Eileen Kennedy
I am a Senior Research Fellow in Online Learning Pedagogies and Future Education at UCL Knowledge Lab, UCL Institute of Education.
Location United Kingdom
Activity
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Perhaps it would be good to find out more about what the community values and prioritises - maybe to help the community reflect on these things so they can articulate them to the government?
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Phương Anh Tiêu
Welcome @PhươngAnhTiêu! Great that you are interested in community based research.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to David Farrelly
Welcome @DavidFarrelly! I agree with you and it is great to see that you are interested in finding a way to involve community stakeholders in local decisions.
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Hi @S.M.RayhanulIslam nice to see you here!
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Eileen Kennedy replied to rachel wells
Thanks for kicking things off @rachelwells! You see many people are following your lead. You have a very interesting background and a clear focus. I will be following your future contributions and hope to learn more about the food growing project.
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Welcome @AliceToomer-McAlpine. What do you hope will be the outcome of this process? Is your aim to empower the communities to make their own changes or to put their issues on the agenda of the powerful?
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Huda Hammoud
Welcome @HudaHammoud!
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Ifrah Nisar
Welcome @IfrahNisar - An important project. I will be following your contributions with interest.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Akky S
Welcome to the course @AkkyS. You have a project that will only become more important for everyone.
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welcome @VICENTEJORGESANCHISRICO! Do you have plans to conduct community based research in your city?
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Serena Saligari
Hi @SerenaSaligari we can look at that - in the game the player is just given a pot of money and is not supposed to represent any particular currency (e.g. US dollars) but the $ sign may give that impression.
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thank you for these insightful - and actionable - contributions @PaulPotter @AliHepple
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@AlessandroGaleota you raise some very important points here. Certainly in Lebanon, even the idea that citizens should get more involved in decision making met with resistance from officials, who don't necessarily like the idea. The next steps are critical.
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@VictorMontiel these are great examples about when and how a CA could be effective - very interesting thoughts, thank you.
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@JoanneSaltfleet the idea is to help people understand what their options are, and to make informed choices. This could help pressure the government to make the right decisions by presenting them with the informed deliberations and outcomes of the citizens' assembly.
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@PaulPotter have you tried things that didn't work so well?
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Eileen Kennedy made a comment
It is interesting that so far "unplug devices that are not being used" is done the least - and this is something I am guilty of too.
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the team did try out various plants and some worked better than others - the succulents. Strawberries sadly were the first to die so had to be removed, but this is all in the experimental stage and different environmental conditions are going to have an impact too - because of lockdown, it took longer to build the MFC and it had to endure a wet British winter....
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Antje Schmelzle
Great to have you with us @AntjeSchmelzle! You will see this week and maybe even more so next week (where we start the week with a poll about energy saving habits that you mention) that all these things are very much connected.
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And sometimes we seem to go round in circles. I was interested to read this article saying that the primary source of particle pollution in the UK is now caused by the popularity of wood burning stoves https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/07/fireplaces-and-stoves-are-bigger-polluters-than-traffic?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Paul Potter
Sounds great - looking forward to hearing more about that!
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Welcome @AlessandroGaleota - looking forward to hearing more about your experience with energy solutions at the small and medium level in African contexts.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Manduhai Bldn
Very pleased to meet you too @ManduhaiBldn - it is great to have your perspective on designing for sustainable energy access in Ulaanaatar!
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Gwen Brown
We are using the term “learning type” here because Diana’s model focuses on the kind of experience that we should design for the student. So it takes the perspective of the learner. That experience should be composed of different types of learning. So it is not just about the strategies that teachers use, but what those strategies achieve. This is also...
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Hi @SangaréMikia if you turn those questions into statements then you’ll have two thesis statements e.g. “There should be no obstacles to the sports girls can play” or “it is necessary to get a degree to succeed”
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yes this is a very good point and we have been working on ways of incorporating that into the learning designer tool
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learning doesn't just happen, the teacher needs to design the experience but you can certainly design in time for experimenting.
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For me, the value of the learning designer is about helping you to think through precisely what you and the students are doing - and it always improves the outcome.
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and it shows that the technology we use does not have to be so sophisticated - it is about ease of communication
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Eileen Kennedy replied to R Harris
yes and this becomes effectively a lesson co-designed between the students and the teacher.
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Hi Filipa - prior to the pandemic I don't think anyone would have recommended for children to be taught online through Zoom or Teams for the whole time. You need to have a lot of experience of learning to motivate yourself to engage and to understand when you've learnt something and how you have learnt it. You are right to point out that staring at a screen is...
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is it not possible to set activities for children to work together online?
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That sounds brilliant @ElenaWürdemann it would be great if you could share that activity.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Claudia Rosari Dewi
You flatter us Claudia :) that is not really a hard fact but we appreciate the sentiment. If there was a fact in there it would really be that UCL ranks highly among universities in the UK according to current university ranking scales. But that is controversial because some people think rating scales are flawed - for example, they tend to measure things that...
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@DaleenAlkhass I agree we need to be prepared for something similar to disrupt face to face education. To me, the question is not which is better f2f or online, but the value of online learning is that it can make it possible to continue to provide learning experiences for learners who cannot get to class, which are always many, and were increasing even...
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Filipa Santos
Welcome Filipa - you bring a very interesting perspective. Looking forward to hearing more!
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Elaine Chase advises that there are some questions researchers can ask themselves to reflect on ethical issues your project raises, and what can be done to mitigate them:
- Who would be the beneficiaries of the research?
- Who is the researcher accountable to?
- How does the researcher know the research is needed/relevant and in keeping with the needs... -
@IbrahimAbdiaziz thanks for this question - it is an important one. As a result, I consulted my colleagues Mai Abu Moghli, Elaine Chase and Tejendra Pherali at the RELIEF Centre for their views. They say that being an independent researcher means that you must always abide by the principles of ethical research e.g. privacy, anonymity, do no harm, informed...
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@IanHurd what other data sources do you think would supplement the interviews?
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I think that's a really good response. Yes - if it was a very sensitive issue, you might have to do that. It's a good way of thinking about it - not every method can work ethically in every situation.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Rohan Sugrim
or maybe one set of data shows only one dimension? You are right though that those strategic decisions are often important if you want your data to persuade someone in power.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to yachna pradhan
Great question @IanHurd I am interested in your answer in relation to your project too...
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yes we discuss consent next week - it is important to make it clear what your participants will be consenting to and what the implications are for them. So creating an information sheet or explaining exactly what will happen prior to the interview (and giving people time to think about it) is essential. Is the video for your eyes only @GiuseppePirrotta ? Or if...
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adapting the mental map idea is a good one - making something seems to help people relax and talk more openly, plus giving you a different kind of data.
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this is a good idea. It will be challenging to make sure that you have considered all the sensitivities of the research process that we discussed last week, but this could be a very effective way of helping young people talk. Often researchers (psychological mostly) ask children to draw pictures, and the revealing thing is what children have to say about what...
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@IbrahimAbdiaziz very good!
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yes the 'other' option is very important. What would you do as a researcher with the results of participants selecting this one: "Driver not available" - would it tell us everything we need to know?
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Do you think it is a bit "wordy"?
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Guanlin Li
Academic frameworks are useful but the approach we are advocating here involves working with the community to define the problem rather than assuming you know it on the basis of existing research. You can certainly use existing research to help you understand the broader context and refine your methods and analysis.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Rohan Sugrim
What maybe a problem to you may not be experienced in the same way by others. I think that’s the key - find out what the community experiences before you propose a solution.
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These are excellent points @yachnapradhan - everything about working with a community seems to point to the necessity to take the the time to listen.
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Audio feedback can help so much. I did a bit of research on this a while back and students can distrust written feedback (e.g. they think you’re just saying that but you don’t mean it). Whereas when they hear it they believe it and are amazed that you went to the trouble (even though it is arguably easier to do). I agree about https://edpuzzle.com/ too. I only...
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@ŽaklinaMajetić tell us a bit more about why the results were not satisfactory and we can try to help.
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We are doing discussion here - not so hard? It s pretty simple to add a discussion forum if you have a VLE like Moodle, isn’t it? The challenge is getting students to engage - a good clear discussion prompt is crucial and don’t make it too difficult - it will stop them jumping in. You can even use social media tools and there are lots of great ideas for...
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Good point Giselle - and shared whiteboards (e.g. miro) or a virtual pinboard like padlet, or even a google doc can support learners to build something together. As @clare M says you can get students to do this asynchronously as well, which could be better depending on the context.
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Yes Mahmoud and Andrew - the key is to understand what type of learning you want the students to do and then it is easier to find the right technology to help them do it. It might help to take a look at this little video I made: https://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/47815108
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Clare M
Yes and even if you set this as an asynchronous activity, if you provide a shared space for the groups to share their output (e.g. a padlet) it encourages everyone to engage, as well as enabling you as a teacher to see that they are working.
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I agree that video would be great! Can make it for us? A post-lockdown project perhaps :) Your reference to architecture is also very pertinent because a lot of people thinking about pedagogical patterns were influenced by this book: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hwAHmktpk5IC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false which...
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But also the workers surely?
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yes - it is such an important part of community based research to take time and build relationships. This is what Mona has done over years of working in the neighbourhood.
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Hi Aline, I think the best way to use the learning designer is to provide all the instructions that the learner (or anybody else e.g. another teacher) would need to be able to do the task you are setting. So maybe not just "check the video" but "check the video which shows you blah, blah, blah" and "create an animated powerpoint ... bearing in mind these...
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So we will have to figure out how to engage all the ministries of education who are making the rules.
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I wish I had been introduced it to when I was starting to teach!
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Hi Jeshmeen - great insight. It is all about the detail isn't it. When I was looking at these designs, I was thinking about how much detail we actually need to support discussion via Zoom if we want students to engage. It has to be really specific "talk about this, then post a summary here, come back and look at/listen to the summaries from other groups..."....
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Hi Marlene, this is a very intriguing response. I imagine many people are in the same situation. Is there anything that could persuade your authorities? What if you showed them the video of the learning types, or the one about what is a learning design?
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@LinaMouradSakr thanks for the update - so glad it is working for you now.
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Hi Clare - do you mean the ones on YouTube?
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Teachers in low resourced environments like Lebanon use WhatsApp a lot because it works on restricted internet connections, and as you say, is very familiar. For making videos one of my favourite tools is Adobe Spark - just add text/images and talk over the top.
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Eileen Kennedy replied to Andy K
In some ways I think collaboration can be easier online. Back in the day, I used to ask students to work together in groups, but when it came to sharing the product of their labours with the whole class it wasn’t easy. Now you can get them to put a post on a padlet and the whole class can see it.
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Yes that’s perfect advice - providing opportunities for discussion beforehand and using low risk activities with annotation tools during the session. Something we heard a lot during research we did earlier during the pandemic was that teachers felt like they were talking into the ether, without input from students. If you have some comments that students have...
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Hi Shanara - these are pretty good tools. In my experience, you don’t need many to make things work - just a small set that you know work well. Is there an activity or learning experience that you are specifically looking for a tool to support?
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But the way we use these tools can change. Lots of people here have mentioned whiteboards or annotation tools in Zoom. You can create simple quizzes by writing the answers on a PowerPoint slide and getting students to use the annotation tools to point to he chosen one. All of a sudden things become highly interactive and fun.
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Games can be great - can you share some examples?
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This is the key point Aline. Our pedagogies - and the tools we use to support them - have a huge impact on the bandwidth that is available and the capabilities of devices. So if we want to maintain communication there are lots of ways we can do this without using so much data. That’s why a learning design works - we don’t need to do everything synchronously...
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Absolutely - the point is about focusing the tools on 2-way (or multi-way) communication and making it easy and fun to engage with.
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Great points here. I love the way Mentimeter has so many different question types and the different types are perfect for different purposes - like word clouds for brainstorms or testing the mood before a session. I have been thinking that the free text response question type could be used to record outcomes from breakout rooms. I also agree FlipGrid could be...
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I wrote that at a time when everyone was just trying to move all their face to face teaching onto Zoom, and I mean that spending the entire session with the teacher on Zoom is stressful for everyone, so break out rooms do this. But, like you say, the activities need to be clear and simple, and as participants here have mentioned before, having a place to...
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@AllisonDresner what tool is it?
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