Operationalizing Visualizations With Examples

• In Event: Utilizing Visualizations of Complex Educational Phenomena as a Way to Justify Data Sources and Sampling

Abstract

The objective of this section is to explore and help participants develop visualizations of a CAS by providing two exemplars of this process. To begin, we present the process of creating the Nested Collaborative Learning Model (NCLM; Figure 1) (Mckie & Anderson, 2022). The process of creating this visualization was not linear and involved many iterations of ideas, visuals, and conversations. The NCLM was inspired by the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG) (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002). The IMPG visualization (blue portion of Figure 1) lacked the ability to capture the distinct and overlapping nested levels of the educational system within which teachers operate and learn. Figure 1 represents the initial ideation of the NCLM and its metamorphosis from the IMPG. Multiple conversations and sketches begin with the fact that a CAS that captures teacher learning must clearly articulate the interconnected nature of the relationships amongst stakeholders across levels. Thus, the beginning stages of our visualization noted that the Personal Domain and the External Domain are in fact not separate distinct domains but collapsed and/or nested levels of a CAS, leading us to a second iteration of our visualization (Figure 2). Figure 2 highlights the evolution of the nested nature of teacher learning yet still struggles to articulate the relationships amongst levels and how they influence one another. This led to our introduction of the use of cogs to represent the ways that different nested levels of a learning system interact and influence one another (Figure 3).

Figure 4 is Poth and Bullock’s (in press) visualization of nested structures with CAS for guiding the selection of the unit of analysis for study. Again, this model was developed through an iterative process of discussion, drawing, and adapting ideas and visuals to make sense of the educational CAS. This model effectively uses different visuals based on color and shape to represent the nested and intertwined actions and stakeholders in the CAS. The model clearly articulates the possible measurable units of analysis and makes sense of the distinct and overlapping nested levels of the model. This model allows us to begin to operationalize these visuals allowing for the movement from abstraction to measurable data sources.

Using these examples of developing visuals of a CAS as part of the workshop we will facilitate the beginning stages of development of visuals with participants. Using the following questions to guide participants:
1) What are the distinct and/or overlapping nested levels in your educational CAS?; and
2) Where are the different stakeholders (or collections of stakeholders) located in relation to each other and how are they influencing each other within and across levels?
3) How does the unit of analysis and nested structures help us conceptualize and measure the emergent properties?
Time and working space will be provided to discuss, draw, and refine participants’ ideas of a CAS relevant to their area of study. A collaborative working group will allow participants to interact and influence one another's ideas to better articulate their visuals.

Author

• Kelly A. McKie, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author