Compared to other groups, the VideoMap students more explicitly connected with the content of the rest of the course, including the textbook (e.g. “Tait textbook” and “tates ideas” in Figure 19), as they worked on the project. In group discussions and online, they mentioned lectures, including in relation to not needing to decide between traditional and popular culture, for example, “You need to make the point that it’s not real binary, like [the textbook] it makes the point all the time” (Sean, week 11 tutorial). In his interview, Sean connected the “post-modern view” introduced in the course, in which there was no need for a “strict answer,” to being able to accept a range of ideas from group members in the open-ended project. The pre-tutorial and tutorial sessions in week 11 featured ideas from lectures, the textbook and other courses in the Education program. Framing of the assignment as a chance to gain marks by appealing to the tutor, and also of their knowledge work as a way to discuss their understanding of popular culture in teaching and to integrate intra-
and inter-course concepts, evidenced both strategic and deep approaches (Entwistle & Ramsden, 1983; Marton & Säljö, 1976) to their shared project.
In week 11, the group swapped focus back and forth between the structure of the presentation and ideas that would be presented in the digital artefact and their spoken presentation. As they waited for Joshua to arrive, they talked about incorporating ideas from this and other courses:
Louise: Do you think we could put include stuff from the last education unit about direct teaching, like about the different teaching techniques?
Emma: I actually came across a lot of that in ().
Louise: (It’s actually has a lot to do with it if you can ask your students to) bring what you like and use all sort of things to see what to put into our class time. You’re sort of letting them create their own learning a little bit. That ties into the, [what is it, self-directed learning?
Emma: [Yeah, I put that in there somewhere as well.
Sean: ((pauses typing)) Yeah, so you’ve got [ yeah, constructivism. Constructivism ((laughs)) Constructivism? Yeah, also constructionism. Constructivism.
((general laughter))
Sean: That’s doing woodwork ((laughter)) (Pre-tutorial meeting, week 11)
They were becoming familiar with and starting self-consciously to use terms from their discipline of teaching, Louise putting this in the context of future practice, referring to “your students” and “our class time.” This is another example of continuation of themes through the project: they had noted the connection with constructivist theory in their week 8 notes (see Framing and Setup above). A little later, Sean talked about how the lecturer had shown a page of the new Australian curriculum:
Sean: … and how it’s too overcrowded and stuff. And we can bring that into ()((goes back to typing)) Louise: You’re not overcrowding though, you’re just adding a different structure. It’s not by the way use five minutes to watch this video or listening to this song, you’re using it to actually teach ((emphasized with hand gesture, palm downwards))
Sean: That’s what he was saying, that the literature says you give them an outline curriculum and then you put your own
Emma: Swing on it, yeah
Sean: Yeah. Like sort of stuff your kids are going to be interested in. Cause anything in the curriculum is going to be five years old.
Louise: Yeah, exactly, it’s up to the teacher. It should inform teachers about what they should be doing.
(Pre-tutorial meeting, week 11)
The perceived link between the lecture content and their chosen topic inspired at least two of the group to watch relevant lectures (Emma had seen them, Sean watched the lectures relevant to the project, but Louise had “not listened to lectures for about a month”). In this exchange, the students considered what a curriculum is for, the freedom to interpret an outline rather than have details prescribed, and that a teacher might work with popular culture to “actually teach.”
The conversation turned, before Joshua arrived, to considering what sort of books, such as ones that are relatable or challenge stereotypes, are acceptable for use in school, using personal experiences. Emma had studied General English, so “didn’t have to read Shakespeare or anything” and thought the books from that subject were relatable and “not that bad” although she classified them as “old”
because they were from the 1990s. She mentioned Twilight, also a topic in the previous tutorial, as a book that “doesn’t relate to anyone” and Sean agreed; Emma noted that it was an example from their textbook. Louise liked the book Looking for Alibrandi, which was set in the area she went to school:
Louise: ((conversational hand gestures)) … But it’s a girlie book. But then again, my boyfriend read it and he liked it. ((laughs)) So boys can like it too!
Sean: Nothing wrong with girlie books.
Louise: And that’s where you’ve got gender stereotypes coming in. I am learning about that in Linguistics now and it is so annoying. Everything is just so gendered [ and sexist! It’s so annoy ((stops as Sean is speaking))
Sean: [Yeah, my brother is set books on warrior princesses and such to read for year nine. Fight the gender stereotypes!
Emma: Yeah, but the warrior princesses are all probably stereotyped and objectified and sexualized ((half-laugh))
Sean: Most likely.
(Pre-tutorial meeting, week 11)
The group discussions in their meetings, then, ranged over many topics relevant to their assignment, including personal anecdotes, teaching practice, current and previous course material and current events, and, in the process, built up a set of shared concepts and references that were carried through conversations over the several weeks of the project. Of course, only a selection of ideas made it into the final digital artefact and 10-minute presentation.
When Sean suggested interviewing friends and publishing their responses in a blog with
photographs, as a friend of his had done, Louise asked whether they might need ethics approval: Joshua: This isn’t psychology, I don’t think we need it.
Sean: I don’t think we do. Aren’t we allowed to use it if it isn’t official? You don’t need to include it if it isn’t a published article.
Emma: But could we include their picture? Sean: I don’t know, maybe not.
This illustrates how the students were navigating their way to an understanding of informal and formal social sciences research and aspects of privacy associated with sharing personal information. While the statement “This isn’t psychology” hints at a compartmented view of the question of where ‘ethics’ is needed, the students still extrapolated the idea of privacy, even where “it isn’t official,” into their current subject.
Towards the end of the week 11 pre-tutorial meeting, the group had all but decided on the format of the artefact and aimed to work on it in the tutorial. They noted that the artefact will be interesting and different and they think the tutor will like it:
Louise: We’re incorporating different media, not just using a Powerpoint presentation. Sean: And as long as it isn’t (modernist), like ‘This is the answer,’ we are being ambiguous. Joshua: Open-ended
Sean: I don’t get it. They like things where you don’t have answers now. Louise: You can never win.
In this course, the students had been encouraged to consider that there will not be a clear answer to all questions. Perhaps in high school they were accustomed to being more definite, but “they like
things where you don’t have answers now.” The frame is one of trying to learn the new rules of tertiary study, adversarially reacting to what ‘they’ want, “You can never win.”
In the week 11 tutorial, the last before the artefact was due, one of the tutorial groups presented in- class before other groups were worked on their projects. On noting the room setup and that the projector screen covered the whiteboard, they thought that perhaps they should discard the idea of a physical demonstration of the “traditional” classroom. Joshua, having missed some of the
discussion by arriving late to the previous meeting, was caught up by the others on their approach to the question as one of degree rather than using either pop or traditional culture alone.
They focused on the structure of the presentation, how and what they will argue to the audience, and how they imagined the audience might react to questions posed to it. The audience figured as an actor in the group’s scenario-in-formation:
Louise: It’s going to be a little bit hard to be balanced but still make our points strong. Sean: Instead of saying all of this was rubbish, we can ask who was engaged, who listened? Louise: Was it fun?
Sean: Yes, who found that fun.
Louise: Who would voluntarily come to class every day if that was all it was.
The conversation moved from their conceptual construct and a critique of how it will hang together as a strong argument, back to a discussion of how to interact with the audience. The group needed to consolidate from their wide-ranging previous discussions and shared sources, how to make coherent points. The half hour available in the tutorial was taken up with details of the presentation and in browsing videos for possible inclusion in the digital artefact. This left the construction of the artefact still to be completed. The coordination of this work, including links to found videos, was then transferred to the Facebook group. After the map of videos was completed and submitted, the group then met again in the library to coordinate the in-class presentation, fitting the artefact into a narrative. While the lack of reaction of fellow students in class to the resulting presentation
disappointed but did not surprise the group, they congratulated each other in their Facebook group on the high marks they received for the group project.
The group showed a disposition towards building a rich shared heap of sources and ideas. There was some loose organisation of ideas, and repetition of concepts, in their mind-map style notes. Towards the end of the collaboration, the group then took up threads from previous discussion that they felt would usefully pull their presentation together.
In this group, while shared notes and resources with comments had some elements of synthesis, the shared epistemic object centred the collaboration of the group: because they engaged with the ideas and discussed format and tools comprehensively together, there was little need for individuals to create separate objects within the project. The division into artefact and presentation subgroups of two members each was the point where the epistemic object was divided into two acts of synthesis. They took the sense that they had made of the shared heap of collective knowledge and translated it into the digital artefact and the verbal component of the presentation.
The next group combined elements of collaborative conceptual development similar to those of the VideoMap group, with the addition of individual objects created for use in their shared epistemic object.
4.4 VideoTech group
(KC3 - Shared knowledge creation plus individual artefacts)
OverviewThe teamwork by the group in this project can be characterised by an exploration of ideas in tension with the practicalities of distilling them coherently into the visual and verbal elements of a short video—one that used excerpts from found videos, interspersed with text, voiceover and still images. All members of the group—Blake, River, Charlie, and Parker—worked on both conceptual ideas and the creation of the artefact. Students were sensitive to the creative possibilities of the unfamiliar format, as well as unsure of how they could perform the task well and within the time allotted. The established familiarity of most students with each other (all except Parker had worked together previously) seemed to dispose them towards conversation and collaboration.
Blake and River were the main pragmatic drivers of work on the artefact, although each group member contributed material elements and concepts to the project. In the mix of ideas and practical work, this group in the end seemed to achieve balance, albeit with some imbalance of effort. The project was characterised by individually-produced objects in the build towards the final video digital artefact, primarily River’s scripted storyboard and an early draft, proof-of-concept video created by Blake. The abilities, based in experience, of Blake and River in video construction, were especially influential. Students actively engaged in and progressed the project, managing the tension between conceptual discussion and wanting to proceed to practical construction.
4.4.1 Object diagram
The object diagram (Figure 20) for the VideoTech group shows a relatively dense set of shared concepts that students brought through to their final artefacts of video and presentation. At the start, collaboration was dominated by conceptual development. In the middle of the project, the collaborative work was assisted by individuals’ production of artefacts that synthesised shared ideas. The diagram also features objects that individual students created in response to discussion (‘SO,’ particularly those marked ‘a,’ ‘b,’ and ‘c’) and in order to progress work on the video. These were then used by the editor for shaping the final version of the video. All members contributed conceptually and practically, in person and online. The group used a Facebook private group extensively to discuss and manage the project between tutorials and held two extra-tutorial meetings to record voice-over and rehearse.