Reflexivity

Science of Team Science
1st annual conference
Chicago

“Choose your adventure!”

I pitched our project to twenty people, learning also about their interests – some are attending the conference to learn, others are presenting posters or are part of the official program. I was shy to tweet anything except to record who I met, partly because I wanted to have the real-time conversation and partly because I wasn’t sure how far to go with attributions in this social setting (even though no one objected to being either tweeted or blogged by first name).  A few things caught my attention, though, such as Michael’s tease about where I had hidden the clues concerning James and my action research project. Was it a kind of “choose your own adventure” story? Michael and Cameron bantered their expertise, got me thinking more about secondary networks, wondering about team “formation stories” and unconferences.

Everyone was in a good mood, smiles and friendly chatter filled the room, definitely characterizing all the conversations that I had. Some “issues” did surface, such as

• the challenge of researchers or scientists “being recognized as a team,”
• the opinion that “scientists are divas,” and that there might be
• something to explore concerning presenters who are “organized and boring” compared with those who are “chaotic and creative.”

“Opening the net for serendipity”

Cameron mentioned some of the hazards of backchanneling, which is not what we’re doing with the #teamsci10 twitter hashtag but definitely something to keep in mind. Rather, we’re building an archive with as many views as possible on the knowledge being shared during this conference. A few people thought they should not participate because they are too blunt or provocative. I think this is all part of the mix of real groups; what’s interesting will be what we all, together, make of this journey together over the next three days.

Maria said followers need to have the same characteristics as leaders. I think this fits with what I wrote in the previous post about cooperation, and might jive with Michael’s emphasis on creating conditions for spontaneous connections. We’ve all got roles that contribute in various ways to a group’s functionality, the trick is shifting and switching among team members according to the skills, talents, techniques, experience or situated knowledge called for by the problem or task at hand.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Science of Team Science
1st annual conference
Chicago

The Cooperative Nature of Communication

As I showered this morning, I considered the incredibly cooperative nature of communication. If there is a center to the object of study that James Cumming and I have made of the Science of Team Science conference, it has to do with the types of cooperation and degrees of understanding demonstrated by participants in figuring out how better to achieve scientific breakthroughs, particularly when working in interdisciplinary teams.

Cooperation takes a wide range of forms. The word usually has a positive connotation, e.g., cooperation is a good thing. Plenty of theory, however, suggests ‘cooperation’ in misunderstanding each other – an outcome generally presumed to be negative. The strife of conflict accompanies constructive conversations; how to interpret disciplinary disagreements, paradigmatic differences, and individual ambitions is the grist of group dynamics.

These typical features of knowledge production can be a source of tremendous insight, provided participants are able to engage them as opportunities rather than barriers or breakdowns.  James theorizes about a special kind of opportunity that arises in groups that he calls problematic moments. Think of “problem” in the way mathematicians do, or in the sense of a core puzzle of existence. Such moments are usually glossed over (an act of cooperation), and are difficult to act into unless several members of the group muster the attention and will to do so.

Getting into Role

A challenge for us in entering the conference with such an ambitious goal of reflecting “live” has been how to negotiate the task, gain authorization to conduct it, delimit our dual role as conference participants and action researchers/participant-observers, and identify appropriate boundaries. As far as we can determine from the outset, we are entering the conference with “all systems go.”

What will begin to happen, indeed, has already been occurring, is a phenomenon called parallel process.  What this concept builds from is the simultaneous happening of events for different people and sub-groups that are somehow related to each other. For instance, today, many conference participants boarded planes to fly to Chicago. We were acting ‘in parallel’ even if not in conscious coordination.

Some of us may be engaged in a flurry of last-minute preparation, while others have been fully prepared for weeks. Our behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions will cohere us into invisible sub-groups. These aggregated groupings may or may not contribute significantly to the conference dynamics, but – supposing for some reason they did – then this would have relevance for the achievements of the conference as a whole.

The main aim of this action research project is to try and identify parallel processes and problematic moments (and other features of emergent group dynamics evidenced by patterns in group discourses) as they occur in the real-time unfolding of this conference event.  We’ve created some mechanisms by which other conference participants can contribute their data (observations, ideas, and feelings as they occur), and we hope they will.

Popularity: 2% [?]

North Star Banquet
Western Massachusetts

“You can choose to read the signs,” my friend Jay mused as he gave me a ride home from a rousing display of human potential. We had both been invited by a local entrepreneur, Bob Lowry, to attend the annual banquet for North Star, an alternative education program for teens. The program had consisted of a series of speakers sharing personal stories about their lives and learning. Jay was referring to a recent spate of serendipity in his life, and I thought about some of the signs in mine. North Star, for instance, has appeared several times in the past three months.

The testimonials were moving. One recurring theme was “the big sign” announcing the metaphorical presence of the north star in its particular physical location. The sign stands prominently on the North Star grounds right along the main thoroughfare connecting a string of small towns in the fertile and temperate Connecticut River valley. People drive by the sign everyday. I have passed it frequently myself!  Yet somehow the meaning of the sign – what it signals as a symbol and guide for the activities of proactive learning – seems to become salient only at certain moments of particular strain.

In mechanics, strain is a measure of deformation when bodies are altered from their normal boundaries due to the application of some force. The speakers at the North Star banquet, current and former students, family members, administrators, and award-winning teachers, all referred – in one way or another – to the natural inclination of human beings to learn. What everyone who spoke understands is that the stress of not being able to learn in one’s best mode indicates an unnecessary tension that can lead to an unpleasant compression of the youthful spirit of discovery.

“Learning is natural”

North Star’s motto frames their mission of creating an environment where kids who chafe under the conditions of traditional schools can successfully learn. In this respect, I imagine that North Star students have some characteristics in common: self-motivated, ambitious, and smart. The emphasis on ’self-directed learning’ reminds me of teaching online courses, where a similar profile matters.  People who do well in online courses are able to manage the balancing of time between obligations (work, study, chores, etc) and recreation (not to mention sleep!)

Noticing signs when you need them is also natural. Signs are everywhere – “sign sign everywhere a sign, blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind” – the fact that we tune them out is no surprise. What is wonderful is when a sign that you haven’t been noticing suddenly appears in awareness, suggesting something new and enabling learning. At some basic level I think this is the gist of consciousness: to notice that there is something else, something more, something mysterious or enticing that you haven’t yet grasped…

…and here’s the chance!

Popularity: 4% [?]