How are you and books?

This might seem a little strange for a blog post from an academic and PhD student, but I'm thinking about...reading. You'd think I'd be one of those people who constantly reads - well, yes and no. 

Since I made the switch into my current Senior Lecturer role, my reading has gone off the scale (as it was) but I see the need for another gear shift. Experience tells me that it's not just about 'trying harder', so here's some thoughts about my engaging with reading for research:

•  Be strategic: I / we often think we need to read every word of a book, slowly. Now I realise we need context, coherence and so on, but I might just be realistic and set out to read key chapters, perhaps returning if the material is useful. 
• Make time: I have a busy life (don't we all!) with a full time busy teaching job, four children and so on. Reading (like writing, as I no doubt will find) won't just 'happen'. Even half an hour each lunchtime is a start alongside one or two hidden 'slots' of time - like a bus journey to a weekly meeting.
• Have a plan: this is sort of about motivation - seeing the value in reading things. I won't waste time in random selections, but will keep sketching the literature review plan so I progressively focus on material that will inform the research questions.
• Talk to people: I find it hard just to live inside my head - learning is also dialectic, so I need to talk ideas out to see others' angles on them and to develop my propositional knowledge. 

I am sure I'll come back to this - and that huge pile of books that's growing!

the more you know, the less you know?

I've (temporarily) slowed down my blog posts, but I'm not too worried as I'm pacing this over however many years it takes to complete this PhD. This week I've reflected on the early stage I've reached. What has got me here? As with all larger studies, one thing has been the bravery to say 'I'm interested in this...' and to offer a question, theme and approach. Another has been (surprise, surprise) reading. Over the last year, I've done quite a lot of it. I have loved looking into subjects and ideas that I've always been fascinated with but never had the chance to check out. Vygotsky, Bruner, Engestrom, Edwards....activity theory, narrative theory, symbolic interactionism, actor-network theory, structuration - you get the idea.

Ironically, I'm currently feeling that the more I understand - the more ideas, authors and so on I come across, the less satisfying the original proposal becomes, where new ideas don't fit the schema and adaptation is required, or I engage in some sort of 'expansive learning'. I suppose this is my own version of PhD 'disequilibrium' where I use mental models until they no longer do the job. I can sense I need to do a bit of work to make the jump to the next version / articulation of my proposal, one that takes the ideas I've found useful and reconciles them and perhaps rejects some. 

The trick is to 'hold my nerve' as I feel that I'm not so sure what it's about anymore! This was prompted with a chat with my (now officially approved) supervisor. I realised I was using a slightly 'out of date script to talk through my ideas. 

I need to re draft for my full proposal anyway, so that's useful.

Early PhD steps: living with 'messyness'.

One of the reasons why I guess it's tricky creating an easy 'flow' of early blog posts about my PhD journey is that things have not yet crystalised for me. That is fine, and important in it's own way - but for many of us at the start of a long(ish) journey, there is also a need for certaintly and milestones. As I look back, I will no doubt see such milestones in the reading, conversations, mind maps, thoughts on the bike commute to work and more.

I'm reminded of Jerome Bruners' idea of the 'spiral curriculum' in which (usually, we think of children) revisit our experiences and refine our approaches, deepening our 'learning' each time. The spiral curriculum recognises that learning happens not in our artificial 'blocks' of educational learning, but in smaller, bite sized elements that match our readiness to learn. That's my excuse for grabbing bits of time here and there, anyway!

I love Bruners' thinking about intuition and the conditions for productive thinking. I could do with a bit of that sometimes in these early days, I think. I remind myself that some of the (sometimes seemingly unconnected) elements of what I think about, make notes on, read, think and talk about do actually have connections. That is the nature of looking into a complex issue - I am exploring these relationships. I am careful not to 'make my mind up' - the research data needs to do that - but I am developing an initial familiarity with ideas, elements and so on. 

The nature of this journey means that I have not 'returned' to these ideas enough yet to even fluently talk about all of them, but I trust the process and get immersed without getting freaked out or overwhelmed by the desire to pin it all down.