Ironically this article was about sense making. It may be just me but I feel like there is a certain way to convey yourself in a literary way that is not as confusing and difficult to read as this read was. When I was researching about active listening I came across a lot of interesting articles that said what I believe to be a very similar message to the one that Dervin is trying to send us only in a much different way. The synthesis that takes place between a speaker and a listener is so hard to conceptualize. There are so many things coming in to play between two people having a conversation. There are beliefs, misunderstandings, voice inflections, non- verbal communication and things that play out in the background that most people probably are not even aware are taking place. There are so many chances for a message to take new forms and be misconstrued. Dervin stated that “This assumption of discontinuity is a fundamental aspect of reality." I believe this to be inherently true.
In regards to the exemplars that were discussed, I believe that there are a few main things that come to the surface for me from what Dervin is describing. The process of sense making and the questions that are asked are indicative of the role the questioner has in the process. From the exemplars I also gleaned that sense-making is not only a culturally derived process, but also has a large connections to the “self”. The concept of “self” is a sounding board for a lot of information that humans receive. The way that a person feels about their current path in life plays a role in how a person approaches the sense making process. If someone is being dragged along with little control over the end result they may ask different questions, and think differently about and reason differently about a given scenario. What I was able to take away from this was an understanding of how the message I am trying to get across to my students, although that message is uniform in content, could be being construed in a plethora of different ways. I also came to understand that the way in which a student feels about the education process could play a role in sense making. If a student feels like they have little control over the content being taught and the way in which it being assessed then they are more likely to have a different way of making sense of what they are learning. Teaching students to ask to right questions to get the right answers in something that educators hold a large amount of responsibility honing. If I were expected to teach my own students, who are six year olds, about the content in this article I would set out a series of pictures related to a given topic and have students observe each of the pictures. Then they would be expected to come and share their observations and questions about each of the pictures. After collecting that data I would ask the class to answer a series of questions about their own lives in relation to the topic. For example, if the pictures were all of ocean life I would ask students if they have ever been to an aquarium or to the beach. This process would give insight into the relationship between humn experience and the questions that they ask. Many of the students that I teach come to the educational platform with a different understanding of the world. Poverty plays a large part in the foundational opportunities for students. Many of my students come from a place of poverty where they are not subjected to the same experiences and enrichment as most children. They have never seen an aquarium or been to a museum. This has an effect on their sense making process. We need to be mindful of this reality when we aim to teach a child. Understanding this is key to helping a child make sense of their world.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2019
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