BUILDING FRAMEWORKS: REVISITING AND STRUCTURING CONCEPTUAL CATEGORIES

After describing on-line communication using Wikis, this section explains how such observations generate additional insights into the existing concepts and categories of the theory of augmented pedagogies. The existing categories are now revisited and contrasted with the new findings, on an attempt to expand and reinforce the definition of solo interactions, social interactions, technology affordances, troubleshooting, organisational shifts, emotional engagement,

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and multimodal engagement in design studio education. In that sense, it is relevant to point out that the contribution of the new findings towards the theory construction is twofold:

Firstly, new findings are added to the bulk of information generating the theory by considering additional dimensions of studio teaching into the theory outcomes of this research, therefore expanding the applicability and reach of the resulting theory. New theoretically relevant material can generate additional definitions and correlations across categories not constrained to the solely analysis of design critique sessions. As a result, the involvement of additional data derived from an informal learning context provides a more complete picture of studio teaching dynamics.

Secondly, new theoretically relevant material has been harvested by following a different, yet complementary set of methods for online monitoring of students’

work. In online communication, modes and media differ greatly to those utilised for face-to-face communication and as stated in Chapter 3, methods have been shaped accordingly. As a result, considering these findings into the theory construction process implies a broader research methods toolkit, aligned with grounded theory research in which a constant comparative analysis produces a theory that accounts for multiple observed incidents yet can still accommodate and organise new emergent knowledge.

5.4.1. Evolution of the conceptual vocabulary into emergent

pedagogical frameworks

Relevant incidents can be identified from the observation of multimodal communication using Wikis. Coding such incidents, allocating them into the existing categories and expanding their definition are the theoretical development stages described in this Section.

The allocation of incidents into the existing categories follows a coding procedure. Yet, differently from the initial open coding process described in Chapter 4, now existing categories are utilised as an existing classification in which incidents are allocated accordingly. It has been relevant to depict the complex extent to which different incidents are inherently interlinked with each other. For instance, during the design and construction of Wiki sites, students have made use

115 of complex arrays of communication resources, including images of different models and representations of their design work, throughout different stages of the design process. The modes of communication utilised at this stage have been identified as images, texts and layouts, and have been utilised at different scales: from the overall view of a group’s project to the detailed visualisation of specific design stages and scenarios. Such [multimodal engagement] has allowed students to reach a well-defined set of goals, as declared in their interviews (Figure 5.6), including communication with the instructor, building and agreeing on new design ideas, or keeping a records of their design process and progress.

Figure 5.6. Perceived benefits of using Wikis throughout the studio course. Source: Kocaturk et al. (2014).

The construction of the Wiki sites has been arranged in accordance to the group meetings, and usually following a display of a week-by-week progress throughout the course. In addition to the record of group meetings minutes, and evidence of groups’ collaborative work, Wikis provide useful footprints of [social interactions], as well as of [organisational shifts] throughout the roles being assumed by each group member. In terms of the roles from instructors, comments found throughout the Wiki sites provide evidence of not only design-related feedback, but also feedback related to the use of the Wikis (such as requests for uploading ad displays certain materials), the density and amounts of information being displayed, and further advices on specific modelling and representation tools, therefore suggesting n understanding of the [technology affordances] of Wikis. While these comments are rather project-specific, they have been commonly found throughout all of the groups’ sites and comprise relevant feedback on the design and construction of the Wiki sites.

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A similar set of emergent correlations across categories has been found in both the group dynamics using Wiki sites, and the studio dynamics using Wiki sites. Overall, 111 Wiki pages have been produced usually following a linear layout (top- bottom organisation), each one with a corresponding set of images of 4,3 per page, in average, being most of them related to the design process of the pavilion (design brief), and to a minor extent to the modelling process explaining the use of parametric modelling tools. An exception of this are the “communication” pages where students have transcribed a series of e-mails and meeting minutes based only on text. The modular organisation of Wikis has been usually constrained to the capacity of the Blackboard system and mostly dedicated to provide a structure of the website, such as menus and links, and the comments forum as indicated in Figure 5.2.

Among the most relevant findings, it can be mentioned that:

As expected and given the intrinsic collaborative nature of the studio organisation and design brief, no [solo interactions] have been identified as part of the bulk of relevant observations of the Wiki sites. A deeper analysis of the interviews suggests that, however, individual learning is highly focused on the acquisition of skills and control over representational and modelling methods, such as the construction of digital 3D models (Kocaturk et al, 2013). In that sense, software training and its resulting operational knowledge remain as a highly individual component of technology-mediated learning in design studios. Evidence of this are the posts on the Wiki forums identified within the analysis of studio interactions.

The [organisational shifts] across group members, such as the identification and use of roles throughout the design process, has been expressed through the publication of text-based communications, using “communication sites” composed mostly by verbatim transcripts of e- mails. This monomodal expression of group interactions is aligned with those interactions across groups (studio interactions), that also make use of text messages in forums and are highly focused on [troubleshooting]

and enquiries about [technology affordances], that is how certain modelling and representation methods work. While this monomodal

117 behavioural pattern is greatly conditioned by the affordances of Wiki sites, further insights into the multimodal nature of peer collaboration can be suggested for further work.

It has been relevant to consider that all categories have had some participation on the analysis of the use of Wikis for communication. Despite some conceptual categories such as [organisational shifts],

[multimodal engagement] and [technology affordances] are seemingly more densely related to the use of Wikis than other categories, the set of categories has proven to be flexible enough to allocate this new set of observations, and to allow the discovery of linkages across categories into meaningful frameworks that describe communication patterns in a social context. For instance, it can be reported that solo interactions with Wikis are usually related troubleshooting, as students tend to individually learn about the use and operation of the Wiki sites. However, social interactions with Wikis are usually focused on an exploration of the affordances of technology (what they can do with it), they help us depict organisational dynamics within the students’ groups, and that their engagement with Wikis proceeds on the basis of a meaningful multimodal assembly across text, images and layouts in which the audience is primarily the group of design tutors.