting, Hans Freudenthal, Martin Wagenschein (more a physicist). Some Italians like Rosetta Zan and Bruno D'Amore do very interesting stuff. I learned of Carol Dweck through Jo Boaler, I know she was much criticized but I took many good ideas from her. Well, whatever, thanks, I'll keep on reading.
Interesting. My take on Harry's question is different from yours. I approached it as someone asking, "How do I learn about something?" with the emphasis on the action "learn".
To keep this posting to a short word limit (I wrote an initial 900 word SFD reply), my answer to Harry is to use Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping technique for gathering and collating information about "learning". Again, to keep it short, your mind mapping should be along the three criteria of learning: being able to express something "in your own words - IYOW", "with your own labels - WYOL", and "by your own organization - BYOO". So, with your reading in one hand, when you find a term, fact, concept, etc. that you don't know, capture it with your other hand in a digital app or physical page, in a mind map node, linking that node to another on your map, and then label the link between them (don't ignore this part). As you build your map up, you should be able to see how existing groups of nodes might be re-grouped (BYOO) to your understanding of them.
Just read it and I think its great. Despite your honest and accurate assessment that "organizing and summarizing" the structure of research content is basically impossible, you then provide many useful, broad categories and great in-roads that have been curated by someone (you) who has immersed themselves for many years in the work of making sense of the research.
It's kind of like if I moved to NYC and asked you to provide me with the overarching structure of all the restaurants and restaurant types in the city, and you're like "That doesn't exist, but if you're in Tribeca, this place has great bread, and these three restaurants are all owned by the same guy who's awesome. And don't trust Yelp, but there's a site called CityDine and its one guy who's basically been to every restaurant and his reviews are really useful and honest...etc" which is actually probably a much more useful and human way to advise someone to get familiar with the "lay of the land".
I also like your perspective at the end about research just being people's opinions about "stuff" that happened why they tried "stuff". It's true, especially in this field, and adds credence to the impossibility of "summarizing and structuring" the work in a clean way, and makes the approach you take in the article make even more sense.
It certainly gives me many wonderful places to go to continue my journey in more trust-worthy, useful directions, and could sustain continued exploration for a long time.
Thanks a lot for taking all that time to put this together! Bravo, my friend!
What I do when trying to figure out a new field is map out the sides and structure of the debate. So if I'm reading a piece of research that is making a bunch of assertions, I often put it down a third of the way through and search for the people who disagree. Sometimes I can find a paper or article that gives the outline of the positions on this topic for me, other times I have to derive it on my own. But I have trouble accepting any new arguments until I know the entire debate.
Sometimes I'll read a paper in an area I'm familiar with but had no idea there was research on. The research completely supports my experience and opinions. I'm always thrilled to see it and will read that the whole way through. But I still go out afterwards to find the disagreement.
What a great piece of writing about the complexities of learning from research in ed/psych/etc. I really liked it. I like how you acknowledge that humans do research, and they argue, and sometimes the argument seems about the data, and sometimes it seems like a argument they learned from their (academic) parents. I am certainly critical of some fields of research, mostly when a field seems determined to be feudal in their approach, acting as if they are the only game in town. So unhelpful to teachers. I should probably end this comment as I have used quite enough mixed metaphors for now . . .
Michael,
The perspective you advise is so wise.
I usually look for the nugget of insight that animated the author and find it valuable even when I disagree with their conclusions. The authors are often distracted by their own agenda, but as readers we don’t have to be distracted by it.
When trying to learn, the glow of reading something that validates my pre-existing views is just as blinding as the glare as an agenda I oppose.
Always learn something from you.
Thank you for the kind words! Yes — I think searching for the nugget of wisdom is a great way to go about this sort of reading.
A very interesting post, thanks. I appreciate your take on complexity and the need for a multi-perspective approach as well as the fact that you stress the collective dimension of learning in a class as being not a drawback but rather an essential feature. I have decided to embrace this too, holding some resistance against the current paradigm of taylor-made learning.
I would like to add the observation that didactics research in mathematics has very different accents in different countries, and it might be worth seeing what other regions of the world have produced. I teach in Germany and am less than enthusiastic about current German literature, although there is a great tradition like Mathilde Vaerting, Hans Freudenthal, Martin Wagenschein (more a physicist). Some Italians like Rosetta Zan and Bruno D'Amore do very interesting stuff. I learned of Carol Dweck through Jo Boaler, I know she was much criticized but I took many good ideas from her. Well, whatever, thanks, I'll keep on reading.
Interesting. My take on Harry's question is different from yours. I approached it as someone asking, "How do I learn about something?" with the emphasis on the action "learn".
To keep this posting to a short word limit (I wrote an initial 900 word SFD reply), my answer to Harry is to use Tony Buzan's Mind Mapping technique for gathering and collating information about "learning". Again, to keep it short, your mind mapping should be along the three criteria of learning: being able to express something "in your own words - IYOW", "with your own labels - WYOL", and "by your own organization - BYOO". So, with your reading in one hand, when you find a term, fact, concept, etc. that you don't know, capture it with your other hand in a digital app or physical page, in a mind map node, linking that node to another on your map, and then label the link between them (don't ignore this part). As you build your map up, you should be able to see how existing groups of nodes might be re-grouped (BYOO) to your understanding of them.
Just read it and I think its great. Despite your honest and accurate assessment that "organizing and summarizing" the structure of research content is basically impossible, you then provide many useful, broad categories and great in-roads that have been curated by someone (you) who has immersed themselves for many years in the work of making sense of the research.
It's kind of like if I moved to NYC and asked you to provide me with the overarching structure of all the restaurants and restaurant types in the city, and you're like "That doesn't exist, but if you're in Tribeca, this place has great bread, and these three restaurants are all owned by the same guy who's awesome. And don't trust Yelp, but there's a site called CityDine and its one guy who's basically been to every restaurant and his reviews are really useful and honest...etc" which is actually probably a much more useful and human way to advise someone to get familiar with the "lay of the land".
I also like your perspective at the end about research just being people's opinions about "stuff" that happened why they tried "stuff". It's true, especially in this field, and adds credence to the impossibility of "summarizing and structuring" the work in a clean way, and makes the approach you take in the article make even more sense.
It certainly gives me many wonderful places to go to continue my journey in more trust-worthy, useful directions, and could sustain continued exploration for a long time.
Thanks a lot for taking all that time to put this together! Bravo, my friend!
Satisfied customer!! Other people please take note and ask me questions (easiest way to come up with stuff to write about).
I thought this was really interesting.
What I do when trying to figure out a new field is map out the sides and structure of the debate. So if I'm reading a piece of research that is making a bunch of assertions, I often put it down a third of the way through and search for the people who disagree. Sometimes I can find a paper or article that gives the outline of the positions on this topic for me, other times I have to derive it on my own. But I have trouble accepting any new arguments until I know the entire debate.
Sometimes I'll read a paper in an area I'm familiar with but had no idea there was research on. The research completely supports my experience and opinions. I'm always thrilled to see it and will read that the whole way through. But I still go out afterwards to find the disagreement.
What a great piece of writing about the complexities of learning from research in ed/psych/etc. I really liked it. I like how you acknowledge that humans do research, and they argue, and sometimes the argument seems about the data, and sometimes it seems like a argument they learned from their (academic) parents. I am certainly critical of some fields of research, mostly when a field seems determined to be feudal in their approach, acting as if they are the only game in town. So unhelpful to teachers. I should probably end this comment as I have used quite enough mixed metaphors for now . . .