Candidate's Statement

Introduction

As a software developer for a project-based consultancy, I loved the role of Technical Lead. My primary responsibility was to learn the new technologies to be used in the project, design the systems to be built and then teach my team how best to apply all of these concepts to the greatest effect. It was the combination of seeking out knowledge, sharing it and incorporating it into my designs that held my interest. When computer programming left me unfulfilled I tried my hand as a teacher of English as a foreign language. While I loved working with my students, I found equal enjoyment in experimenting with technology to remedy some of the difficulties I experienced as a classroom teacher. My work towards a Masters degree in Instructional Design, Development & Evaluation at Syracuse University and now a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University has helped me to focus these scholarly interests of mine.

In this age of increasingly capable digital assistance making our lives easier and putting facts at our fingetips (especially with my own background in programming those computers), I am most interested in understanding and improving our methods of imparting to students those capabilities which defy automation through technology. One example is design or 'wicked' problems (Rittel & Webber, 1973) which are not solved by right or wrong answers, but rather must be framed (Cross, 2004) and ultimately satisficed (Brooks, 2010). We have design practitioners and therefore it is clear that people are learning these skills, but how is this happening and can we improve upon the methods? Another area of interest is group work skills. The ability to successfully work with others is an aptitude which must be cultivated in our students. Can we improve upon how we develop these skills in our students? How do we know whether or not our students have learned these lessons?

I continue to work towards the development of my skills in research, teaching and service to enable me to contribute to the knowledge base in my areas of interest. I am positioning myself to be considered for a research university faculty position that would offer me the opportunity to continue this pursuit. My progress is discussed below.

Section 1: Goals

Scholarship

I envision a scholar as one who is focused on a particular topic of inquiry and who exercises creativity in generating and tenacity testing related theories. It has taken me a long time to find a clear focus for my efforts as a scholar because I have a wide variety of interests. As a PhD student, I have explored research groups focusing on immersive learning, simulation game design, design education and systemic change but have found my attraction to each as strong as my perception of the opportunities they offer me to understand and experiment with design. My first serious literature review began as an exploration of immersive learning environment design, which laid the groundwork for an exploration of the process, employed by an experienced educational game designer. I presented this as a poster at Meaningful Play 2010.

As a designer, I perceive value in studying examples of the work of others (Boling, 2010). Therefore, I am excited about the existence of the International Journal of Designs for Learning as it appears to be a venue for disseminating such knowledge. I aim to publish design cases in this forum and contribute in this way while gaining a deeper appreciation for design itself.

As the Lead Curriculum Manager for a software company, the design of our laboratory environments required great care. Our students had to have their own computers and enough room to establish a comfortable working space. Additionally, the computer systems had to be consistent and the instructor had to have a high degree of control over them. This interest in the classroom environment led to my first study, Searching for Personal Territory in an HCI Design Studio, in which I explored the impact that the design of a space can have on the students working within it. I used observation and interview methods and had to design a collection instrument for use in the naturalistic environment I identified for observation and I recruited a co-investigator to help establish reliability. The analysis employed primarily qualitative methods and the manuscript has been accepted for publication by the Journal for Education in the Built Environment.

As a professional software developer, project manager and instructional designer, I have had many opportunities to work on teams and these experiences have taught me a great deal. Further, since arriving at Indiana University, I have engaged in many group projects and studied Computer Supported Collaborative Work as a Human Computer Interaction topic. Finally, each of the four courses I've designed since my arrival have centered around group projects and this has pushed me to further research the topic and build tools to facilitate their smooth operation. While experimenting with groupwork in the classroom, I became interested in using self- and peer-assessment as an aid to learning to work successfully as part of a team. I have since experimented with using such a method in my classroom and found it to be helpful to me as an instructor. It is this topic that I intend to explore in my dissertation study.

Teaching

Throughout my career as a student, I always appreciated those instructors that offered challenging tasks that I could relate to my own life experiences, that were willing to entertain the possibility that teaching is not a one-way street, and that fostered lively discussions. Furthermore, it is always easy to tell when an instructor is well prepared and it has a positive effect on the class. I try to emulate these qualities in my own teaching, adding also an effort to make myself both accessible and

As a teacher, I've pursued situations in which I would have the freedom to experiment with methods of bringing the course content alive for my students. As an educator, I aim to offer my students authentic experiences beginning with the assigned tasks, carrying through the methods they use, and the environment within which they work.

I am most excited about the course in programming for non-programmers who want to teach programming which I authored from scratch and delivered for two years as as Associate Instructor for the Instructional Systems Technology department at Indiana University. In this course, which epitomizes my approach, my students work in groups to build their server from parts, install and configure their own learning management system, and ultimately extend its functionality in ways that they determine to offer value as future teachers. Working together, group members function as a support network to help each other to understand the content and complete the assignments (Vygotsky, 1978). Their lab work is supported by discussions of computing topics that take place in online forums and which these pre-service teachers facilitate and grade themselves. Finally, in addition to making sure that materials and infrastructure were prepared for lab procedures, I pay close attention to all materials. For example, I spend time designing and printing the materials for my warm-up activities to project an air of preparedness and professionalism.

Service

My most visible service to date has taken the form of leadership roles in community events. For example, I co-Chaired the organizing committee in South Korea for an English camp to benefit the victims of the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami. Likewise at Indiana University, I served as co-Chair of the student-led 2010 and 2011 IST Conference where I had the opportunity to apply such tools as mentoring and podcasting to enhance it's structure and broaden it's audience respectively. My service, however runs deeper as I've also been a volunteer at a national AECT Conference and served as a student reviewer under Dr. Ted Frick — although this was motivated largely by a desire to broaden my exposure to scholarship in the field and to train my critical eye. In addition, I served as judge of submissions for the 2010 and 2011 Immersive Learning Awards offered by AECT's Multimedia Production Division. In 2009, I got involved with AECT's efforts, led by Professor Elizabeth Boling, to launch the International Journal of Designs for Learning.

I aim to continue to actively participate in AECT and perhaps to run for a leadership position within the Design and Development division when I feel I have enough experience to offer value. In addition, with my technical background, I believe there will be many opportunities for me to offer service to the community that has given me so much.

My Primary Focus Area and Research Agenda

My research looks at how we learn to perform complex activities with a focus on those mechanisms that increase the likelihood that such learning will take place. Solving design problems is such a complex activity and, as design skills are frequently applied and in demand, it serves as a significant area of concern.

Brooks (2010) argues that design does not benefit from working in a team and that this leads to weak designs as team members allow unnecessary feature requests for political reasons. While I've no doubt that this sort of design by committee process occurs and that it might have detrimental results for the product, in my experience, it does not happen all the time and I have yet to see it in academic environments. I've found it valuable to work with others who can reflect and improve upon my ideas and share the workload. Invariably students' skills are unevenly matched, which places them in Vygotsky's Z.P.D. if the workload is, indeed spread

I have found group work to be a powerful tool for complex learning as it brings multiple perspectives to the situation and asks participants to communicate their views to their team. However, as an instructor, it can problematic to implement because their opaque nature makes it difficult for the instructor, as an outsider, to see the contributions of individuals. This makes it difficult to determine a student's progress and to diagnose potential problems. Colin Gray's preliminary analysis of his research data indicates that groups play an important role in students' development as designers and my own experience leads me to agree, but how do these social interactions contribute to the development of design skills and which skills actually benefit? Are there skills that are hindered by teamwork? Is it possible to monitor a student's development and help to make sure that process remains on track and what effects might this have on the students' performance? Perhaps it's possible to identify problems with enough forewarning that one can intervene beneficially? Might we be able to use such a technique to track the development of one's groupwork skills over time? I intend to explore these questions as I pursue my research agenda.

References

Boling, E. (2010). The Need for Design Cases : Disseminating Design Knowledge. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 1(1), 1-8. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/ijdl/index

Brooks, F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Cross, N. (2004). Expertise in design: an overview. Design Studies, 25(5), 427-441. doi:10.1016/j.destud.2004.06.002

Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169. doi:10.1007/BF01405730

Vygotsky, L.S (1978). Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press.