[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.