“We have done better at developing understandings of human rigidities than of human creativities.” (Dervin, 67)
Forgive me while I go “mental” on you! No, not crazy...just metacognitive. I had heard that Brenda Dervin’s From the Mind’s Eye of the User was dense material. Having read the framing question for the blog, I had recalled the course on childhood development I had taken during my credential program and remembered that metacognition is largely the ability to think about one’s thinking. So I began mentally tracking my decisions and preparations. Knowing that the material was a deep read, I decided to print out the chapters because I know I process and retain information better when I underline, highlight, and make notes in the margin. I also decided to watch the YouTube video FIRST so I could get a framework or a summary in advance. I read the article with pen in hand one day intending to re-read it the next day. Last semester we learned from Brain Rules that sleeping on an idea or information helps the brain assimilate it and perform better. I woke up thinking about how I would teach this concept. Of course, my waking thoughts were also tangled with plans for coffee, mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, preparing for summer school, and a friend’s birthday BBQ. As I read, I noticed that I was aware of the level of my own understanding, or sense-making, of the content. I would realize I had not comprehended a sentence and would reread it until it made sense. I found myself trying to recall content I had studied in college in my philosophy courses. Dervin references human nature. “Discontinuity is an assumed constant of nature generally and the human condition specifically.” Dervin also delves into how humans perceive knowledge, or in philosophical terms, reality or truth. “Fundamental to the specific application of sense-making to the study of human use of information and information systems is the way in which information is conceptualized.” I was glad these philosophy courses had provided a context in which to frame her thinking. I recalled the progression, or various schools of thought, on human perception of reality. My memory moved over the basics of Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, and existential phenomenology. Basically, that I have come to understand that while there may be objective truth (or knowledge, for the sake of this article), it is never understood without being processed through a specific individual’s lense and that person’s experience of existence. Along those lines, as I read Dervin’s chapters, I also applied a recent personal experience of knowledge seeking to her ideas. I walked back through the steps I took to “bridge the gap”. I examined how I had defined my gap, or “situation stop”. I pondered how I came up with a strategy to solve my problem. I realized that I had tried to repeat past behaviors to solve my problem, but I had to refine the behavior in order to apply it to this new situation. It was what Dervin describes as being at a specific moment in time-space. Finally, I reviewed the actions I took to arrive at my goal and asked myself if I was satisfied with the process. It was this self-reflection that helped me arrive at how I might approach teaching the concept of sense-making to a high school student. I believe I would begin by actually conducting a micro-moment time-line interview with a brave volunteer for the class to watch. Then I would use the YouTube video I watched as an introduction. Next, hit the content from the chapters. Finally, I would have the students try interviewing each other. In conclusion, how I made sense of this article… Learning is a personal experience. Knowledge MAY exist as an objective truth, but it is never transferred as such. It is constructed by an individual, thus Dervin’s assertion that the study of the human use of information and information systems must be done from the perspective of the actor (person seeking the information) and not the observer. As teachers, understanding this concept is especially important. We must become proficient at helping our students construct knowledge. We need to understand the structures of human thought and behavior, or “rigidities”, and move toward creating knowledge and skill, “human creativities”.
5 Comments
Nai Saelee
6/12/2017 12:29:01 pm
Nancy,
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6/13/2017 09:55:27 am
Nancy my idea of what research required was as you stated (plan, monitor, evaluate) and the main reason for the research was to find out how they would respond to the study. What Devin article covered was that sense-making approaches (time-line interview, information need, satisfaction, image, help chain, and message/q-ing) all seem to be used for different research purposes. As you state here. I too had to think in depth about my study and how I could improve it. Also what I had gathered could be read for a deeper understanding then I have done. Is was a tall glass of thinking about the way humans think.
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james
6/13/2017 04:32:28 pm
Nancy,
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It is moments like this, when reading another person's responses, that I understand fully how complex and diverse humans really are. You and I read the same article but your process of breaking down the information, and my own are radically different. You went "mental" and I drew pictures for myself (lol). Yet, our conclusions are similiar. I think this really highlights one aspect of what Dervin was communicating. Focusing on the actor to understand how they interpret material and ideas is essential as they are the ones processing the information. It does me no good to only view how I understand new concepts - I need to consider how my students process them if I really want to support their own learning journey.
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Dan
6/15/2017 10:58:42 am
Self reflection is a great way to try to understand the material from the reading. Having read the blogs now, there are many tools that would have helped and this one definitely would have. There are so many steps to internalizing and truly understanding the content. Thanks for sharing.
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