[Phenomenology] Short Writes #2

My Lived Experience of Using Technology in Teaching Practice First Time

It was 2000. I graduated from college and entered a junior high school beginning my one-year internship and my life of a student teacher. At that time the personal computer was not prevalent, and the Internet access was very limited. The City government passed a budget that allowed every school teachers could borrow a laptop from school in order to integrate technology in the classroom. While most of the veteran teachers never used computers in their whole life, I became one of the student teacher that being pushed to learn these technology stuffs and show how they works in teaching and learning.

At the end of the student teaching year, every student teacher needed to hold a teaching demonstration event in which demonstrate how he/she will teach in front of all of the administrators and teachers in the school, also, the advisors from his/her undergrad educational program. These audiences will see how the student teacher performs and give him/her the final grade.

I made a brave decision. I decided to use PowerPoint Slides during my teaching demonstration. It seems not a big deal today but really was very challenging to me at that time. Organizing PowerPoint was not a problem for me at all. I enjoyed weaving my thoughts into a sequence of slides and incorporate more images and multimedia in my slideshow. I kept imaging how I actually teach this lesson through these slides, how I interact with students, and how I make my teaching activities more fun because the affordance provided by the features of the PowerPoint programs. When I finished my final draft, with the file playing slide by slide on the laptop. I was as happy as clam and couldn't stop smiling. It was like smiling from the very inner part of my body, and constantly kept my cheek muscles rising.

The challenge part came from the overall connection from one hardware to another, and how they worked smoothly when I actually used them. For example, I needed to setup my props in a very short time. I needed to connect my laptop to the projector properly. I needed to make sure the projector actually projected the image from my computer to the screen, not showing a blue screen instead. I needed to make sure my speakers worked when I was playing the slides. I needed to make sure the microphone worked perfectly when I spoke. To prevent something unexpected happened, I rehearsed all of these preps several times before the day I taught.

That day had finally come. I put on a formal suit that I never wore when I taught. I had a little makeup on my face. It was humid and hot. My sweat was all over my body, making my make-up floating on my face. My hands were trembling when I was plugging all of my equipment together. When my mentor brought all of my students and other guests to the classroom, I couldn't recognized all of the faces even though in fact I knew all of them. These were just faces. I took a few deep breathes, heard my heart pounding heavily, and began to do my first click to the pointer. Suddenly all of the tensions among my muscles released when I saw the equipments work perfectly. I felt my foot were floating on the air. My students were particularly behaved while  this event was happening. Every prompt question I asked soon got an adequate answer by one my students. The time passed so fast during the 50-minute teaching demonstration. When I finished my final words, I received a burst of applause and heard some people gave me courtesy comments.

When it was all done. I sat in my office alone. The past 50 mins just like a play and I was the only actress on the stage. I couldn't remember any word I spoke during the demonstration. "Is that a real teaching?" I asked myself and couldn't come out of a answer after the exhausting day.

[Phenomenology] Journal #4

1. Dictionary:

(1) Tentative Manifestations:

Due to the assumption that "the intentional 'findings' of phenomenological research are de-centered as multiple, partial and endless deferred, a post-intentional phenomenological research approach resist a stable intentionality, yet still embrace intentionality as ways of being that run through human relations with the world and another" (Vagle, 2010). Tentative Manifestations (the grey area) "is not trying to center the meaning", instead, it "signifies a post-intentional move away from essence and toward contexts, situations, and the partial...The line can be read as flexible, malleable, and although not visible here, permeable"(2010). These grey areas shows "folds", "ruptures", and "flight of the line"of the meanings during our (post-) bridling process.

(2) Pre-understanding:
"Pre-understanding is convey as a an unavailable and necessary precondition for being able to gain knowledge" by philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Gadamer" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.139). Gadamer preferred to call it "prejudice". he claimed that"without pre-understanding, there can be no understanding" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.138). However, pre-understing can also hinder understanding. Therefore, "the primary hermeneutics task is to 'be aware of one's own bias, so that the text can represent itself in all its otherness and thus assert it's own truth against one's own fore-meanings" (Gadamer, 1995, p. 269, cited by Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.138).  It can be also linked to Hesserl's theory of intentionality that we should understand meanings beyond our nature attitude. 


2. Bridling:


Smart phone addiction


When I was a poor grad student and couldn't afford any fancy phone, I couldn't understand that why people need to buy an expensive phone and sign up an expensive data plan. For me, these functions were all extra. We could easily find these functions in other devices, such as GPS and my personal computer. My old concept was: Phone is just a phone. It is only used for communication. In addition, I was enjoying the privacy and silent moment that no one can interrupt me unless he/she has my phone number. I even rarely texted.


However, when my husband send me a smartphone as a birthday gift. I found my life have totally changed by the smartphone. I couldn't stop using it when I have every short free moment. I am constantly checking out my emails, facebooking, messaging and angry-birding. Yes, I think I become one of the people who addicted to the smartphone. When I am doing something else, I keep my phone in the place where my eyes can find it. I look for it every few seconds. Otherwise I will feel extraordinarily anxious. 


One of the reasons I addicted to it might be because of it's conveniency. Or I can further explain this conveniency as convenience from mobility. True, it is small. It doesn't need to plug. I can carry it anywhere and enjoy all of its convenience all the time even when I'm in the middle of doing something else. The multitasking action makes me believe that I'm more efficient than the time I didn't own a smartphone. 


Another reason that I believe I am addicted to the smartphone might be because I'm anxious about losing connection to the world. These unconnected moments might be due to my fear of missing any real-time information (e.g., emails, news, tweets, massage). These unconnected moments also comes when I am losing connection with other people in another virtual space, such as the Facebook. 


The final reason that I think I'm addicted is that I cannot tolerate myself to have a blank moment anymore. My moments are filled with numerous trivial messages and information. Sadly to say, these trivia rarely becomes knowledge, which nurture my spirit. Instead, they gone with the wind. Things I originally considered  as important and urgent usually disappeared or be discarded soon after I received them.

[Phenomenology] Journal #3

1. Dictionary: 

(1) Intersubjectivity:
Because we are already in the a world context, we share the meaning of the world with others. "Intersubjectivity is a primordial quality of the human world. To be human and in a world means being-with others...even our moment of solitude are affected by others, by their absence...We are alone because someone else's is not here" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.56-57).  Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström  (2008) also suggested the way to understand others, ourselves, and intersubjectivity: Understanding others through indirect appresentation (here focus on the importance of "empathy" and Husserl's "sphere of otherness), understanding live relations with others (how we move consciousness of self and consciousness with others).


(2)  Lifeworld:
Husserl (1970b) was the first to describe the lifeworld {Ger. Lebenswelt) as a central theme of phenomenology. Gadamer (1995) looked lifeworld is tacit. "It is the world in the which we are immersed in the natural attitude that never becomes an object as such for us, but that represents the pregiven basis of all experience" (pp. 246-247). The lifeworld theory was elucidated by Merleau-Ponty's "being to the world" (fr.     être-au-monde). "The expression of understanding human existence as an understanding of how we are to the world signifies how humans relate to and interact with the world" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.37). Merleau-Ponty (1968) also notions "the flesh of the world". "Understanding the lifeworld as 'flesh' means understanding an ontological connectedness and mutuality" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.39). "The concept of flesh designated the invisible and mute fabric of meaning and the background against which humans, the world, all phenomena and their meanings have the possibility of standing out as gestalt" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008, p.40). In my own word, the lifeworld is the world we live. It is tacit because we usually live with our natural attitude and take everything for granted. To reveal the hidden meaning and understand more of the phenomenon, we need to pay attention to the interaction and connection between ourselves and the surroundings. 


2. Bridling:


How do I know students are engaged when they are in an online environment?


I recently got my feedback from students' course evaluation of the first course I teach on the US. Happily to say, all of the qualitative feedbacks are very positive. The good results remind me to think of a question that I never have time to think when I was busily preparing for the course during the teaching time: Were my students engaged in their learning experience? How do I know they were engaged?


When I was a middle school teacher in Taiwan, these questions were often solved immediately. I could certainly observed my students' facial expressions and their immediate reflections when I taught them face to face. Every nod, every smile, every gaze...all and all told me the moment that students were engaged. If I found something "wrong" or "unengaged," I could immediately change the way I teach.


It is definitely in different situation when I taught online. The class was asynchronous with 21 students who I never met real life. I was hardly to catch the moment of engagement because they all did their coursework separately in different time of the week. I sent them weekly updates through email to help them keep in track in this course. Email is the only way I could communicate with my students. Normally student won't reply my mail if they have no question. Typically the students with proactive and responsive learning attitude won't send me any mail because they could handle everything well. To teach online sometimes is in a solitude state,  we never sure how students look at us or how they perceive this course. It's like you are throwing hundreds of balls to your students but seldom get the balls back.


There were some clues that helped me know my students were happy:   I could look at their interaction during their discussion and sensed if they were engaged or not. This is the only way for me to grasp the moment of engagement. Some students send me feedback after I send them constructive feedbacks of their projects. They might say: "This (activity) is super fun," "I appreciate your communication in this class,"or "I really like the way you structure this class. I learn a lot from this course." I was flattered and encouraged when I received these kind of feedbacks. However, I wonder if these messages could represent the state of engagement when they learned.


What I can certain is that engagement must be related to some emotions. When students are engaged, they could be excited, happy, fulfilled. Also, they could be perplexed and challenged. Nonetheless they are very "into" the activity when they are engaged.  I wonder if there is a flow of emotions and action when one get engaged to something.  

[Phenomenology] Journal #2

1. Dictionary:

(1) Openness:
"Openness...means that researchers have to make good choices of good scientific equipment to make themselves available to the world, to the phenomenon of interest, as they present themselves" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008). "[Openness] requires thoughtful vigilance over one's approach to the phenomena of the world" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008). In order to practice openness in the phenomenological investigation, researchers not only need to have "an open attitude," "seek knowledge maintain an open position to the phenomenon and thereby lets the phenomenon demonstrate how it can and should be studied" (p.98), but also need to have "an open and immediate mind" (p.100). Smaling (1995) identify three kinds of openness: open-mindedness, open-heartedness, and dialogical openness. My interpretation is: a researchers with openness always carefully examine what is already exist in his/her pre-understandings, and sensitive to everything happen beyond his/her pre-understanding and experience, so that he/she is able to "go to the things itself" and approach the phenomena of the world.

(2) Natural Attitude:
According to Husserl (1970a), the nature attitude is the "everyday immersion in one's existence and experience in which we take for granted that the world is as we perceive it, and that others experience the world as we do." "In the natural attitude we do not critically reflect on our immediate action and response to the world, we just do it, we just are" (Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström, 2008). Dalhberg, Dalhberg & Nyström (2008) claim that this attitude is "too imprecise, weak and vague for scientific purpose" (p.34). In order to understand the phenomenon in a scientific way, we need to transfer our natural attitude to so called "phenomenology attitude" or "bridling attitude."

2. Bridling

Teachers who teach face-to-face usually think they can teach the same content online.

I'm always curious about the phenomenon of the transition of some of the face-to-face courses to online courses in US higher education today. Do teachers who used to teach the course they teach face-to-face feel comfortable when they are teach the same courses online?

The question can be discussed in two folds: teachers who feel comfortable to teach online, and those who feel uncomfortable to teach online.

For those who feel comfortable to transfer what they teach from face-to-face to the online interface, how do they organize their curriculum they teach? Do they need to change their pedagogy? Does the interaction between teachers and students change?

For those who feel struggle with the transition? Do they receive any support from the institution? Do they experience any difficulty when switching interfaces? Do their teaching beliefs be challenge?

As a LT major and also gained some experiences to teach both face-to-face and online, my pre-understandings or prior knowledge tell me that it is definitely different between teaching face-to-face and online. To teach online is not merely to transfer the course material from classrooms to online environments but to require some pedagogical change. However, I met/heard some instructors who believe there is no differences and only want to follow the way they used to teach face-to-face. Some teachers recognized the differences and are willing to seek ways to teach better online. Some teachers just struggled, they may or may not look for support to solve their technological/pedagogical problems.

The phenomenon may be derived from the "transition," it is not only the transition of the institutional policy, but also the transition of different "teaching interface." The transition usually means change and challenge. It changes the way and the environment we are used to. It changes the way we interact with others. It challenge the beliefs we usually have. People reflect and act differently according to the transition. Some are willing to change, some are struggled, some people just don't sense the transition.

In facing of the teaching face-to-face and online transition, teachers are confronting the challenges of their teaching philosophy and pedagogy. To keep this transition move smoothly, institutions may need to develop some related professional development program to support their teachers.

[Phenomenology] Short Writes #1

The Discovery of "Acceptance" in the Movie Billy Elliot

A pair of jumping feet--is the main image the director wants to deliver through out this movie.

From the opening of the movie, little Billy keeps jumping. He jumps not only because he is happy, but also because he want to jump outside of the narrow, oppressive home space, to jump out and find a space that really belongs to him, a space of joy and success.

He is arranged to learn how to play boxing by his father. Just as other fathers in the working class, having a son who is good to box promise a brighter future, which may solve the financial problems in the family. Therefore, when little Billy is practicing boxing, the father always accompany with him. Watch how he punch against his opponent. However, little Billy never done a good job for boxing, his hear is always attached to the other side of the room, where the ballet class take place.

He can't control his growing desires. After the practice, he always sneaks to the ballet room, and clumsily imitates basic steps with other girls. Few days later, the coach asks him: "Why don't you join us?" This is the first level of the acceptance in this movie, presented in a verbal form. 

Thus we can see boxing shoes dance with ballet shoes. It may be a little weird. But boxing shoes are trying hard to keep up with other ballet shoes.

One day, the coach gives him a pair of real bullet shoes. This is a second level of acceptance in this movie. This acceptance means: "take off your boxing boxing shoes, put on your ballet shoes." "Forget about boxing, and follow me to the dancing world." This acceptance is a key to open little Billy's door to that joyful space.

From this moment, little Billy not only Jumps, but Dance.

[Phenomenology] Journal #1

1. Dictionary:

(1) Bridling:
     According to Dahlberg (2006), bridling is "a process in which researcher takes an open stance, scrutinizes his or her involvement with the phenomenon, and continually reflects upon how meaning 'come to be' in the research act" (Vogle, 2009, p.586). "Bridling means an open and alert attitude of activity waiting for the phenomenon to show up and display itself within the relationship with the researcher as a hunter of meaning (emphasis added, Dahlberg, 2008, p. 130). Comparing to the word "bracketing" which frequently used in other literature of phenomenology, "bridling has a more positive tone... as it aims to direct the energy into the open and respectful attitude that allows the phenomenon to present itself" (Dahlberg, 2008, p. 130). For me, bridling is an action art toward the meaning during phenomenological investigation. The researchers need to always stay alert, and carefully control the route to the direction they want to be.

(2) Intentionality:
      "Intentionality refers to the relationship between a person and the object or events of his/her experience, or more simply, one's directed awareness of an object or event" (Dahlberg, 2008, p. 47). "[I]ntentionality marks the in-between spaces between subjects and the world and is that which links us, as humans, with the world we experience. In phenomenological research, the researcher is always, already in an intentional relationship with the phenomenon under investigation... therefore, the researcher can never decide to invoke intentionality nor escape it" (Vogle, 2009, p.586). The intentionality in not about one's "purpose"to do anything, instead, it reveals the linkages that how one aware of his/her surrounding objects or events.   


2. Bridling: 


"Why K-12 teachers don't use technology when they are teaching?"


    As a former K-12 teacher and a Ph.D students in learning technology, I always curious about this particular phenomenon.  First of all, we need to understand their motivation of not using technology while they are teaching. My assumption is, the phenomenon "don't use" could be derived from two reasons: 1) They don't want to use; and 2) They are afraid to use. The don't want to/ afraid to theme drives me to investigate more about the hidden meaning under this phenomenon.


Based on my pre-understanding, there are some barriers that prohibit teachers integrate technology in their classroom. It may include: time, belief, access, professional development, and culture. Among these barriers, I think "teachers belief" may be one of the reason for teachers' reluctant to use technology that falls in the don't want to theme. Then I ask myself "What kinds of belief that may influence teachers' attitude," after searching for the literature and my observation, I found out that this belief could be categorize into "their pedagogical belief" and "their belief in technology." If teachers hold their beliefs that  technology is not beneficial for teaching and learning, they may "don't want to" use technology during their teaching. Similarly, if teachers don't believe technology itself, or even more, "hate" the technology, they may "don't want to" use technology in their classroom. People's belief system is complicated, my pre-understanding tell me that it may related to people prior experience. Therefore, to understand how teachers' former experiences of using technology and their belief may help me know more about the meaning in this phenomenon.


With the fast growing of technology today. Some teachers don't use technology in the classroom is not because they don't believe technology itself or the potential of technology can enhance teaching and leaning, they just "afraid to use" technology in the classroom. I'm wondering about why this phenomenon is prevalent in the K-12 school even though some schools has the newest technology device (i.e., iPad, Smartboard). This "afraid to use" phenomenon can be due to the reasons that 1) they don't know how to use, and 2) they are afraid of the failure when they use. The "don't know how to use" could be related to their lacking of technological-pedagogical knowledge. The "afraid of the failure when they use" show some problems related to self-confident. These two conditions may be related to institutional supports and teacher's professional development.

[Phenomenology] Phenomenological Inquiry

This summer I will take a course about phenomenology as a theoretical and methodological framework. I'm really exited about it. Here I would like to take some note of my reading for preparing this class.


The following information are extracted from Phenomenology Online:

Phenomenological Inquiry

--> may be explored and studied in terms of the following topical domains: orientations, sources of meaning, methodology, methods, writing, and practice.


Orientations:

1. Transcendental phenomenology: 先驗現象學, Hussel, Eugen Fink, Tymieniecka, and Van Breda.
2. Existential phenomenology: 存在現象學, Heidegger, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty.
3. Hermeneutical phenomenology: 詮釋現象學, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur.
4. Linguistical phenomenology: 語言現象學, Blanchot, Derrida and Foucault.
5. Ethical phenomenology: 道德（倫理）現象學, Scheler, Levinas
6. Phenomenology of practice: the employment of phenomenological method in applied or professional contexts such as clinical psychology, medicine, education or pedagogy, nursing, counselling, and also to the use of phenomenological method in contexts of practical concerns of everyday living.

Source of Meaning: 意義來源

Phenomenological inquiry draws on many types and sources of meaning. These sources lie not only within the disciplinary boundaries of the social sciences but also in other human domains such as the arts, the humanities, everyday life experiences, language and, of course, in phenomenological studies.


Methodology: (Philosophical methods, or general attitude)

• Reductio (the reduction): 存而不論 The bracketing (放入括弧） or suspension of our everday “natural attitude”.
• Vocatio (the vocative dimension): The intent of writing is to produce textual portrayals that resonate the kinds of meanings that we seem to recognize in prereflective experience. The vocative dimension expresses this concern with language.

Methods: (Procedure methods or activities)

• Empirical methods: explore the range and varieties of prereflective experiential material that is appropriate for the phenomenon under study
• Reflective methods: aim to interpret the aspects of meaning or meaningfulness that are asociated with this phenomenon.

Writing: 

• Writing has already begun, so to speak, when one has managed to enter the space of the text, the textorium. The space of the text is what we create in writing but it is also in some sense already there.
• Phenomenological writing is the very act of making contact with the things of our world.
• Phenomenological inquiry-writing is based on the idea that no text is ever perfect, no interpretation is ever complete, no explication of meaning is ever final, no insight is beyond challenge.

Epistemology of Practice:

1. Knowledge as text: the phenomenological text differs in the manner that meaning is embedded in the text.
2. Knowledge as understanding: Phenomenology is the active and reflective participation in meaning.
3. Knowledge as being: Phenomenology does not provide us with “information” in the usual sense of the term. Instead, the practical significance of phenomenological knowledge is formative in nature: It enhances our perceptiveness, it contributes to our sense of tact in human relations, and it provides us with pathic forms of understanding that are embodied, situational, relational and enactive.

[Yin] Rival Explanation?

Does Yin's Rival or competing explantations = Negative cases or discrepant evidences we talked in qualitative research?

[Yin+Merriam] The Definition of Case Study

Yin (2009) looks case study as a research method and gives us the following definitions:

1. A case study is an empirical inquiry that

• investigate a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-life context, especially when 

• the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (p.18). 

2. The case study inquiry

• cope with the technically distinctive situation in which there will be many more variables of interest than data points, and as one result 

• relies on multiple sources of evidence, with data needing to converge in a triangulating fashion, and as another result 

• benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis. (p.17-18) 

In Yin's points, case study is a specific research methodology that especially can be applied to the situation when we cannot distinguish the variable and its results.

However, Merriam (1988) viewed case study as an "end product." She says:

“A qualitative case study is an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single instance, phenomenon or social unit”

She also cited Wolcott's view to support her idea: “[Case study is] an end-product of field oriented research” (Wolcott, 1992). Merriam continued to argue that "[c]ase study does not claim any particular methods or data collection or data analysis" (p.28). She focuses on qualitative case studies and thinks they can be o characterized as being particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic.

• Particularistic: focus on a particular situation, event, program, or phenomenon. àespecially good for practical problems. 

• Descriptive: end product of a case study is a rich, “thick description of the phenomenon understudy” 

• Heuristic: illuminate the readers understanding of phenomenon under study. They can bring about the discovery of new meanings, extend the readers’ experience, or confirm what is known. (p.29). 

In some way, Merriam adopted Yin's view that case study is an appropriate design that "particularly suited to situations in which it is impossible to separate the phenomenon’s variables from their context (p.29)." But in some other ways, case study could be conducted by different disciplinary types (e.g., ethnographic, historical, psychological, and sociological) and by its overall intents (e.g., descriptive, interpretive, and evaluative).

If I didn't perceive wrong, based on Yin's definition, the data sources of case study could be both quantitative and qualitative. Hence, case study is especially a suitable form of a mix-methods design. Of course it should be designed under the assumption made from its definition listed above.

[Yin] Single Case or Multiple Case Study? -- Rethinking My Research Design

This semester I begin to dwell myself into the world of case study. Although someone suggested my that the best way to learn how to conduct a case study is "learning by doing," I believe I would be better to gain some basic ideas of how it works, especially now I'm far away from school and need to prepare everything by myself.

I started from two books, Merriam's and Yin's. Merriam was the first book I chose to read. It was a 1998 edition borrowed from one of my friend. I also purchased the 2009 edition, which is a slightly different from the previous version, but currently I sticked into the 1998 edition.

Merriam's book for me is easy to read. I think it is a good book for reviewing basic concepts for qualitative study methodology after I've finished CI8148, the foundation course of Qualitative Study. When I was reading Merriam's book, I felt like I was talking with an old friend. Everything is very familiar to me. This book, basically is a handbook for qualitative study in general, except for a couple sections that specially aim at case study. Yin's book is speaking a foreign language to me. I felt like I can kind of understand his ideas, however, I didn't master these ideas right now. The examples provided by Yin were also a little bit distanced from my comfort zone. I've read two chapters so far and not sure if I will finish the whole book. But I'm interested the data analysis portion written by Yin anyway. Merriam's book, in another side, sometimes is too "natural" for me. She defined the case study as a final product. The data collection and analysis process, in my own opinion, shares mostly the same concepts from other qualitative approaches. So I see these unfamiliarity and the uncomfortableness when I read Yin's book in a good way. It puzzles me but push me to think more.

I kept looking back to my mini proposal when I was reading Yin's book. One of the idea interest me is how Yin distinguishes single-case designs and multiple-case designs. He presents four different designs by following matrix:

[Grachic from Yin (2009) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Fourth Edition. p.46]

"The matrix first shows that every type of design will include the desire to analyze contextual conditions in relation to the 'case,' with the dotted lines between the two signaling that the boundaries between the case and the context are not likely to be sharp. The matrix then shows that single- and multiple-case studies reflect different design situations and that, within these two variant, there also can be unitary or multiple units of analysis. The resulting four types of designs for case studies are (Type 1) single-case (holistic) designs, (Type 2) single-case (embedded) designs, (Type 3) multiple-case (holistic) designs, and (Type 4) multiple-case (embedded) designs" (p.46).

My design seems cannot be categorized into any of these designs above, instead, it looks like the following picture:

In my initial thoughts, to understand how K-12 teachers use iPad in their classrooms, I selected five teachers who teach five different subject matters in the same grade of a same school which begins its iPad initiative. My design is five different cases (teachers) in a single context (school). I'm not sure if it can be categorized as a "multiple-case study." It relates to my research question: do I want to find the similar pattern from these five cases, or find the differences between these five cases? 

Or this cannot be counted as a multiple-case study, instead, it should be a "Single-case embedded design" with multiple units of analysis (Type 2 design described by Yin)? However, if it is this kind of Type 2 design, the case become "the whole iPad initiative" of a school, which seems not match to my research questions.

The question can also be linked to the rationale of why I choose five different teachers with different subject matters in a school. Based on my original thoughts, I thought five different teachers can be "representative" (I am a little afraid to use this word after I take CI8148) and understand the phenomenon in a K-12 school. After I talked to one of my friends who conducted a case study before, I realized the design could be problematic. If I want to understand the "difference" of teachers' iPad use in different content areas, one teacher in a content area seems to be weak because I cannot find the "pattern" in each area and compare these different patterns among different teaching practices in different areas.

If I'm really interested in these differences among content areas and want to put it into the list of my research questions, the design needs to be changed because I don't think I can handle at lease 10 teachers in  five different areas. I came up with a possibility of another design: focus on two different areas, say, language art and science, and study 2-3 teachers in each area, find the patterns and compare. 

Of course this design could be easily changed when I actually begin to find my cases in the future. My ideas could change when I continue to read Yin's book as well. I'm not sure if my understandings are correct right now.