Day 4: Theory

A theory, Blumer once noted, is always a theory of something. But it is also always a theory for someone.

Fine, G. A., & Tavory, I. (2019). Interactionism in the Twenty‐First Century: A Letter on Being‐in‐a‐Meaningful‐World. Symbolic Interaction, 42(3), 457–467. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.430

Theories are used as a frame of reference. Exploring issues related to learning and teaching are influenced by a complexity of variables and factors. Theories can help us to scaffold our explorations and provide a lens through which to look. A theory is usually a concept that has an established body to proof (a paradigm is a concept without such a body of proof).

A while ago I made this introductory video just to explain some of the dimensions involved in learning and teaching. This is by no means a comprehensive overview or even introduction. It is just to show how complex it becomes once we begin to look more closely into what is involved in learning and teaching. This little video might give you at least a rough idea about the dimensions that influence your SoTL work.

PS: Be gentle I did this under enormous time pressure a while back and have not yet had the chance to properly change it.

I shared the wrong video, theories here:

If you are confused about Ontology and Epistemology: Nicole and I created this clip to highlight some of the discussions, we had preparing our masters research course.