Reading the article “From the Mind’s Eye of the User: The Sense-Making Qualitative-Quantitative Methodology” by Brenda Dervin, required me to use a strategy that was first taught to me during my first and only philosophy class. We were instructed to read it aloud into a mirror in the tradition of a great orator. I have used this method, only when challenged by the reading. It is impossible to fall asleep during this approach. Also, hearing and seeing yourself seems to access multiple inputs to the brain. I also noticed that punctuation when exaggerated orally definitely aids in comprehension.
The article was a challenging read, so I took notes and added personal connections. After I finished reading, I realized that some of the concepts I read struck me as dated, so when I noticed that the article was written in 1989, I decided to look Professor Dervin up on the internet. I found a wonderful article “Making sense of sense-making: tracing the history and development of Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology” by Naresh Kumar Agarwal that was written January 6, 2013. It was helpful to read his paper, as it was a different way of understanding what Professor Dervin was writing about. He also mentioned Eastern Spotlight: Brenda Dervin on YouTube which took place in 2011. I highly recommend her video. It drew connections to Education and teaching.
Dr. Dervin is teaching the reader to use a research tool she describes as a sense-making methodological approach.
She outlines that there are three parts that have to be addressed in the approach: what users want, what they get and what they think about the information gleaned. She described six exemplars or case studies to show how the same sense-making methodology was used. She mentions many assumptions and dichotomies that she attempts to assemble under the umbrella of this methodology.
I found the data mining and analysis very interesting in light of current events. She says in her video that the science emphasis at the expense of a humanities focus has not helped with understanding or communication. Further she writes “It also assumes that whatever order is out there is not directly accessible by human observers whose observations are constrained by time, space, and species as well as personal capabilities.” Which made me think how cake cannot comprehend the baker.
She goes on to say “Humans by continuing dialogue and sharing of personal observations do arrive at always limited but more stable observation”. This worried me. Once entrenched, misconceptions are very difficult to correct. This is the danger we see in social media posts. Continuing on she states “Topical contexts explain differences in behavior” and she highlights health information, political information and science information. Everything that we find while researching a topic has to be carefully scrutinized and vetted. We need to look at our questions through many lenses, such as the lens of culture and community before we begin the process of communicating sense-making methodology.
In her video she speaks to the role of educators in communicating or transferring knowledge. She points out the communication fail of thinking of our students as leaky buckets where the belief is that students don’t have the capacity to hold on to all the knowledge teachers give them. Or the other communication fail is where teachers believe that the student represents a recalcitrant bucket. In other words, that the student is actively blocking the transmission of knowledge from the teacher. She has acknowledged the role of gender and race in her more current iteration, saying “no person is the average of their community”. She also mentioned Paolo Freire and shed some light on her use of Quid pro Quo that she mentioned in our class reading. She explained that “If you listen to me, I will listen to you.” It was very helpful to hear her own voice. She repeated that the sense-making methodology was as useful as ever to aid in the research of many fields of study.
If I had to teach this same reading content to high school students, I would give students the choice of watching the video, or reading chunks of the article (I might substitute the article by Naresh Kumar Agarwal, as his article is written in a more straightforward manner). Then I would have the groups Jigsaw. Lastly I would have students answer questions on Google Forms that would model the sense-making methodology. Then we would discuss whether it was useful.
I might redact the “dragged down the road” references as they reeked of lynching. I could not believe that she thought that blacks and whites would respond to this reference in a similar fashion. Like I said, the material was dated and at times insensitive. I hope we are using strategies that are inclusive and multicultural.
I included this picture from unsplash because it made me think of the second exemplar that was a good example of how explaining can be beneficial to both the staff and the patients.
The article was a challenging read, so I took notes and added personal connections. After I finished reading, I realized that some of the concepts I read struck me as dated, so when I noticed that the article was written in 1989, I decided to look Professor Dervin up on the internet. I found a wonderful article “Making sense of sense-making: tracing the history and development of Dervin’s Sense-Making Methodology” by Naresh Kumar Agarwal that was written January 6, 2013. It was helpful to read his paper, as it was a different way of understanding what Professor Dervin was writing about. He also mentioned Eastern Spotlight: Brenda Dervin on YouTube which took place in 2011. I highly recommend her video. It drew connections to Education and teaching.
Dr. Dervin is teaching the reader to use a research tool she describes as a sense-making methodological approach.
She outlines that there are three parts that have to be addressed in the approach: what users want, what they get and what they think about the information gleaned. She described six exemplars or case studies to show how the same sense-making methodology was used. She mentions many assumptions and dichotomies that she attempts to assemble under the umbrella of this methodology.
I found the data mining and analysis very interesting in light of current events. She says in her video that the science emphasis at the expense of a humanities focus has not helped with understanding or communication. Further she writes “It also assumes that whatever order is out there is not directly accessible by human observers whose observations are constrained by time, space, and species as well as personal capabilities.” Which made me think how cake cannot comprehend the baker.
She goes on to say “Humans by continuing dialogue and sharing of personal observations do arrive at always limited but more stable observation”. This worried me. Once entrenched, misconceptions are very difficult to correct. This is the danger we see in social media posts. Continuing on she states “Topical contexts explain differences in behavior” and she highlights health information, political information and science information. Everything that we find while researching a topic has to be carefully scrutinized and vetted. We need to look at our questions through many lenses, such as the lens of culture and community before we begin the process of communicating sense-making methodology.
In her video she speaks to the role of educators in communicating or transferring knowledge. She points out the communication fail of thinking of our students as leaky buckets where the belief is that students don’t have the capacity to hold on to all the knowledge teachers give them. Or the other communication fail is where teachers believe that the student represents a recalcitrant bucket. In other words, that the student is actively blocking the transmission of knowledge from the teacher. She has acknowledged the role of gender and race in her more current iteration, saying “no person is the average of their community”. She also mentioned Paolo Freire and shed some light on her use of Quid pro Quo that she mentioned in our class reading. She explained that “If you listen to me, I will listen to you.” It was very helpful to hear her own voice. She repeated that the sense-making methodology was as useful as ever to aid in the research of many fields of study.
If I had to teach this same reading content to high school students, I would give students the choice of watching the video, or reading chunks of the article (I might substitute the article by Naresh Kumar Agarwal, as his article is written in a more straightforward manner). Then I would have the groups Jigsaw. Lastly I would have students answer questions on Google Forms that would model the sense-making methodology. Then we would discuss whether it was useful.
I might redact the “dragged down the road” references as they reeked of lynching. I could not believe that she thought that blacks and whites would respond to this reference in a similar fashion. Like I said, the material was dated and at times insensitive. I hope we are using strategies that are inclusive and multicultural.
I included this picture from unsplash because it made me think of the second exemplar that was a good example of how explaining can be beneficial to both the staff and the patients.