Research Thinking 071123
Nov 23rd, 2007 by nicol
In today’s seminar I attended, people mentioned the latest hot topic in teaching and learning research, and the term ‘desire’ came up. It used to be that education research was largely about cognitions, and meta cognitions and therefore, efficacy and motivation. Not having an original background in education to start with, I’ve always found this concept about learning being only business happening in the head or brain or mind a very problematic thing. Then a couple years ago, people started to talk about affective aspects of learning, and learner emotions. And still I found this shift from cognition to emotions just simply a change of position, and very much excluding huge parts of the learning experience and process as a whole. In fact I’ve always wondered why the learner, clearly not a talking head or walking heart, but a whole person was so difficult to perceive in the educational world. Hence the idea of pedagogical bodies in my title of study. I’m glad to finally hear people talking about ‘desires’ because it’s always a person or a group of people’s desires. The concept of desire thus enable a linking of the physical body, the mind and the psychological aspects of a whole person(s) in ’space’.
Experimentally, I want to talk about desiring bodies, bodies with desires. One of the discussions was about why the educationally designed and purposefully built online forums or learning platforms just don’t seem to attract the kinds of engagement and traffic that non-educational ones do. And someone mentioned that the reason was quite simple, because they were mandated, students were ‘told’ to use them. Whereas the online community/groups were formed naturally, because people joined on a voluntary basis, that something attracted them initially, and make them want to continue to be a part of that community. I thought this observation is to a large extent valid, and other studies have shown that. It’s a pity we didn’t have time to further discuss what sustains such an online group or community. It’s a pity because I think ‘desire’ can be a useful concept to look into these kinds of issues and studies. For example, some studies have shown that leaders of successful online groups often have a strong desire to be successful, and they inspire people to follow them.
This is of course related to learning spaces as well, because we have all experienced places such as traditional classrooms that you just want to get out of there as soon as the classes end. Yet, people who hang around in Star Bucks or other spaces may carry on intellectual discussions well into the night and not wanting to leave. It’s the same with virtual platforms, there are platforms that you wouldn’t want to visit a 2nd time, yet so many people are absolutely hooked to some blogs or FaceBook, spending hours in them. To me, desire plays a huge role in all this.
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Sometimes when I came across an absolutely earth shaking, thought provoking book I borrowed from the university library, I had this urge/desire to find out who else had read the book and loved it or hated it. I wanted to meet those people who read the same book and perhaps start a discussion with them about the book. Now traditionally you’d have to join a reading club for such things and most of them were literary in nature.
When I saw what YouTube and other social bookmarking, and social networking tools were doing on the Internet, I thought to myself, why couldn’t our library create a platform for similar purposes? Everytime I borrowed a book, an email or whatever e-notices will prompt me with the following message:
“Click here if you would like to share your view with others who have also borrowed this book.”
Then when I click on the button it will take me somewhere to leave a personal remark or tagging labels and perhaps my contact. And also allows me to create a virtual reading club of the book. Wouldn’t that be so wonderful?
Lately, I’ve been invited to join a number of research study groups for different purposes. But they all serve one purpose, to connect people who share the same interest in one thing or another and provide an environment for mutual support and sharing. I remembered this woman who started a writer’s support group told me that she was very particular about selecting their group members (membership by invitation) because she made it very clear that everyone in the group would have positive contributions, and really take responsibility to help the group grow. She didn’t want any lurkers or slackers!
These things had all made me think and believe stronger that we humans are social animals. And there’s a huge part to the learning experience that are social and collaborative. But I don’t hold the extreme view that all learning is socially constructed because there’s also the equally important learning experience that is personal reflection on one’s own learning which to my opinion is best conducted alone, by oneself, and if possible, in a cave.
To me the social part of learning is very much about the desire to connect, to share and to communicate.
Hi, Nicol, it’s Iris
I followed the link that you left on the “Super Writers” blog and found this very intereting and inspiring blog you set for your research. It is so brilliant and I may borrow your idea and set up one for my study 
I had the experience of doing distant learning via internet for a Qualitative Research course of MEd. Even if the teacher claimed that the participation of the forum discussion would be part of the course assessment, I still seldom left comments on that forum. It was not because I was that lazy or I didn’t have anything to say, the reason was quite complicated. Above all, there was concern that my works would be watched and judged by the teacher and fellow students in front of the computer who were neither totally strangers nor intimate friends, so I felt somewhat forbidden to freely express myself. I felt to be obliged to make the “right” comments, which was very tiring and boring.
I think that you have many wonderful ideas about virtual / distant learning (For example, I love the idea that the library builds up a virtual forum for people to exchange ideas about a common book). Looking forward that your research work can turn the virtual learning into a more exciting and inspring experience for us
Hi Iris, thanks for sharing the complicated feelings why you were reluctant to contribute on an online open discussion. Your experience is actually shared by many others as well from my own observation. I suspect that most of the people whom I talk to all share the same traditional Chinese cultural background and is affected by the cultural norms to some degrees. I also talked to many of our university lecturers, and those who especially teach in the arts and humanities often have the negative perception on local students’ unwillingness to talk and contribute in a group discussion situation. I think the situation is changing though because students who are graduating from high school these days would already have a lot more experience in group discussion and project work than there predecessors.
Many of my friends told me they are too ’shy’ to even write on this blog which is not even an academic blog. The language barrier is also one of the reasons students whose first language is not for example ‘English’.
The challenge is we really need to first gain an understanding of the underlying reasons why people are reluctant to ‘talk’, then, educators need to come up with creative and new ways to help the students in building their confidence and the culture for sharing and open discussions. And these kinds of things cannot be done in one day, especially, if we are talking about deep rooted cultural norms.
Some academics suggest that we can encourage ’side talks’ or chats among students because these kinds of conversation often happens in a less formal environment, with lots of social elements that people will feel comfortable to open up themselves and talk. Such as cafes, and informal gathering places. And for online interactions, I personally think there is a good reason why the FaceBook is so popular as a social networking tool. It does have the kind of loose and relax online environment setup, and people can do many fun and ’silly’ things on it. I heard that when students in the west hear that FaceBook would be used by education people, they didn’t like the idea at all, they felt their social world are being intruded. And that reaction is very interesting and telling.