Planning an Essay

Posted on by

I had the chance to talk to my instructor about the essay assignment. This provided an opportunity to sift through a number of diverse ideas and bring some clarity to the focus for this essay. There were a number of areas I had jotted down, with a variety of topics, including:

  • thinking about how to fit cognition and learning topics into open pedagogies and/or critical digital literacies.
  • cognitive load theory (Sweller, 2011)
  • cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2009)
  • does semiotics fit into this?
  • Willingham (2009) – “critical thinking is not a set of procedures that can be practiced and perfected while divorced from background knowledge” (p. 48)
  • how does this impact CDL (critical digital literacies)?

With a triadic approach to consolidate ideas, this is how I will proceed. This also brings some structure to the research and writing that will need to be done in the coming two months.

  1. open educational pedagogies – define, what theories apply, how do they connect to ONE of the other two areas
  2. cognitive load theory – define, what theoreticians are saying, how does this connect to ONE of the two other areas
  3. critical digital literacy – define, who’s theories apply here, how does this connect to ONE of the other two areas

Next steps:

  • find supportive literature and theoretical frameworks for each area; establish what I think and what research will support or refute it
  • how do these areas connect or don’t connect, what are the boundaries I am placing around each of these three areas; how am I bringing them together?
  • what background knowledge is found in each area; what literacies/illiteracies are required?
  • common elements, different vocabulary for the same ideas; may not be the same words but describing the same concepts; navigating the vocabulary in each area
  • need to clearly establish the ‘boundaries’ of open and where I’m excluding related or connected concepts, and explain why
  • craft the question – might be stated as “what are the relationships between open pedagogy, critical digital literacy and cognitive load?” potentially leading to a deeper analysis with “How do the relationships between open pedagogies, critical digital literacy and cognitive load theory alter our understanding of learning in open educational landscapes?”